April 23, 2024
“No matter how much I love teaching and my students, our working conditions as they pertain to workload and bullying need to change. My own experiences with both have negatively impacted my ability to thrive here. I have found that teaching sustains me and ignites me like it has since I started my profession, but burnout from my constantly changing workload that does not align with my professional morals has depleted, demoralized, and dehumanized me. I can guarantee I'm not alone in saying that. “ Stef Gardiner-Walsh
We made progress today, with positive movement towards our first tentative agreement! Both the administration and UFISU have reached a consensus on the proposal to make our final agreement available electronically, and we are finalizing a few last edits.
The April 23rd session opened with administration’s lead negotiator Mark Bennett offering rebuttals to last week’s testimonials, stating the ways in which the Administration had addressed building health and safety issues, noting that they were appropriately resolved or in process. The UFISU bargaining team rejects this response because we know that members’ lived experiences say otherwise. We will continue to negotiate for a collective agreement that adequately addresses these issues.
Faculty testimonials today included Stef Gardiner-Walsh (Special Education, speaking on Workload and Bullying) and Joyce Walker (English, speaking on Workload). Joyce titled her testimonial “Time and Why it Matters.” Here is part of what she had to say:
“... let me tell you that the saddest part of this story is not, as you might think, the invisibility of my labor. It’s the knowledge that, as I stand here and tell you this story, you’ve already dismissed it. Because, to you, I’m not an actor within a complex system, moving fluidly to take up tasks that need to be done, instrumental to the health of the overall system.
Bennett then provided nine proposals that the administration stated are not far apart from UFISU’s, and may be possible to resolve (which could build momentum to tackle some of the more serious issues). Admin’s team gave rationales behind their choices, noting that they prefer to spell out all possible grievance challenges.
Lead spokesperson Ashley Farmer (CJS) called a caucus to discuss potential revisions to the administration's proposals. When the table team returned from caucus, Ashley presented three counter proposals and one agreement to their proposals, with the plan to address the last five proposals, with additional clarity and counters in Monday’s upcoming session. While the table team was revising and reacting to admin proposals in a separate room, UFISU members held their own caucus to gather their reactions. Members were upset about the administration’s dismissal of faculty’s health and safety concerns, and there was much discussion about that as well as proposals regarding personnel files and our non-discrimination statement. Caucus members also launched into a lively discussion about the shoddy state of ISU’s funding for faculty professional development and conference travel support, which our Contract Action Team has agreed to look into as a potential bargaining issue UFISU’s team prepared a package and pivoted in a way that made sense and didn't compromise our position.
Lastly, at the very end of the session, we were hoping for at least ONE signed tentative agreement (TA). Verbally there was agreement with the change of one word. This is slated to be signed at Monday’s (4/29) bargaining session. When this is signed, we can officially say we have TA’d a contract provision.
Keep coming out to bargaining sessions! We have a few more this semester, and they are being scheduled into the summer. When you show up, it shows our strength and helps us make progress!