Contract negotiations look for June finish line

With the MHCC budget talks moving forward, the triumvirate of faculty and staff unions hurtle down the road towards completed contracts.

Full-time faculty union president Sara Williams on Wednesday appraised the current bargaining: “I would say, ‘So-so.’ The negotiations are more congenial than last time. The financial proposals that the college is discussing are major cuts following major concessions we made during the last bargaining cycle.”

Maggie Huffman, MHCC director of communications, said in an email on Thursday that contract negotiations have been “progressing well: respectful, collegial, professional.”

Classified staff union president Cathy Nichols said in a phone interview Thursday, “We have some (specific contract) articles out there and we are waiting to hear back from them (the administration).”

Nichols said the classified staff is currently working on their financial articles with the administration and are waiting to see potential counter-offers from the school at the next session, from noon to 4 p.m. Monday in the Board Room.

“We are making some headway. We have quite a few articles with tentative agreement,” said Nichols. Those articles are mostly on language issues within their contract, such as dates, she said.

“The college is pushing for a contract by June. We’ve got a lot of stuff we need to sort out,” said Nichols of the pace of progress.

Williams said the full-time faculty union “[has] made a number of language proposals that we think are the right direction for the college.”

In her email, Huffman elaborated on the administration’s aims, outlined in MHCC President Michael Hay’s budget proposal, unveiled on Wednesday night: “The proposed budget… again calls upon shared sacrifice – from our students in absorbing last year’s tuition and fee increases; from our employees in agreeing to compensation and benefit contract changes; and from all of us in working more efficiently.”

The administration has been utilizing their new addition to the Human Resources department during negotiations, Senior Labor Relations Advisor Randy Wardlow.

Williams, who was pitted opposite Randy Stedman, the college’s chief negotiator during contract negotiations two years ago, compared Wardlow with Stedman, offering faint praise: “It’s very ironic they share the same name. The new Randy just doesn’t have a lot to add, in either a positive or negative way. The last guy was a complete joke and you can quote me on that.”

Nichols said of working with Wardlow this year, “Working with Stedman wasn’t pleasant. Working with Wardlow, they (the administration) works as a team and he [Wardlow] listens to us and analyzes and helps make decisions.”

Two years ago, the full-time faculty union was poised to strike over salary schedules, health benefits, extra teach and summer teach compensation and a reduction in retiree health benefits. The union was able to reach agreement with the college administration only about 24 hours before a planned strike. Members of the Board of Education, along with Stedman, were ready to replace the striking faculty with full-time replacements, as Stedman cited the court case of OPUE v. Jefferson County, which allows employers of striking employees to hire permanent replacements during the strike.

Huffman said that the next step in the current process is for the bargaining teams to use “Issue Papers” that were prepared by “management” as a base for financial discussions and discussions on contractual language.