UMASS AMHERST: Graduate Workers Demand Safe Work!

Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy

UMass Amherst is inviting 60% of the on-campus population back to campus in the middle of a global pandemic. This places unnecessary stress on the campus’s testing and tracing infrastructure, and dramatically increases the likelihood of COVID-19 spread at UMass and in the surrounding community. This past semester, only those who were taking classes that could not be converted to remote format were allowed on campus; now every first-year undergraduate is being invited to return. With this higher level of risk, graduate workers need the ability to work from home wherever possible. And yet Chancellor Subbaswamy has decided that all first year classes of less than 80 students should be taught in-person by default.

We demand that all Graduate Workers have the option to teach remotely. All graduate workers have the right under our contract to to not be forced to perform unsafe work. No workers should be denied an appointment on the basis of asserting this right. If the administration does not have enough staff to allow them to offer a class in person, then that class should be offered online. There were enough Grad workers willing to teach essential in-person classes in the Fall semester; there will be enough in Spring too. COVID-19 impacts everyone, no additional justification for choosing remote work should be required, medical or otherwise.

We demand that academic departments halt all recruiting for in-person classes while UMass rethinks its plans for the Spring. Grad workers in several departments, including Biology, Philosophy and Computer Science, have all reported being pressured to teach on campus. Some workers have even been told that their guaranteed funding depends on it; many more have been asked to share confidential medical information as a condition of being able to teach remotely.

Please fill out the petition to share your name and department publicly, the other information is to support our organizing!


Sponsored by
Uaw_wheel
Holyoke, MA

To: Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy
From: [Your Name]

UMass Amherst is inviting 60% of the on-campus population back to campus in the middle of a global pandemic. This places unnecessary stress on the campus’s testing and tracing infrastructure, and dramatically increases the likelihood of COVID-19 spread at UMass and in the surrounding community. This past semester, only those who were taking classes that could not be converted to remote format were allowed on campus; now every first-year undergraduate is being invited to return. With this higher level of risk, graduate workers need the ability to work from home wherever possible. And yet Chancellor Subbaswamy has decided that all first year classes of less than 80 students should be taught in-person by default.

We demand that all Graduate Workers have the option to teach remotely. All graduate workers have the right under our contract to to not be forced to perform unsafe work. No workers should be denied an appointment on the basis of asserting this right. If the administration does not have enough staff to allow them to offer a class in person, then that class should be offered online. There were enough Grad workers willing to teach essential in-person classes in the Fall semester; there will be enough in Spring too. COVID-19 impacts everyone, no additional justification for choosing remote work should be required, medical or otherwise.

We demand that academic departments halt all recruiting for in-person classes while UMass rethinks its plans for the Spring. Grad workers in several departments, including Biology, Philosophy and Computer Science, have all reported being pressured to teach on campus. Some workers have even been told that their guaranteed funding depends on it; many more have been asked to share confidential medical information as a condition of being able to teach remotely.