• Please share affects of the health care change as well as your ideas on specific outcomes and contract language you would like to see come out of impact bargaining with healthcare@cge6069.org.

• Bargaining Committee: Like everything else CGE does, the impact bargaining team is made up of members - that’s you! If you are interested in learning more about or even joining the Bargaining Committee (lots of different roles including research, data analysis, and strategy need to be filled!) please email vp_bargaining@cge6069.org with a non-OSU email indicating your interest. Anyone can attend bargaining committee meetings, even if you are not a member of the team. We are especially interested in making sure that we have representation from masters students, international students, humanities students, queer students, students of color, and any other group of students who face challenges that can be addressed through contract negotiations. No prior experience in research/negotiations is expected or required!

• Our health insurance has now officially transferred to Cigna
  Cigna is not going to send out physical insurance cards, so we have to register using the website or the MyCigna app to get digital cards. Some folks have had problems registering, fixes identified so far are:
• making sure the address used when registering is the one that OSU has on file
• trying on the website if the app doesn’t work
• trying different web browsers

• We are now in the Cigna enrollment period (10/1-10/31)

Reflecting on 25 years of CGE

We are celebrating CGE’s 25th anniversary this year at our annual Fall Barbeque. To understand the importance of this milestone, we’re writing with a reminder about our union’s history, which coincides with and informs some of the same issues we’re organizing around today.

In the 1990s, graduate student employees at OSU wanted health coverage (as most people do) and began organizing to get health benefits. At the time, OSU told these grad workers that health care was an impossible demand. After OSU refused their appeals for health benefits, grads took the step of formally uniting as a labor union, and CGE was established in 1999. OSU now officially had to bargain with CGE over their first contract, which was settled in 2001.

We didn’t win health coverage in that first contract, but we did get $110-per-worker-per-term to put towards health coverage. It took until 2004 to get health coverage in the contract, with OSU covering 75% of the plan. Over subsequent contracts our benefits increased: 85%, summer coverage, coverage for dependents, to the current 90% coverage. That kind of incremental, sometimes non-linear process is typical of contract changes over time, since employers put up a strong fight against new protections, and sometimes claw back gains unions have made during past negotiations. 

The fight over health insurance wasn’t the whole story: in the first contract, we had guarantees about minimum salary, hours, safety protections, benefits, or a process for grieving wrongful actions of the employer. All of that has been achieved over the past 25 years due to hard work of CGE members past and present.

Contract negotiations aren’t the only way we can make change at our workplace. As those of us who were around last year know from experience, another tool we have for change is withholding our labor. Going on strike was an unprecedented and challenging moment in CGE’s history. It was difficult for everyone involved, but—paired with the hard work of the bargaining team—won us the ability to bargain regularly and a double-digit raise to the minimum salary, among other wins. 

This anniversary coincides with a time of uncertainty about our health coverage, the very issue that catalyzed CGE’s formation in the first place. This is why it’s so important to continue to model the ethos that CGE formed under 25 years ago: grads united for a better workplace. Whatever happens with the new insurance plan, it’s vital that we make decisions together by continuing to organize for justice. Right now, we are still assessing how wide and deep the impact of this change is. But regardless of what happens in the coming months, we will work together to ensure grads get the care we deserve.