Bargaining Update!

Well--what a crazy round of bargaining (if you can call it that!) we have been experiencing this year.It seems that for every two steps forward, the administration backs us up three! It has been frustrating for all. Anyway, after the ridiculous articles presented by the administration on October 10th, we really thought that our willingness to try to come to terms with a possible temporary full-time faculty track had caused the administrative side to back off their draconian positions. We really (and possibly foolishly) thought that the positions (which show a complete lack of respect towards faculty) were meant to scare us into allowing the temporary full-time faculty track (TFF). Once we presented a comprehensive article which allowed for a respectful and judicious use of TFF, the admin team seemed pleased with us and seemed willing to back off their harsh positions and promised to come back to bargaining on October 17th with new articles reflecting mutual ground. You can only imagine our shock and dismay when ,on October 17th, the administration presented to us the EXACT articles they had presented on October 10th. So some progress made -The admin did agree to back off striking all references to starting salaries for newly hired faculty -They agreed to a pot of $100,000 for us to start repairing market inequity among some of our members -Surpise, surprise--they are willing to give us a 2% raise Please, please take the time to read the proposals and mark your calendars for the next bargaining session at 2:30 PM on November 14th. But before then we've got some work to do. We need to be at the next Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday, October 22nd at 5:30 PM--they need to know that we are UNITED and won't sit still while they try to negativeley impact our work conditions, and subsequently our ability to maintain high academic standards for our students. Also, keep an eye out for an anouncement for a faculty meeting for us to share concerns and strategy with each other. And last but not least, please post all comments and concerns on this blog instead of through work email--we would not want anyone to suffer any repercussions for using work email. And please remember that we cannot fight among ourselves--we all need to offer the support and respect to our fellow faculty members that we are NOT recieving from our administrators!

Bargaining Update: October 17

Although administration's reps indicated that they were working diligently toward compromise on the open articles, what they presented Thursday didn't indicate much "compromise."  Instead Articles 9 and 17 were essentially re-presented with minor changes---changes which actually moved further away from the middle.

It seems that the administration believes that throwing some money at the faculty will make us agree to draconian changes to load points, continuing contract language, involvement in decision-making, non-tenure track faculty and more. What the administration did offer was the following:

• a flat 2% raise to base salary
• the starting salary and experience pay schedules to remain in the contract
• $100,000 to be allocated among all faculty who did not receive full experience pay upon hire, the method of distribution to be determined by PSCFA
• 5% for each raise, with a minimum of 5 years in rank to be eligible for promotion

What administration is still holding out for would substantially increase the workload for Collegiate High and ABE, health occupations, seat-hour classes:

                                             Current Points                        Proposed Points

Collegiate High:                              50                                             36

PSAV lecture:                                60                                             36

PSAV lab:                                      40                                            36 

ABE lecture/lab:                             40                                             36

Clinical w/student supervision:         50                                             30  

Externship:                                     20                                             15    

In addition, the administration wants the ability to hire non-tenure-track faculty teaching 1260 load points per semester up to 25% of the number of tenure-track faculty. These temporary faculty would do no departmental or college service or professional development. The administration also wants to be able to hire these faculty with NO hiring committee, NO advertising of positions, and NO faculty input into the process. 

The full text of administration's proposals can be found in Jennifer Brahier's e-mail of October 17. 

The next bargaining meeting will be November 14 in the Atwell Room of the library.