Full-time faculty poised for contract breakthrough

After several months of sluggish labor negotiations, a new contract agreement between the Mt. Hood full-time faculty union and school administrators could be reached as early as today.

The two sides pushed through 20 hours of mediation last Friday, working into the wee hours of the morning. They huddled again for 13 hours on Wednesday.

The union’s leader said the marathon talks have the two sides poised to land a new deal.

“We’re close and hope to get finished this week,” Sara Williams, MHCC full-time faculty association president, said on Thursday.

“We really had hoped to be done yesterday (Wednesday), so, I’m really trying to get the energy to do it one more time.”

Maggie Huffman, Mt. Hood communications director, said the negotiations are “getting close to conclusion – I think everyone sees the light at the end of the tunnel.”

The faculty and administration sides came to a tentative agreement on every contract article except two, Williams said.

“On (last) Friday we made it to an agreement on most of the money issues in concept, but we hadn’t written the (formal) language,” she said.

As far as a breakthrough moment, Williams said there wasn’t a particular instant. “It’s just that you suddenly realized that your position and the position of the other side,” she said.

“There’s a middle ground that will work. Once you find that on one thing, it’s enough to keep you moving forward,” she said.

Williams’ team asked for another mediation session Thursday or today to sustain momentum going after Wednesday’s talks. As of press time for The Advocate, no follow-up session was confirmed.

Williams was unable to disclose details of the two last contract articles to resolved, but said, “There are a few outstanding language issues, and a few financial.

“Until we’re able to report the details to, first, the bargaining support team and senate and, second, the (entire) faculty, we can’t report that stuff,” she said.

Pressed on her confidence level in the evolving contract deal, she said, “Our bargaining team will not agree to something we feel the faculty will not support.”

Meantime, the MHCC classified employees’ union and administrators appear to remain locked in their separate bargaining struggle.

(In the current negotiation cycle, only the Mt. Hood part-time faculty group has sealed a contract deal, back in October.)

Cathy Nichols, classified association president, declined to project what a full-time faculty deal might mean for her group’s effort.

“I’m happy for the full-time faculty, but their contract is their contract,” Nichols said.