Officials at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) yesterday reached an agreement with members of the Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO), on a more inclusive bargaining unit for union representation elections. The agreement comes after the GEO held a one-day strike earlier this year, forcing the UIUC administration to resume negotiations halted after a ruling by the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board established a bargaining unit with only 250 grad students (see WIT for March 14, 2002). If the Board agrees to the new bargaining unit, up to 3,000 of UIUC?s 5,000 graduate assistants will be eligible to vote to join a union next year.
See "More grad students eligible for union", ROBERT BECKER, Chicago Tribune, June 6, 2002