The University of Michigan announced Friday that it would be taking legal action against the Graduate Employees’ Organization by filing a complaint with Washtenaw County Circuit Court and seeking a preliminary injunction. In a hearing Tuesday morning, the court decided not to grant the injunction at that time, ruling that the University has not suffered irreparable harm because of the strike. Instead of granting a preliminary injunction, the court scheduled an evidentiary hearing for April 10 and may decide to issue an injunction then.
The University’s complaint claims that GEO’s ongoing strike constitutes a breach of contract and asks the court to call graduate students back to work immediately by affirming that the GEO strike is illegal under Michigan state employment law.
The University filed a similar complaint against GEO the last time the union went on strike, in September 2020. At that time, GEO was protesting the University’s reopening plans during the COVID-19 pandemic, requesting greater health and safety protections for graduate workers and less funding for the U-M Division of Public Safety and Security. In 2020, the University requested a preliminary injunction six days after the GEO strike began; two days after that complaint was filed, and before the injunction could be granted, GEO voted to end their strike.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, GEO President Jared Eno said he supports the court’s decision in the hearing Tuesday and believes that the University could end the strike through good faith bargaining with the union.
“I think (the ruling) was the appropriate response to the situation,” Eno said. “Grad workers are on strike because they know that a better campus is possible. The university just argued in that hearing repeatedly, that the only way that they could end these negotiations was through an injunction to force us back to work. That’s absolutely untrue. The University can do this at any time by agreeing to pay its workers a living wage, by agreeing to make the workspaces on campus safe for everyone and to live up to its commitment to DEI.”
University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald wrote in an email to The Daily that, following the hearing, the University will continue to pursue legal action and negotiation efforts simultaneously.
“The ongoing strike violates the law, defies the terms of the current contract and has created unnecessary disruption for our students,” Fitzgerald wrote. “The judge has given the University the opportunity to present evidence of the harm the strike has caused. We look forward to that hearing on Monday, as well as the continued progress of the negotiating teams.”
In a March 24 email sent out to the campus community, University President Santa Ono and University Provost Laurie McCauley said the University was planning to take legal action in order to continue their educational mission as soon as the strike started that same day.
“The University will take appropriate lawful actions to enable the continued delivery of our educational mission,” the email said. “Those actions will include asking a court to find a breach of contract and order strikers back to work, stopping the deduction of union dues, filing unfair labor practice charges, and not paying striking GSIs and (Graduate Student Staff Assistants) for time they do not work.”
In a University record article, GEO secretary Karthik Ganapathy wrote that GEO is frustrated that the University is taking legal action against the union instead of considering their demands.
“It is disappointing to me that instead of negotiating with us in good faith, the University has yet again decided to file an injunction against its own graduate students,” Ganapathy wrote. “When (the University) filed an injunction against us in 2020, the community rightly recognized it as an affront to grad workers and organized labor at large.”
Update 4/4: This article has been updated in include a statement from a University spokesperson.
Daily News Editor Riley Hodder can be reached at rehodder@umich.edu. Daily Staff Reporter Miles Anderson can be reached at milesand@umich.edu.