August 7, 2024
“We only have rights when they say we have rights” Gregory Ferrence, Chemistry
“I think they don’t understand that we have a long history of bad faith actors” Carrie Anna Courtad, Special Education
In five months at the table, our team has learned that bargaining can be long or short, productive or tedious. Last Wednesday’s session was short and tedious.
UFISU’s Lead Spokesperson Ashley Farmer presented our counter-proposal on Health and Safety, and Facilities. She then presented our counter-proposal on Discipline and Dismissal. Administration Spokesperson Mark Bennett then presented a counter-proposal on Promotion and Tenure, and Evaluation. We then went into caucus for the rest of the session, and administration ended early by stating they would not have another counter ready for us today.
Last week’s counter-proposal from administration included an MOU (memorandum of understanding) about what they will do for health and safety, and facilities. Our Health and Safety, and Facilities article this week states that ISU will provide necessary safety equipment and training as needed at ISU (administration’s counter states that they will make “reasonable provisions” to provide necessary equipment and training).
We are also focusing on door locks across campus, as additional protection in the case of an active shooter event. UFISU is asking that the administration just get locks up to standard, since there are a number of locations that don’t have any locking capabilities. We suggest they can either pay for it themselves, or there are a number of grants to help upgrade educational facilities with locks. Administration had stated they would make reasonable progress towards this goal in their MOU.
All-gender restrooms and lactation spaces were also noted in the MOU, in that administration would make “reasonable progress.” We are simply asking that they convert all the restrooms that they are able to, in order to have at least one all-gender restroom in each building that services students. We request the same for lactation spaces, and noted that Health, Wellness, and Promotion will, on request, provide a cooler and icepack along with breastfeeding information and support. However this information is not visible on their webpage, and they needed to be emailed directly for this information. We are asking that information be more readily available.
Our latest counter-proposal on Discipline and Dismissal is getting much closer, but we are holding on the administration’s insistence on retaining language of an employee engaging in “severe disruption” until they can give us a better description of what that entails.
We are wary that the term “severe disruption” could be very broadly interpreted, and want to make sure it would not be used against a UFISU member unnecessarily.
There was also discussion about why we cite a specific definition (Arbitrator Daughterty’s Enterprise Wire decision) for just cause, rather than leave it up to the administration or an eventual arbitrator to determine what just cause means. This definition sets forth seven tests for whether an employer has just cause to discipline an employee. “Citing a specific definition ensures that all discipline is truly for just cause and not “just ‘cause” someone felt like it.” (Thanks Julien Corven!)
We are asking for notification if we are under investigation.
We are asking to have the ability to remove documentation of discipline from our personnel file, if the behavior was discovered to have not continued, after 18 months. (Administration does not believe it is appropriate to remove discipline from personnel records, but you may include a letter with your argument to provide context.)
Mark Bennett then presented administration’s counter-proposal on Promotion and Tenure, and Evaluation.
They note that during an appeal of a promotion or tenure decision, the employee advocate may include a union rep.
Any dispute of the appeal is not subject to the grievance procedure.
We have proposed that anonymous student feedback can be used to identify potential areas of strength or improvement, but not to be used for employee discipline or denial of promotion and tenure (administration currently refuses this provision absolutely).
There were then some questions and discussion about last session’s transfers and reassignment proposal. We propose that if there are faculty layoffs, then no one else can be hired in to teach a laid-off faculty’s courses for 5 years. This includes re-assigning an administration into that faculty’s role.
We also discussed teaching observation in our evaluation proposal, stating that faculty need two days advance notice before a teaching observation is scheduled. We noted that this is common practice, and asked if there were departments where that is not common practice.
The school year is ramping up, and so are we! Come say hi to us in the hallways, across the quad, and especially in bargaining!
See you soon!