Negotiation Update
May 25, 2020
May 25, 2020
Dear Colleagues,
In a normal negotiating year, we would be preparing for our first meeting with the administration's negotiating team on or about June 1st. By this time, we would have held numerous faculty forums during the Spring semester, you all would have been introduced to our negotiating team and the broad outline of our negotiating goals would have been shared with the bargaining unit. This has of course been anything but a normal year. A very experienced well-balanced team was put together in the Fall.
Mike Brogan, CLAS - Political Science
Dave Dewberry, CLAS - Communications
Herb Gishlick, CBA – Economics
Jeff Halpern, CLAS - Sociology
Joel Phillips, WCC - Theory
Elizabeth Scheiber, CLAS - Italian
Art Taylor, NBCB -ISASCM
Terri Rue, AAUP
The team began meeting weekly for long sessions in January and we were well on our way to being prepared to bring in a good contract and then then the health crisis hit and the situation changed radically as you all know.
But somethings did not change, most importantly our commitment to defending the Agreement and protecting members rights and interests. In that vein many of you have reached out asking how President Dell’Omo’s recent announcement of furloughs and layoffs affect you. The answer is that they do not have any effect on the members of the AAUP bargaining unit. Reductions in salary through furloughs or by any other means are not allowed under our Agreement and the earliest any layoffs could be effective under our Agreement would be August 31, 2021.
All of this is not to say that nothing has been happening on the negotiating front. On March 18th the administration indicated to us an interest in postponing this year’s negotiations and extending the existing Agreement for one year. We responded that while we were open to that, given both the many years of sacrifice and the expectation that our members would be expected to continue work under difficult circumstances that we would have to have certain protections if we were going to agree to any such extension. We provided the administration with a set of specific proposals on March 24th. We did not receive a specific response to our proposal for over a month and when we did it failed to provide the protections that we must have in order to move forward with an extension of a contract which has seen the buying power of our members take hit after hit to cover for the failures of this administration. In our latest response to the administration we made the following point.
The members of the AAUP bargaining unit have made great sacrifices not only over the past six years but also in responding to the present health crisis, and no doubt they will be asked to make further sacrifices and accommodations as we move forward. The coming months will undoubtedly lead to requests by your side for increased commitment and sacrifice from our members and accommodations and forbearance from the AAUP. But at the very same time that you expect heightened commitment and sacrifice on the part of our members and flexibility on the part of the AAUP, you demand that we all work under the threat of reductions in force and being required to put our health and the health of our families at risk.
We are scheduled to meet with the administration this week and we still hope to work out an extension (which would then be presented to the membership for ratification) but those discussions will be guided by the following principles.
· No layoff
· No reductions in salary
· No further reductions in benefits
· No increase in workload
· Full health and safety protections for our members
· Extension of all P&T timelines at the request of the individual
We are committed to not allowing this crisis to be used as an excuse to restructure the University.
Your negotiating team,
Jeff Halpern, Chief Negotiator
Mike Brogan, CLAS - Political Science
Dave Dewberry, CLAS - Communications
Herb Gishlick, CBA – Economics
Joel Phillips, WCC - Theory
Elizabeth Scheiber, CLAS - Italian
Art Taylor, NBCB -ISASCM
In a normal negotiating year, we would be preparing for our first meeting with the administration's negotiating team on or about June 1st. By this time, we would have held numerous faculty forums during the Spring semester, you all would have been introduced to our negotiating team and the broad outline of our negotiating goals would have been shared with the bargaining unit. This has of course been anything but a normal year. A very experienced well-balanced team was put together in the Fall.
Mike Brogan, CLAS - Political Science
Dave Dewberry, CLAS - Communications
Herb Gishlick, CBA – Economics
Jeff Halpern, CLAS - Sociology
Joel Phillips, WCC - Theory
Elizabeth Scheiber, CLAS - Italian
Art Taylor, NBCB -ISASCM
Terri Rue, AAUP
The team began meeting weekly for long sessions in January and we were well on our way to being prepared to bring in a good contract and then then the health crisis hit and the situation changed radically as you all know.
But somethings did not change, most importantly our commitment to defending the Agreement and protecting members rights and interests. In that vein many of you have reached out asking how President Dell’Omo’s recent announcement of furloughs and layoffs affect you. The answer is that they do not have any effect on the members of the AAUP bargaining unit. Reductions in salary through furloughs or by any other means are not allowed under our Agreement and the earliest any layoffs could be effective under our Agreement would be August 31, 2021.
All of this is not to say that nothing has been happening on the negotiating front. On March 18th the administration indicated to us an interest in postponing this year’s negotiations and extending the existing Agreement for one year. We responded that while we were open to that, given both the many years of sacrifice and the expectation that our members would be expected to continue work under difficult circumstances that we would have to have certain protections if we were going to agree to any such extension. We provided the administration with a set of specific proposals on March 24th. We did not receive a specific response to our proposal for over a month and when we did it failed to provide the protections that we must have in order to move forward with an extension of a contract which has seen the buying power of our members take hit after hit to cover for the failures of this administration. In our latest response to the administration we made the following point.
The members of the AAUP bargaining unit have made great sacrifices not only over the past six years but also in responding to the present health crisis, and no doubt they will be asked to make further sacrifices and accommodations as we move forward. The coming months will undoubtedly lead to requests by your side for increased commitment and sacrifice from our members and accommodations and forbearance from the AAUP. But at the very same time that you expect heightened commitment and sacrifice on the part of our members and flexibility on the part of the AAUP, you demand that we all work under the threat of reductions in force and being required to put our health and the health of our families at risk.
We are scheduled to meet with the administration this week and we still hope to work out an extension (which would then be presented to the membership for ratification) but those discussions will be guided by the following principles.
· No layoff
· No reductions in salary
· No further reductions in benefits
· No increase in workload
· Full health and safety protections for our members
· Extension of all P&T timelines at the request of the individual
We are committed to not allowing this crisis to be used as an excuse to restructure the University.
Your negotiating team,
Jeff Halpern, Chief Negotiator
Mike Brogan, CLAS - Political Science
Dave Dewberry, CLAS - Communications
Herb Gishlick, CBA – Economics
Joel Phillips, WCC - Theory
Elizabeth Scheiber, CLAS - Italian
Art Taylor, NBCB -ISASCM