If you haven’t voted yet, this will be your last chance:
Wed 4/6 12pm-1pm Wang 201
Come, listen to the presentations, and vote on our contract. Click here to download the contract.
Help spread the word by downloading the flyer on the left and posting it up in your department. Spread this info by clicking the icons below for facebook, twitter, and email.
By popular demand, we are holding one extra voting session on Wednesday, April 6th. The two remaining sessions are:
Mon 3/28 6-8pm SAC 302
Wed 4/6 12pm-1pm Wang 201
Come, listen to the presentations, and vote on our contract.
Help spread the word by downloading the flyer on the left and posting it up in your department.
Click here to download the Q and A below.
Q: Who are we and what are we doing here today?
A: We are the union of Research Assistants and we’re here today to protest Stony Brook University administration’s proposal to increase to our Technology Fee. The Technology Fee pays for things we don’t use. This SINC site is a symbolic example. Any technology that we use at this University is necessary for us to do our job. Just as it would not be right to charge employees of Google an “Internet Fee,” RAs should not be charged a Technology Fee. Charging us a fee to do our work is unjust and unjustifiable.
Q: I really need to print up stuff for class. How can I do that?
A: If you really need to print something, there are a many other SINC sites on campus. To name just a few, you can go to Chemistry rooms 432, 434, Old Engineering Room 2116, the Central reading room in this Library, Student Union room 080, or Harriman room 318. Alternately, you can tell your professor that you couldn’t print your homework because this SINC site was jammed up by people protesting fee increases. Feel free to use this flyer as evidence of the protest.
Q: What can I do to support you?
A: The administration has asked for feedback on its proposal to raise our fees, so let’s let them have it! You can do the following:
1.) Contact Stony Brook President Samuel Stanley at samuel.stanley@stonybrook.edu and tell him not to increase the Technology Fee for graduate student employees.
2.) Contact the administrator most closely tied with the implementation of the Technology Fee at graham.glynn@stonybrook.edu and tell him the same thing.
3.) Leave a message here: www.asa.stonybrook.edu/bursar/broad-based-fees-feedback
At our last bargaining session, the Research Foundation gave us its final offer for a first union contract. We wanted to win more, but this is a solid improvement to the status quo. We recommend that our members vote “yes” for this 3 year contract because:
1.) There is a guaranteed two percent raise in the first year (unless you have received a raise since last June) and there’s a chance we can get more in the third year.
2.) The President of the Union, George Bloom, has agreed to phase in the union dues. The first year we would contribute 1.5% in dues, the second year 1.75%, and the third year and subsequent years dues would be 2%. Because the union represents all of us, and all of us benefit from that representation, all of us are required to contribute to the cost.
3.) We won huge improvements to the dental insurance. Insurance used to only cover up to $500, but now it will cover up to $1,000. It used to not cover things like root canals, but now it will cover 75% of them. We also won improvements to the vision plan. We now have access to better frames and lenses. These improvements have already gone into effect, and by voting “yes,” we will have resources to defend these improvements.
4.) By voting yes, we will solidify our organization and thereby see more improvements in the future.
Students hit the ceiling over fees
By Elana Glowatz
Village Times Herald
March 10, 2011 | 10:04 AM
The Student Activities Center plaza at Stony Brook University became a stage for airing grievances March 2 when research assistants along with graduate and undergraduate students gathered to protest budget cuts to public education proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as well as fee increases proposed by Stony Brook.
Sarah Campbell, a research assistant in the physics department, took the bullhorn and said to the crowd, “We know it’s a tough time … we’re not asking for much.” Campbell said some student fees have doubled since she started working: “It’s basically a pay cut for us.”
Stony Brook students protest cuts, fee hikes
by Claude Solnik
Published: March 4, 2011
About 175 graduate student employees and undergraduates on Wednesday protested against the state for cutting funds to Stony Brook University and against the school itself for hiking fees.
The employees and students rallied outside the school’s Student Activities Center and then marched inside to deliver their message to administrators at a forum organized by the school to gather feedback on the fee increases.
Students Protest Proposed Fee Increase
By Christine Sampson | March 4, 2011
Several dozen undergraduate and graduate students angry over a proposed increase in comprehensive fees gathered in protest Wednesday outside the Student Activities Center, where a panel of administrators were conducting a panel discussion on that very issue.
The university is proposing an increase in fees, including the technology fee, transportation fee, infirmary fee, and athletics fee, which could amount to $121 per semester to support those areas of service. Administrators described those services as self-supporting programs on campus and said the fee increase is not set in stone.
To sir, with love
by LIBN Staff
Published: February 18, 2011
Samuel Stanley got hundreds of valentines Monday from a single suitor. But it had nothing to do with love. The Research Assistants Union hand delivered the cards to the president of Stony Brook University, thanking him for waiving annual transportation fees for RAs. But buried in the gooey good feeling was a union demand, uh, request, to waive a technology fee.
Talk about strange bedfellows. The RAs have loudly condemned Stony Brook for union busting, violating school policy and locking them out of events. But then, love-hate relationships are tempestuous.
Stanley told Confidential he’d never received so many valentines. But his lips were sealed about waiving the second fee.
“It was very cordial, lots of smiling,” said union official Jim McAsey on the delivery. “He was feeling the love, I guess.”
The union, which is still negotiating its first contract, is genuinely grateful, but wants more, McAsey said.
Still, he sounded weary of pursuing someone playing hard-to-get: “President Stanley has been flirting with us a little, by waiving the transportation fee. But the technology fee is really breaking our hearts.”
