GEO has accused HR of proposing logistics — contract negotiation details regarding bargaining session locations, times, breaks and people permitted at sessions — which rolled back the open bargaining rules which GEO secured during the last bargaining cycle in 2023. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Rackham student Kaitlin Karmen, chair of the GEO Solidarity & Political Action Committee, said the logistics HR proposed are much more restrictive, limiting the meetings to Graduate Student Instructors and Graduate Student Staff Assistants while excluding Graduate Student Assistants. “(Open bargaining) makes sense for a number of reasons if you consider the fact that we are in the middle of a GSRA unionization process,” Kumbhat said. “The University of Michigan values the work Graduate Student Instructors and Graduate Student Staff Assistants do to advance our educational mission,” Taylor wrote. Kumbhat said he views this decision as a way for HR to avoid confronting graduate student workers.