UI, Grad Employees Continue Talks Amid Rally

University of Illinois negotiators and members of the union that represents graduate student employees held another bargaining session Wednesday.

Graduate Employees Organization members aren't happy with the direction talks are going -- they protested outside the Levis Faculty Center, where negotiations continued with the help of a federal mediator. The grad students' previous contract expired last month.

Carrie Pimblott is the GEO's lead negotiator. She calls the university's proposal for no raises over three years unacceptable - in fact, she claims most union requests are being rejected.

"They came back and said all of the proposals we had suggested that were monetary were untenable because they didn't have the money to do it. And a lot of our non-monetary issues they rejected for various reasons," Pimblott said. "Essentially they came back with a lot of very egregious proposals that not only rejected our central values but suggested that they would want to erode our grievance rights, erode our rights as union workers."

U of I spokeswoman Robin Kaler says they won't comment on negotiations while they're in progress.

Pimblott says the GEO wants to put pressure on the university through rallies - she says a labor action is not out of the question.