Eight instructors from the Department of Continuing Education face unemployment for the upcoming semester following a ‘sick-out’ protest that forced the cancellation of a day of summer classes.

According to University of Massachusetts officials, the instructors called in sick on the same day as a protest against both bargaining difficulties and the lack of progress in allowing instructors from the Continuing Education program to become part of the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO)/Local 2322 union. The union began negotiations with the University in late February for their upcoming three-year contract. During the process a mediator was brought in to try to help settle major differences between the two sides.

Much of the protest centers on the issue of pay discrepancies between instructors teaching continuing education classes and teaching assistants during the regular school year, GEO Secretary and Treasurer Josh Mason explained.

“When instructors teach in Continuing Education they are not covered by the union and they are paid half of the amount that they are paid during the school year,” Mason explained. “They teach the exact same course to the exact same students and get no benefits.”

Benjamin Balthaser, a graduate student in the English department who has been teaching English 112, a composition class, for nearly ????? semesters expressed similar sentiments about the treatment of Continuing Education instructors.

“We do the same job yet we are paid less,” he said. “Sometimes we are teaching the exact same course with same syllabus in the same room to the same students yet we are still paid half the amount.”

He went on to explain that Continuing Education instructors are not given any health insurance and have no support if they are unjustly fired or punished.

The sick-out came as little surprise to many students attending Continuing Education classes. Several courses were informed early in the semester that the organization intended to stage some form of protest and students were asked to support the organization by signing a petition. Some instructors had even informed their students the preceding day that class would be cancelled, some rescheduling classes for an off-campus location later in the day.

The University viewed the action as a form of a strike and the incident was reported to the Labor Relations Commission for further investigation. According to Massachusetts State Law, “no public employee or employee organization shall engage in a strike, and no public employee or employee organization shall induce, encourage or condone a any strike, work stoppage, slowdown or withholding of services by such public employees.”

The instructors that called in sick were informed by Associate Provost Susan Pearson that if they did not make up work missed by the final day of the summer class period that they would not be paid for teaching classes and would not be rehired for the upcoming semester.

“I don’t think that it is unreasonable for employers not to rehire someone who hasn’t fulfilled their services,” Pearson said to the Daily Hampshire Gazette in regards to the sick-out.

GEO maintains that some if not all of the employees had indeed been sick that day and that the University is being unfair to the instructors.

“The University is treating this as a strike, they have contacted the instructors and basically told them that they will never ever work for Continuing Education again. This is a blacklist,” Mason said. “In some ways we are pleased that the University is rattled but we are doing anything that we can to defend these eight instructors.”

The instructors that called in sick were eight of 66 teaching continuing education classes.

“For months, the University has been saying that we don’t have the same rights that other public employees have, like voting on a union,” James Shaw, President of GEO, said in a statement to the press. “Now they turn around and say that even though we lack the rights of other public employees, we’re subject to all the same legal restrictions.”

This action came as the second form of major protest this summer, the first occurring at the end of the first summer session when grades from summer classes were turned in past deadline. The grades, which were due at noon in the continuing education building, were instead turned in at 4 pm right before the building was scheduled to close.

“We all collectively turned in our grades five hours late,” Mason explained. “Which is not a huge amount of time but it showed the administration that we were organized and willing to take a stand.”

Approximately 80 union supporters protested outside of the building that afternoon, advocating for collective bargaining rights for Continuing Education employees and more leniency from the University in settling contract difficulties.

In addition to these actions, union members also rallied outside of UMass President William Bulger’s office in Boston in an attempt to force a meeting to talk about allowing Continuing Education employees to join the union. Seven or eight protesters stayed in the building for several hours until they were finally able to get an audience with individuals within the office.

“Eventually there was an agreement to sit down and talk,” Mason said.

Contract negotiations have been ongoing for many unions on campus. Agreements were reached in March with members of local union 432A and B and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers. The individual unions have already ratified these contracts.

Other tentative agreements have been reached in early June with the Massachusetts Society of Professors and the University Staff Association. The Service Employees International union, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers reached their agreements in late July. GEO reached a tentative agreement with the University in early August but that agreement did not include Continuing Education instructors, nearly 80 percent of which, according to Mason, would like to be part of the union. The agreement did include a three percent pay increase across the board with two percent of additional funding being used to equalize larger pay discrepancies across the board. The tentative contract also allows for assistance for low-income graduate students in the areas of childcare and health.

The five unions who have already negotiated their contracts represent approximately 4,500 University workers.