Day Bargaining Update
October 22, 2017
RECENT EVENTS: The MSCA bargaining team met last Friday, October 13th to make significant revisions to our comprehensive proposal in advance of the bargaining session held Monday, October 16th.
You probably know now that as we were meeting face-to-face making incremental progress with the BHE and the VPs, the presidents at eight campuses initiated a misinformation campaign intended to undermine the MSCA team sitting at the table.
We will correct the BHE’s/presidents’ misstatements in a later update. Remember, this is the same group the MSCA has been forced to file two unfair labor practice charges against for their failing to send representatives to the table with authority to make a financial offer, and for their regressive librarian proposal.
UPDATES FROM THE BARGAINING TABLE: Here is an update on what happened Monday, October 16th; we will be bargaining at UMass in Shrewsbury tomorrow and we will send out a response respond to the message eight of the nine presidents sent out later.
The parties reached agreement on changes in the evaluation process that we believe benefit faculty and librarians. While solidifying the deans’ role, we have changed the order of evaluation to have the Committee of Promotion and the Committee of Tenure conduct their evaluations after the dean’s evaluation.
Management has backed off their unlimited part-time faculty language to a more workable, but still unacceptable 25%. The MSCA countered with a proposal that allows the presidents a reasonable amount of flexibility in hiring, while protecting tenure/just cause in line with MTA’s bill in the legislature.
We did point out at the table that the BHE and the presidents are in violation of an agreement to report to the MSCA their plans for “good faith” efforts to comply with the 15% rule. The 15% rule was advanced to an appeal court on October 12th. The MSCA is hopeful to resolve the matter in bargaining, but if not MTA will defend the language in court.
After tomorrow we are scheduled to bargain every Monday through November 20th. We hope to continue to make incremental progress, despite one president’s pronouncement that he hopes for settlement “in the coming days (or a few weeks).”
CJ O’Donnell
MSCA President