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Some progress in negotiations
The Advocate
Although progress during Monday's mediation session seemed to bring the full-time faculty and the administration closer together, the sides agreed there was still much work to be done as they entered another contract mediation session Thursday.
The outcome of the Thursday session was not available as of press time.
Randy Stedman, the labor relations consultant hired by the board to bargain the contract for the administration, said, "Based upon April 13 package proposals, the parties started the day about $2.5 million apart. By the end of the day, the parties were only $400,000 apart, at least until one dug into the details of the faculty's proposal. There was movement.
But, he added, "Because of the non-economic issues (Article 5 and 7) and because of the new and re-proposed caveats and restrictions put on their economic proposals, the (faculty's) proposal was not acceptable."
Sara Williams, faculty association president and chief negotiator, said, "We gave them that money, but we need protection and the right to give input.
"If we can't find a settlement on all the issues, all of the compromises that have been made since the final offer become irrelevant," she said.
According to a press release from the faculty association Tuesday, the faculty's proposals represented $3.1 million in concessions, which was rejected by the administration. The press release said the faculty believes that because the board rejected their recent economic proposals, they do not believe the dispute is truly about economics.
"The board has told everyone that they value the faculty; they respect the faculty; they just cannot afford the faculty. We call bullshit," said the release.
Stedman said the administration is unwilling to accept the faculty's proposal to remove a clause in the current contract that allows the board to sub-contract teachers outside of the union for faculty jobs.
"The faculty hasn't been able to provide evidence" that this clause has ever been abused. Stedman said he mentioned a middle ground during the meeting which would allow the faculty association a 20-day period in which to put together a business case to submit to the board if they were thinking about sub-contracting work, in order to provide a better alternative.
The other non-economic clause in dispute deals with faculty providing input on non-instructional issues. The faculty wants to change the phrase "may provide input" to "will provide input." Stedman said the board is unwilling to accept this change because including faculty input could potentially hold up the process. Stedman said he suggested using the word "entitled."
Williams said, "All through this bargaining process, we have clearly communicated to the board that we will make economic concessions in return for non-economic language.
"If the board wants to make an actual proposal on the non-economic issues, we will respond. Until then, the language that Stedman suggested is simply concept and conjecture," she said.
Stedman also mentioned that the administration would not accept the faculty's proposal on extra and summer teach, because although "they came pretty close on the sliding scale," they had included a percentage to be added to the scale each year equivalent to the COLA percentage for that year.
The faculty has set a strike day of May 12 if there is no resolution by that date.
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