The bargaining team had a productive first bargaining meeting with the administration on Thursday, January 26. We began bargaining by both sides agreeing to maintain a collegial and collaborative tone. So the administration knows what to expect throughout the process, the union identified top priorities based on our bargaining surveys of our members as:
fair and predictable raises
improved job security
pathways to promotion
strengthening our commitment to racial equity
In bargaining a first contract, we are starting from scratch. Many first union contracts in higher education may have 20-40 separate articles. The union presented written proposals to deal with the boilerplate issues of labor-management relations and contract administration:
1. Recognition of the Union
2. Union Security
3. Union Rights
4. Non-Discrimination
5. Labor-Management Committee
6. New Employee Orientation in the union
7. Grievance & Arbitration
8. Discipline & Discharge for just cause
9. Unemployment Insurance
We scheduled more bargaining sessions for February 9 and 23.
In the coming weeks we will be holding meetings to invite more input from members to inform possible proposals related to topics like health and safety, academic freedom, faculty development funds, and access to health benefits. It’s important that we hear from all ranks of lecturers across the School of Engineering, School of Business, School of Education and Counseling Psychology, and College of Arts and Sciences, so that we can accurately represent your needs and priorities during this process, and understand what problems we should seek to solve through negotiations. First contract negotiations typically progress from non-economic to economic items, and we expect that to be the case here.
Best,
The union bargaining team: Brian Buckley, Patricia Cameron-Loyd, Deirdre Frontczak, Seiko Horibe, Maggie Levantovskaya, Natalie Linnell