Developed out of the earlier Graduate Student Employees Association,[3] the UO administration objected to the establishment of the union, citing that graduate workers were "not public employees", but were rather "primarily students receiving a form of financial aid similar to stipends or scholarships.
"[4] The Oregon Employment Relations Board (ERB) ruled in favor of the graduate students and supported their right to organize.
[5] The GTFF began organizing its first contract in April 1977 with the University of Oregon administration.
[7] In 1989, the GTFF secured subsidies for health insurance,[8][9] which was expanded in 1993 to be fully employer-paid, one of the first such programs offered to graduate teachers in the United States.
In 2014, after more than a year of bargaining on behalf of the 1500 GTF workers on campus, contract negotiations came to another impasse.