Hiring a Graduate Employee (GE) vs. a Student Hourly Employee

The GTFF Collective Bargaining Agreement stipulates that graduate students should be hired as GEs if the work is graduate level, and if the hours per term equal or exceed .20 FTE (.25 effective Fall 2024). 

If you are considering hiring a graduate student as a student hourly employee, walk through the decision matrix to determine whether the graduate student can be hired as a student hourly employee or must be hired as a GE.

TYPE OF WORK

What are the specific duties?

Are the duties considered GE work?

  • Academic research—research supporting a professor
  • Teaching or teaching-related work affiliated with UO courses
  • Autonomous administrative work
    • Supervising students
    • Advising students
    • Leading a mentor program
    • Counseling
    • Any administrative work in which the unit would not be willing to hire an undergrad for

If NO, you may hire a STUDENT HOURLY. Technical work like proofreading, IT support, etc., and clerical work are in this category.

If YES, go on to next question.

Why are you choosing this specific graduate student or why are you interested in a grad student and not an undergrad student?

If you have targeted graduate students in the hiring process for this work, it is possibly a GE position? See duration.

How much do they want to pay?

If you are wanting to pay $18-20 per hour (or more) this could signal complexity and therefore be GE work. Go on to next question.

Has this work been done by a GE before?

If YES, go to duration.

DURATION

How many hours, altogether, will the person be working during the term?

Through Summer 2024, the minimum GE FTE is .20 (88 hours). Effective Fall 2024, the minimum GE FTE increases to .25 (110 hours). 

If YES to “Are the duties are considered GE work?” AND the answer here is that the work will take place all in one term AND the work is going to reach, or come very close to the minimum GE FTE = GE APPOINTMENT

If YES to “Are the duties are considered GE work?” BUT the work is in a single term is not going to come close (or has no chance of coming close) to the minimum GE FTE = STUDENT HOURLY