SUNY Geneseo – SUNY Geneseo apparently fills mental health counseling GA positions with graduate students enrolled at the University of Rochester. Currently enrollment as a graduate student at a SUNY school is not required by the state to be considered eligible for the position, merely being enrolled as a graduate student anywhere. This feels counter to the spirit of the positions. Additionally, in an unfair termination case last semester, HR staff at SUNY Geneseo claimed that because the GA in question had been terminated (two weeks prior to what would have been the end of their appointment anyway), the rights and protections of our contract no longer applied. It goes without saying that this is blatantly false but made pursuing this case extremely difficult. SUNY Cortland – A GA at SUNY Cortland was informed that they would not be reappointed for additional semesters as “they had reached the 4 semesters allowable”. Staff and faculty at SUNY Cortland cited a non-existent SUNY-level policy limiting GA assistantship to four semesters. They acknowledged that state policy supersedes local policy in matters of GA employment but then invented a state policy from whole cloth to suit what they wanted to do. No SUNY Cortland policy regarding these topics was available, nor was it communicated to this (or any) GA at any point between being first appointed 2 years ago and today. Additionally, Cortland faculty and staff cited campus-level policies from SUNY Albany and SUNY Oswego regarding limitations to the number of semesters and enrolled credits as prerequisites. As the affected GA so accurately pointed out, he does not attend those schools. SUNY Cortland HR was notified of this improper conduct and apparent misunderstanding of policy, and a meeting has been requested. So far, it has not been scheduled.
SUNY Oswego –SUNY Oswego engages in a long-standing, ongoing practice of contacting GAs in early August to ask them to made a decision about how they would like their total “award” to be divided; each GA must make a decision about how much they would like to be applied directly to their tuition bill and how
much they would like to receive as biweekly salary payments. This occurs before being contacted by the Union OR receiving normal onboarding information. When asked to make this decision, GAs report that they are NOT informed that if they do not elect to receive at least $4,293/year in salary, they will not qualify for health insurance. Each year, new GAs often decide to apply a significant portion of their “award” to their tuition then are surprised when SUNY Oswego informs them that they are not eligible for insurance. When asked about this earlier this year at a Labor/Management Meeting, Oswego HR attempted to claim that these direct tuition payments “helped hundreds of GAs”. Oswego does NOT offer tuition waivers to GAs in part or whole. GAs must pay their tuition one way or another. However, if HR successfully coerces naïve GAs into “pre-paying” their tuition from salary dollars they would need to use to pay their tuition anyway, Oswego does not need to cover the employer’s portion of health insurance. When reminded that minimum yearly salaries for GAs in the 2026-2027 academic year at SUNY Oswego were going to be set at $7,500 as per Article 5 in our current contract, Oswego HR staff appeared alarmed and asked to reiterate
that that number was specifically for "salary” and not “award”. GSEU informed them that yes, that number specifically refers to compensation coded to salary and not any other in-kind or non-cash compensation.
SUNY ESF–Problematic faculty members at SUNY ESF have been manipulating, lying, or lying by omission to GAs who are not fully aware of their rights and protections about how they should spend the hours attached to their GA positions. Many GAs at ESF are teaching assistants, responsible for various
teaching roles in one or more classes. It is well-understood by GSEU and SUNY that hours for those roles are somewhat malleable…in some weeks there might not be a full 20 hours of work to fill but during other weeks, such as during midterms and finals, a GA might be required to work more than 20 hours/week.
However, some faculty lead GAs to believe that they must work 20 hours per week in a general sense, and lie about where that work must occur. These GAs are manipulated into performing work in labs or for classes wholly unrelated to their appointed position and often not even for the faculty member who is their
assistantship supervisor.
One GA enrolled as a PhD student and in the United States on an F1 visa was told by their PI that they were “not focused enough on their work” (using the “evidence” of this GA having successfully independently publishing a scientific paper and applying for and receiving a prestigious international award) and that the lab would not offer a GA position so they could “focus on their work” despite the fact that both of those achievements were due to progress being made in their research. The PI also stated that he “would not sponsor their visa” next year, and if they wanted to remain in the US, the were “on their own” to figure out how. Likely, this student will be withdrawing from ESF next year to pursue other opportunities in other countries according to personal communication with GSEU elected representatives.
SUNY Upstate–It came to light that SUNY Upstate has not been providing some GAs with letters of appointment at any point during the hiring process, nor apparently keeping any such letters on file when so-affected GAs requested a copy. Additionally, no reappointment letters have ever been produced or
distributed. GSEU is working with Upstate to establish these procedures, ensuring that a.) letters are distributed to ALL GAs, b.) copies are available if needed, c.) reappointment letters are issued each year, d.) the language on appointment and reappointment letters is complete and accurate, and e.) that all letters contain end dates. This last point is of particular importance as several GAs at Upstate near the end of their time there have found themselves in a bureaucratic lacuna wherein they are marked as “graduated” and dismissed from their GA positions (and associated health insurance) but have not completed final edits on their dissertation and therefore not fully released from their student obligations. This means that they have not received their degree, typically cannot start work outside of the school, and are left without stipend or insurance for undetermined periods of time. Inclusion of official end dates will help GAs at Upstate coordinate their final months without finding themselves bereft.
There are many challenges associated with administering to the rights of GAs at the smaller campuses. They are geographically far-flung, have a relatively small pool of resources available to each campus, and have relatively few GAs at any given campus. Solidarity is hard to build when your fellow workers are in
another county. However, in the last year and a half, GSEU has increased efforts at reaching out to those unit members and has successfully organized several recurring social events to help build community.
