Takeaways:
Dear colleagues,
Our benefits for 2023-24 will not see any increase in premiums or changes to the plans available to us. Last month, the administration asked our bargaining committee to approve an 8.15% increase in our health insurance premiums, or a 5.9% increase combined with changes reducing the value of our health insurance plans, increasing deductibles and reducing the number of available plans from four to three. We told the administration that we are unable to agree to these changes outside of the broader context of economic bargaining, and without more time to work through how the proposed plan changes would impact our members.
Having a union means that the administration cannot change our benefits without negotiating those changes with us. We presented a group of economic proposals last fall addressing benefits, compensation, leaves, and research support, and our view is that these economic issues all relate to one another: we can’t evaluate the impact of a change to health insurance premiums in isolation from the rest of our compensation and benefits, without knowing what kind of raises the administration is willing to agree to. Six months later, we still have not received the administration’s economic proposals, but we remain ready and willing to bargain over the range of economic issues as part of our collective bargaining agreement. In the meantime, we are pleased that our benefits have been protected for this year.
We met with the administration most recently on Tuesday. In the morning we received counterproposals from the administration on performance evaluations, non-discrimination, and management rights. In the afternoon we presented counters on performance evaluations and non-discrimination. You can read more about the scope of these articles here.
On performance evaluations, we have a lot of common ground. We are still seeking some basic guidelines for evaluating teaching and a few other procedural protections, but we are moving toward agreement on this issue. On non-discrimination, the administration proposed that we create a process for considering the addition of protected groups that are not currently protected by law in Pennsylvania through the labor-management committee that will be created by our contract. In the interest of locking in core protections sooner, we agreed to that framework in our counterproposal, so we are very close to agreement on this article.
The administration’s management rights counterproposal still raises some important concerns, namely in the administration’s claim of control over “what is taught, how it is taught, and who does the teaching,” but it is significantly improved from the proposal they presented last fall, in part because we have made progress on issues like appointments and renewals since then.
Our next bargaining session is May 23. We hope to continue to make steady progress by finding common ground, but we remain firm in our commitment to ensure that faculty are treated fairly and the work we do to make this university run is valued and respected.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining committee
Tyler Bickford (chair), Professor, English, Oakland
Nicholas Bircher, Part-time Professor, Nurse Anesthesia, Oakland
Lauren Collister, Faculty Librarian, ULS, Oakland
Anthony Fabio, Associate Professor, Epidemiology (Public Health), Oakland
Lech Harris (secretary), Part-time Instructor, English, Oakland
James Hill (archivist), Visiting Assistant Professor, History, Oakland
Haitao Liu, Professor, Chemistry, Oakland
Stephen Robar, Associate Professor, Political Science, Bradford
Sabrina Robinson, Part-time Instructor, Slavic, Oakland
Evan Schneider, Assistant Professor, Physics and Astronomy, Oakland
Paul Scott, Assistant Professor, Health and Community Systems (Nursing), Oakland
Jeffrey Shook, Professor, Social Work, Oakland
Stacey Triplette, Associate Professor, Spanish, Greensburg
Abagael West, Teaching Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, Oakland
Links!
- Because we have a union, we will not see increases to premiums or cuts to our benefits this year
- We met with the administration on Tuesday and had productive discussions, moving toward agreement on performance evaluation and non-discrimination articles
Dear colleagues,
Our benefits for 2023-24 will not see any increase in premiums or changes to the plans available to us. Last month, the administration asked our bargaining committee to approve an 8.15% increase in our health insurance premiums, or a 5.9% increase combined with changes reducing the value of our health insurance plans, increasing deductibles and reducing the number of available plans from four to three. We told the administration that we are unable to agree to these changes outside of the broader context of economic bargaining, and without more time to work through how the proposed plan changes would impact our members.
Having a union means that the administration cannot change our benefits without negotiating those changes with us. We presented a group of economic proposals last fall addressing benefits, compensation, leaves, and research support, and our view is that these economic issues all relate to one another: we can’t evaluate the impact of a change to health insurance premiums in isolation from the rest of our compensation and benefits, without knowing what kind of raises the administration is willing to agree to. Six months later, we still have not received the administration’s economic proposals, but we remain ready and willing to bargain over the range of economic issues as part of our collective bargaining agreement. In the meantime, we are pleased that our benefits have been protected for this year.
We met with the administration most recently on Tuesday. In the morning we received counterproposals from the administration on performance evaluations, non-discrimination, and management rights. In the afternoon we presented counters on performance evaluations and non-discrimination. You can read more about the scope of these articles here.
On performance evaluations, we have a lot of common ground. We are still seeking some basic guidelines for evaluating teaching and a few other procedural protections, but we are moving toward agreement on this issue. On non-discrimination, the administration proposed that we create a process for considering the addition of protected groups that are not currently protected by law in Pennsylvania through the labor-management committee that will be created by our contract. In the interest of locking in core protections sooner, we agreed to that framework in our counterproposal, so we are very close to agreement on this article.
The administration’s management rights counterproposal still raises some important concerns, namely in the administration’s claim of control over “what is taught, how it is taught, and who does the teaching,” but it is significantly improved from the proposal they presented last fall, in part because we have made progress on issues like appointments and renewals since then.
Our next bargaining session is May 23. We hope to continue to make steady progress by finding common ground, but we remain firm in our commitment to ensure that faculty are treated fairly and the work we do to make this university run is valued and respected.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining committee
Tyler Bickford (chair), Professor, English, Oakland
Nicholas Bircher, Part-time Professor, Nurse Anesthesia, Oakland
Lauren Collister, Faculty Librarian, ULS, Oakland
Anthony Fabio, Associate Professor, Epidemiology (Public Health), Oakland
Lech Harris (secretary), Part-time Instructor, English, Oakland
James Hill (archivist), Visiting Assistant Professor, History, Oakland
Haitao Liu, Professor, Chemistry, Oakland
Stephen Robar, Associate Professor, Political Science, Bradford
Sabrina Robinson, Part-time Instructor, Slavic, Oakland
Evan Schneider, Assistant Professor, Physics and Astronomy, Oakland
Paul Scott, Assistant Professor, Health and Community Systems (Nursing), Oakland
Jeffrey Shook, Professor, Social Work, Oakland
Stacey Triplette, Associate Professor, Spanish, Greensburg
Abagael West, Teaching Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, Oakland
Links!
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