Does the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) control the Graduate Employees’ Organization?
A. The Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) was formed in 1988 by Teaching, Research, and Graduate Assistants on this campus with an eye to improve their own salaries, health care, and workload. In 1995, after much research and discussion, the GEO membership voted to affiliate with the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) and its parent union the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The AFT has proven experience with higher education: it represents graduate employees at the universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas, Oregon, and Temple, as well as college professors across the country. On these campuses graduate employees run their own unions by electing their own officers, filing their own grievances, and bargaining their own contracts. The most important factor in choosing to affiliate with the AFT was that they offered us a network of support and resources without threatening the autonomy of our union as a democratic organization, which has always and will always be run by us
