June 10, 2010
Dear MSCA day faculty and librarians,
As you no doubt know, all state employee unions that settled and ratified contracts in 2009 were asked by Governor Patrick, after he had submitted the necessary funding requests, for concessions that included furloughs of up to nine days in FY 2010 and a delay of agreed-to salary increases by 364 days.
Each union that represents higher education employees rejected these concessions; the MSCA did so on February 5th. By that time, a number of non-higher education unions that had agreed to concessions saw their new funding requests submitted by the governor. Within three months of submission, those funding requests were enacted by the legislature and signed by the governor. Meanwhile, our funding requests remain in House Ways and Means.
The MSCA has been campaigning with the other higher education unions and MTA to get our ratified agreements funded. This campaign has included meetings with Governor Patrick, Lt. Governor Murray, Secretary of Education Reville, and forty or so key legislators. Additionally, many of you have contacted your state representatives and senators.
Governor Patrick stated directly to us that he is not acting to oppose the funding of our agreements, yet we have heard repeatedly from legislative staff that the Patrick administration is asking them not to fund the agreements without concessions.
The higher education unions received a second request for concessions, this time without furloughs, on May 17th.
In considering this request, the MSCA Board of Directors had to take into account the legislative calendar. The formal legislative session is set to expire on July 31, 2010. We have virtually no hope that our funding requests would be passed – without a single objection from any House or Senate member – during informal session, and there is no way to know if either house would extend the formal session or be called back into formal session prior to the end of the biennial legislative session, January 4, 2011.
If the funding request for our agreement is not enacted by January 4, 2011, the funding bill would die and whoever is the governor in January would need to submit a new funding request. Should no such funding request be filed, the MSCA would be faced with the prospect of no salary increases for a period of four years.
With this timeline in mind, a meeting with Speaker DeLeo was scheduled for May 25th. A number of higher education union presidents and I were to meet with the speaker for the sole purpose of asking him to commit to funding our contracts by July 31st. Twenty minutes before the meeting the speaker was called away and we met with his education advisor instead.
Last night we finally heard definitively from the speaker. He informed us that he could not commit to funding our contracts at this time.
The MSCA Board of Directors had been preparing for this contingency. In executive session at a special meeting on May 21st and in executive session at the regular meeting on June 4th the Board authorized the Bargaining Committee to consider the BHE’s second concession request and to meet with representatives of the BHE to discuss the concession request, but only if certain preconditions were met.
This information was kept within the Board and the Bargaining Committee in hopes that the speaker would commit to funding our agreements by July 31st and that our contingency would not need to be acted on. With time working against us, the higher education unions had MTA contact the BHE and the UMass Trustees to ask that the BHE and the UMass Trustees agree to several preconditions before the unions would consent to meet with them.
The BHE notified us in writing this afternoon that they would agree to our preconditions.
As a result, the Bargaining Committee will be working to see if a new agreement containing financial concessions can be reached at the table and submitted for ratification by the membership, with the goal of securing passage of a funding bill by July 31, 2010.
Although the MSCA does not typically post bargaining proposals, the Board feels it is warranted given the unique set of circumstances. The MSCA’s initial counterproposal will be posted on the MSCA website (www.mscaunion.org) as soon as possible.
The unions representing employees on the UMass campuses returned to the table this afternoon.
The MSCA Board’s decision to return to the table was not an easy one, nor was it reached without thorough consideration of the fiscal and political climate in which we find ourselves. Given this climate, perhaps the single most intractable impediment that the MSCA Board had to assess was the fact that tens of thousands of other state employees had already agreed to financial concessions, a point noted by Secretary Reville and a number of legislators.
The motive for agreeing to consider financial concessions is that a revised funding bill actually has a chance of being enacted by the legislature and signed by the governor by July 31, 2010.
I know this is news that none of you wanted to hear. It is news that I hoped I would never have to report. However, the MSCA Board and I feel this is the best interest of the membership.
C. J. O'Donnell MSCA President
Previous Messages to the Membership 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000
MSCA Home/Messages to the Membership 6/10/10