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Welcome Back--August 18, 2022

Faculty returned to campus on Monday for a week of meetings, trainings, and planning. We also had a bargaining session. This post will reflect what has been happening with the full book contract negotiations.

August 15 Bargaining Summary

On Monday, the union bargaining team presented its response to the administration’s proposal for Article 9. We seem to be stuck on the classroom observation. The union believes that the observation should be optional for all faculty. If the administration really believes it is necessary to observe teaching, then they should agree to more than a 30-minute observation once a year. In our survey, 60 % of faculty who responded believed that no observation is necessary. Our proposal also included language to assure that the SOS and Student Success Data reports were used for self-evaluation only and not by the deans as an evaluative tool. Admin will have their counter-offer to us at the August 29 session. Another stumbling block was with Article 10 and the function of the Continuing Contract Review Committee in the final stages of the process. This will be revisited on August 29 as well.

Reflections

So far, we have been making slow but sure progress. It seemed in the beginning that we were spending an inordinate amount of time discussing issues that the bargaining team did not anticipate being a problem. Although the administration has been accepting more of our proposals in recent meetings, at the beginning it seemed as though they were really trying to take away many of the rights we had worked hard to put into the contract. They also inserted language into their proposals that seemed to indicate they did not really trust faculty to be professionals and do their jobs. Here are some of the proposals that we did not accept and the results of the discussions:

Faculty Senate Role in Forming and Administrating Committees—Originally, the administration removed this clause saying that the senate already had this right in the by-laws. We objected and they finally agreed to keep it in the contract.

Scheduling--The administration’s original proposal on scheduling removed all faculty input at the initial states of discussion. It also removed the references to using seniority in scheduling classes. The administration’s proposal took away the right of full-time faculty to schedule courses before adjuncts and the clause that assured faculty they would be consulted before being assigned evening, weekend, or early morning classes. The union stuck with our original language on scheduling and eventually the administration agreed to accept our proposal.

Office Space and Office Hours-Office space and office hours was another issue we did not anticipate being a problem. In their first proposal, administration presented a formula which used the number of online classes assigned to the assignment of office space. In other words, they would not give a private office to anyone who was not teaching a certain number of ground courses. This was very confusing and produced quite a bit of faculty outrage. The union objected and the administration dropped the proposal and went back to the old contract language on office space.

Their original proposal on office hours was confusing and was directly related to the number of ground courses. We proposed using the MOU language that we have been working under for the past two years. Admin came up with another combination of remote and ground office hours that was reasonable, so we signed off on it.

Time Limits--One of the admins proposals put a week time limit on returning assignments and a 48-hour time limit on returning phone calls. The union came back with letting each professor set a reasonable time for returning assignments and phone calls and post it in the syllabus. This language was accepted.

As you can see, we have spent much time fighting to keep what we have presently in the contract. Initially, it seemed like the administration was purposely trying to take away many of the rights we had fought for over the past six years. Luckily, this attitude changed, and they have been reasonable in accepting most of our proposed language.

We have had to negotiate on some articles, but we feel these were good compromises: We agreed to remove our request that the faculty senate president be allowed to update the BOT once a semester on faculty issues. We do have this right already although we must jump through all kinds of hoops to make it happen. We did not see this as a great loss. We spent three different meetings discussing the number of years a faculty member be on continuing contract before being allowed to apply for a sabbatical. We initially proposed five. Admin stuck with 8; we went down to 6 and they accepted. We accepted their language on office hours. They accepted our language on library faculty. We are now into the last stretch, and we are close except on classroom observations and the CCRC committee responsibilities. Hopefully, these will be worked out in the next session. Then we begin to bargain salary. The union will be having a meeting soon to discuss our financial package. In the meantime, please attend the sessions and communicate your ideas to a team member.

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