Bargaining Update 6/10/17

Dear Colleagues:

The most recent of the on-going weekly meetings between the BOT and UFF faculty bargaining teams was held Monday, June 5, and centered on the Salaries article. Neither team is proposing changes to Promotion Increases or to Sustained Performance Increases, and so the discussion centered on the other increase categories.

The session began with a BOT proposal offering Departmental Merit of 1.1% (up .1% from its prior offer), Deans’ merit of .25% (down .15%), Market Equity of $750,000 (up $250,000), and Administrative Discretionary Increases of 1%. This proposed package represents an increase of one-tenth-of-one-percent (.1%) over the BOT’s previous offer.

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Bargaining Update: June 1, 2017

Dear Colleagues:

The BOT and UFF bargaining teams have continued to meet weekly since our last Update of May 21, although recent progress has been slow.

Discussions of Salary have been ongoing for several sessions, although the teams remain far apart. On the upside, both agree that Promotion Raises and SPI raises should remain at last year’s levels. It is in regard to the absolute amount of funding and the proportions allocated to the various categories that the teams are divided.

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Bargaining Update 5-22-17

The BOT and UFF bargaining teams have been meeting regularly since late March and have made progress on several articles.

Discussions of Salary have been ongoing for the last two bargaining sessions. Because University employees are excluded for the first time in memory from raises targeted to other state employees, negotiations are particularly important this year. Also new this year is the UFF’s proposal to link the total percentage increase in faculty salaries to the total percentage increase in administrators’ salaries. The UFF is surprised by how meager the BOT’s initial proposals are in light of the budget increases the Legislature allocated. In general, the teams are far apart, although there have been small moves toward convergence.

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2017-2018 Collective Bargaining Status

The annual bargaining of the Collective Bargaining Agreement began March 8th with the exchange of open articles by the Board of Trustees (BOT) and the UFF.  Salaries is of course open and each side is allowed to open two articles each year with the full agreement open every 3 years.

This post will be updated with versions of the articles as the bargaining progresses.

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Bargaining Update 4-19-17

Dear Colleagues,

The BOT and UFF bargaining teams met for three hours on April 12 and discussed several of the opened articles.

The discussion of the Tenure Article concerned the BOT’s proposal to switch from a set of 2nd-and-4th-year reviews to a 3rd-year review and the UFF’s position that any such switch would need to provide a choice for Assistant Professors who came in under the 2nd-and-4th-year system. The fact that this review system appears in several unopened articles was also discussed.

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