How can I help?

We need all the help we can get, but we know that as a graduate you have little time. That's why we're not too demanding: we have numerous little tasks that you might be able to squeeze into a couple of spare minutes here and there without overwhelming yourself. We can use help looking up figures in the archives, meeting with various people in the administration (they seem friendly,) helping out with our newsletter or web page, and the like. If interested, contact us at:
clog@brandeis.edu, 
or call 736-4880, or
write to CLOG c/o GSA, 
MS U7, Brandeis University,

• NYU GRADS WILL HAVE UNION!
What is CLOG
COGSI
Brandeis will subsidize healthcare
UMass Boston grads get a union
CLOG Contact People
Gone Chickering (a horror story)
RESOURCES

COGSI – the Committee on Graduate Students Issues met this semester twice, on  Nov. 6 and 30.   The first meeting was devoted to setting the agenda with the issues of healthcare, pay, and the recognition of grads' role at the university stressed as priorities.  On Nov. 30 the discussion focused on grads' marginal place in the structure of the University, and the relationship between grads and faculty. 
     The subcommittee on healthcare met on Nov. 28 with Dean Kornfeld and Mark Collins of University Services.  The administration will investigate the possibility of lowering the clinic fee to make it more accessible to grads and integrate it with the health plan.  In bargaining with the insurance providers the University will aim at increasing the benefits without raising the premiums. 
     COGSI is a working group which makes recommendations to the administration regarding issues of graduates' concern; its members are: Milton Kornfeld (GSAS Dean),  Dan Feldman (Office of the Executive Vice President), Prof. Jytte Klausen (Pol), Eric Bone (Math), John Slater (Lit), and Gwido Zlatkes (NEJS).

Fence painting at the new student center construction site

Dave Wedaman 
Comparative Literature
Academic Technology Services, ITS
MS 017
736-4548
wedaman@brandeis.edu

Rekha Rosha
English
GSA President
rosha@brandeis.edu

Amy Burke
Politics
adburk@yahoo.com
 
 
 
 

As a result of last year's CLOG’s pressure, Brandeis will credit up to 60% of student health insurance benchmarked against the cost of the Chickering Health Insurance plus the Student Health Fee. This credit will be phased in over the next three years.  In 2000-01 the plan will result in a 20% credit to student accounts, saving them $206; in 2001-02 it will save them $428, and by 2002-03 the credit will be worth approximately $665. This will apply to funded  students whose insurance is not already covered by grants.

On November 9 the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has counted ballots of the  referendum on unionization at NYU.  The count was  597 for GSOC-UAW and  418 opposed.  However, because there were additional voters whose ballots are in dispute, the NLRB will not certify the results until NYU officials and GSOC-UAW  resolve the challenged ballots.
This victory means that NYU is very close to becoming the first private university in the United States with unionized graduate, teaching and research assistants.

On November 1, the NLRB has reaffirmed its April decision which granted GSOC-UAW, the union for graduate employees at New York University union rights and an election.  The NLRB stated,  "we will not deprive workers who are compensated by, and under the control of, a statutory employer of their fundamental statutory rights to organize and bargain with their employer, simply because they also are students."
 

Graduate student Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants at the University of Massachusetts at Boston voted on November 1 to be represented by the Graduate Employees Organization, UAW (GEO Boston). The union won 96.5 % of the nearly two hundred ballots cast in an election supervised by the American Arbitration Association - an astonishing victory!

1)I had a stomach ache. When it did not go away after 24 hours I went to Mount Auburn hospital to the emergency room. First they suspected appendicitis and took an X-ray that showed nothing.  But this was incoclusive, so they did a CT-scan test which also showed nothing.  By then I was quite sick with pain, throwing up etc. so they gave me morphine and put me in the hospital overnight. In the morning they administered one more test, quite nasty, that again showed nothing. By the afternoon the pain calmed down and I was released home.
     Recently I got the bill from the hospital for $ 3,657.11, of which Chickering has paid $ 1801.11 - with a note attached, "... the balance is now your responsibility, for your convenience credit cards are accepted..."
     Since there's obviously no way I can come up with $1800+ out of my pocket, I'm applying for free care. The eligibility  starts at $16,700.00 per year for a single person household (the federally set poverty line) - you may notice that it's about $5000 more than Brandeis' full funded graduate stipend...

2)    As a result of this article I received a phone call from Brandeis health care: the claim has been revised by Aetna, the provider of Chickering.  My case was apparently mistakenly classified as an outpatient service instead of inpatient (which includes  a hospital stay), for which the cap is $ 5000.  Therefore all I have to pay is a hundred dollars deductible...

Still, some conclusions:

• Well, errors happen - that's one of the reasons why  we must stand up for ourselves! 
• I was lucky enough not to have anything serious; had it been a real appendicitis involving surgery etc., the bill would be certainly more than the $5000 allowance - and I would have been in the same dung I thought I was...
• It seems incredible that with 800 Brandeis graduates nothing like this has happened yet - or maybe it did, and the victim swallowed the bill, scratched up the money among  family or went deeper in debt.  Anyway, my case shows how badly a decent comprehensive solution for graduate health care is needed.