EMU-AAUP NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE
Mike Homel, Chief Negotiator
September 5, 2006
A day that started with so much hope ended with the management bargaining team walking out, going on strike against the negotiations.
We got a huge boost from the turnout at the 2:00 mass meeting in Pray-Harrold featuring Ernie Benjamin and Cary Nelson from national AAUP. Attorney Harvey Wax discussed legal rights of picketers and legal actions the administration might take. And we so much appreciate the vocal support of Faculty Council President Daryl Barton. Some 300 faculty colleagues gave us a rousing welcome and told us “don’t buckle under.†We heard that loud and clear.
Meanwhile, the two teams exchanged proposals on pay and health care. They also offered phased retirement language (but with no replacement required) and a joint appointments system accommodating many of our concerns. We remained far apart on health, since they still expect us to pay big premiums or enter a PPO without premiums but with high out-of-pocket costs. Also they want to prevent us from switching to Care Choices or Blue Cross traditional. On pay, however, both sides moved, and for a while some of us hoped we might be able to reach an agreement. That would have taken an all-night session and they would have had to ignore the Valvo-Fallon 10 p.m. deadline.
By the evening, however, it became clear that they’d stick to their ultimatum--- we must end the strike or reach a settlement for them to stay at the table. About 7 p.m. we gave them proposals on five articles (health and safety, association rights, number of faculty, sabbatical leaves, and building facilities committee) plus a lower pay proposal. We waited. And waited. At 9:45 p.m. they came back with a large package labeled their “best and final offer†(meaning they may try to impose it on us unilaterally). Since they took eleven minutes to explain the changes they made, that left four minutes for us to read a big stack of articles and respond. EMU’s spin doctors claim we rejected their proposal. In truth, we did not have time to read it before they ran out the clock. What an insult, not just to us but also to our students who deserved a good faith effort to get a decent contract. Moreover, the administration put itself in an absurdly illogical position. On the one hand, they told us to halt the strike and bargain. At the same time, their “best and final†label implied they would not bargain further. Though they declared at 9:56 p.m. that it was 10:00, we showed them our watches and handed them another counter-offer on salary as they were walking away from the table. (By the way, their media version Wednesday pretended that we did not make an offer after theirs.)