Karen Miller predicts upcoming negotiations between the Oakland University labor union and school administration will be “messy.”
The current labor contract between OU and faculty expires at the end of this Tuesday. Classes start Thursday.
Miller, the union representative for the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), said 99% of members voted last week to authorize its bargaining team to call for a strike should one become necessary.
“I do know that there is enormous support in the faculty for a job action in the event that we do not see a better version of the contract that we’ve been seeing across the table,” Miller said. “There’s still too many differences in the way that the two sides see the situation. There’s not a lot of faith.”
Amy Pollard, executive director of the OU AAUP chapter, said that no negotiations took place between Friday and Monday due to the Oakland team being unavailable. OU disputed that claim.
“Oakland was prepared to meet late yesterday (Wednesday), last night and today (Thursday), but the AAUP preferred to wait until next Tuesday,” said Joi Cunningham, assistant vice president for academic human resources OU, last week in a statement. “The AAUP has not indicated any intent to engage in an illegal job action or strike, nor has it indicated a need or desire to seek the assistance of the state mediator as a means to resolve the remaining issues.”
Miller, a history professor, said Thursday that while some concessions have been made since negotiations began May 12, the two sides are still far apart on certain issues.
That includes the administration’s proposal calling for pay cuts and not acknowledging inflation for the next several years, she said, along with faculty members’ salaries bearing a bigger burden of healthcare and pension costs.
“My membership has been really frustrated since the beginning of August,” Miller said. “The initial proposal that the administration first put across the table, many felt it was very insulting and did not acknowledge the enormous efforts that faculty made to try to compensate for COVID.”
For example, she said faculty members cooperated with the administration to meet students’ needs during the pandemic. That included “learning on the fly” in terms of virtual teaching.
“It was very disheartening,” she added. “The term I had heard used a lot was ‘slap in the face.’”
Other disagreements include protecting special lecturers, or part-time faculty members who teach at least 16 credits per year, from losing their status if they are assigned three-credit instead of four-credit classes.
The union claims that in recent years, some programs have changed a large number of their courses to three credits in order to reduce the total number of credits in their majors, and thus control costs to students. The unintended consequence is that special lecturers could lose their designation because they would be teaching fewer credits.
To better define the special lecturer title, the union says it proposed language that would make three-credit courses count as four-credit courses. The union says OU has opposed this.
“We also proposed language that would give qualified special lecturers priority in assignment of sections over new part-time hires, but Oakland also would not have it,” the union said in its bargaining diary. “They have rejected each and every attempt to increase the protections for these valuable faculty who make a major contribution to our university’s teaching mission and generate substantial tuition revenue for Oakland.”
The union also claims that while OU is offering to keep current full-time faculty at their current percentage of retirement contributions in exchange for a lower retirement contribution rate for all future hires, they are still insisting on severely reducing the employer contribution to health insurance.
During a negotiating session last week, the union said it offered a drop in employer contribution to health insurance in the last year of the agreement in exchange for an increase in raises that same year. OU reportedly countered by keeping their same larger drop in employer contribution while giving a smaller isalary increase the third year.
Cunningham, in her statement, said that OU is optimistic that continuing with good faith bargaining is the best course to reach an agreement acceptable to both parties.
“Oakland is continuing to bargain and has offered an agreement that would still provide for increases despite serious financial challenges stemming from unprecedented enrollment trends,” Cunningham said.
Miller said that perhaps both sides will come together in the coming days, as has occurred in the past.
“It’s hard for me to say,” Miller said. “We are entering probably the haziest 10 days of the fall term, the week leading into the beginning of the first week of classes. My hope is that we will (figure this out). This is the most complicated beginning to the semester I’ve ever been a part of, and I’ve been teaching since 1983 and been at Oakland since 1993.”
A mediator is expected to take part in negotiations this week, at the request of both parties.
"strike" - Google News
August 31, 2021 at 05:00PM
https://ift.tt/3yzBxps
Potential labor strike at OU looms as contract is set to expire - The Oakland Press
"strike" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2WheuPk
https://ift.tt/2VWImBB
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Potential labor strike at OU looms as contract is set to expire - The Oakland Press"
Post a Comment