Bargaining and Legislative Updates: MSCA

Monday, November 17, 2008

This is a brief report on the state of our negotiations with the BHE/COP for a new collective bargaining agreement.

Owing to the uncertainty of the commonwealth's economic condition, early in October Governor Patrick requested that all state agencies currently in labor negotiations suspend discussion of financial terms. Although that suspension was supposed to last for two weeks, it was then extended until the first week of November, and subsequently extended again until after Thanksgiving. Consequently we have no progress to report on either financial or language issues.

In the meantime, MTA met with the Patrick administration and insisted that the threat of the loss of retroactivity if we do not settle by a date certain be dropped. The bargaining team has also been in discussions with the BHE exploring ways to enhance the BHE’s financial offer currently on the table. At the November 12th bargaining session we decided to set aside November 19 and 24 as dates to further discuss ways to enhance the financial offer.

Negotiation sessions are scheduled for December 2 and 3.

On behalf of the MSCA bargaining committee,
Dan Shartin, Chair