UPDATED: April 7, 2018 at 5:31 p.m.

Graduate Student Organization senators passed a resolution to switch to a less expensive health insurance plan on Wednesday after hours of contentious debate and months of tension between Syracuse University graduate students.

More than 100 graduate students attended the GSO meeting to decide whether to pass the health care resolution. Some students stood in the back of the room and sat in aisles to hear the debate.

The GSO executive board and members of Syracuse Graduate Employees United, an organization trying to create a union for graduate student employees, were at odds over the plan.

“We’re just really frustrated, and this seems like an undemocratic process,” said Anthony Walker, a member of SGEU.

Combative debate persisted as the vote for the years-long project approached. After the bill was passed with 24 votes in favor, 9 votes against and 1 abstention, many SGEU members immediately left the auditorium to advocate for their unionization efforts. SGEU has strongly opposed the plan for months.

SGEU members lingered in the hallway outside the auditorium as GSO members discussed other business, at the end of the meeting. GSO Jack Wilson said in an interview after the meeting that the name of the new insurance provider will be released soon.

GSO considered graduate employee unionization in 2015 after SU administrators required all students to have Affordable Care Act-compliant health insurance plans by fall 2016. GSO members cited what they said was a lack of transparency from the administration as a cause, but never formally pursued unionization.

Hunter Thompson, a member of GSO’s employment issues committee, said only members of GSO’s executive board were involved in talks regarding the recent health care changes. He voted against the proposed health care plan.

“I think they’re distracted by this $500 (plan), and they’re not considering long-term implications for this,” Thompson said.

A single graduate assistant would pay $500 for health care under the new plan, according to a fact sheet distributed at the forum by SU administrators. University officials detailed the new plan, which would reduce the cost of graduate assistant health care coverage by $994. A graduate assistant with a spouse or partner also on their health care plan would save $1,057, according to the sheet. A graduate assistant with a child would save $653 and a graduate assistant with a family would save $717 under the new plan, per the sheet.

Graduate students would have platinum coverage, versus the current gold coverage SU employees have. Platinum coverage ensures that plan holders would have about 90 percent of medical expenses covered by insurance, while a gold plan covers about 80 percent of medical expenses.

Much of the deliberation on Wednesday consisted of whether or not to implement a referendum that would open the health care vote to the entire graduate student population. Senators cited a survey conducted about the health care plan change, proposed at the time, in which only about 200 graduate students responded out of about 1,200 graduate student employees who were sent the survey.

Wilson, president of GSO, and Rikki Sargent, GSO’s vice president of internal affairs, said with the referendum, there would not be enough time to make a decision on the health care resolution.

“There is a very real danger that conducting a referendum will torpedo this whole thing,” Wilson said.

Chants of “Unionize! Unionize! Unionize!” could be clearly heard in the auditorium as GSO attempted to conduct other business, after the organization passed the resolution.

“I don’t want to be associated with those people,” one senator said as the chants persisted. “They act like children.”

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, Hunter Thompson’s involvement with Syracuse Graduate Employees United was misstated. Thompson is not a member of SGEU. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on April 4, 2018 at 11:35 pm

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