May 29, 2024

I felt unconvinced that the administration was bargaining seriously. Specifically, in dismissing the proposal on workplace bullying, I was taken aback by the degree to which the management’s spokesman was able to simultaneously advocate letting our institution exclusively investigate itself, determine the parameters of discrimination, and issue unenforceable sanctions, while he openly discussed confidential information regarding a specific ongoing investigation, and waved away the possibility of administrative retaliation. - Bert Stabler, Art

The May 29th session opened with us resubmitting our Non-Discrimination proposal with minor edits. We noted again that we need  Non-Discrimination to be grievable because of concerns with the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access (OEOA). These concerns include understaffing (OEOA still has no permanent Director after a failed search last year) and issues with the Title IX Office, which is currently under scrutiny from our Student Government Association. The administration’s team provided us with a counter for Union Rights.

Administration Spokesperson and Attorney Mark Bennett also responded to the testimonials from our last session, noting again that, while he recognizes that our Workplace Bullying article is important to our members and  the Administration is not dismissing those concerns, they still do not believe it belongs in our contract. Bennett launched into a long speech justifying the Admin’s rejection of a Workplace bargaining article. Bennett claimed that bullying is not a legally protected action or classification. He said that there are two sides to every story, seeming to imply that the Administration does not believe our members’ testimony. Bennet further referenced University Policy 1.17A (Code of Ethics: Professional Relationships), asserting that no one is following the set pathways to resolution, so we can’t prove that the system in place isn’t working.  

UFISU Spokesperson Ashley Farmer rebutted Bennett’s questionable assertions. Ashley clarified our desire to address patterns of bullying and noted that members often do not report because of fear of retaliation. During a bargaining caucus, Nursing Professor Sheryl Henry put the lie to Bennett’s claims. Henry, who addressed her colleagues’ experiences with bullying at the May 10 ISU Board of Trustees meeting, stated:  “Their attorney said that not one single person with the complaints had gone through appropriate channels. But I went to OEOA with another faculty member to talk about an issue so I know at least two faculty members did. The bigger issue is that our people are afraid of retaliation, to go to OEOA, and to go to AFEGC. They say none of us went. One, it’s not true (the people went through official channels) and two, it didn’t work.”

In their counter to our Union Rights proposal, Bennett criticized the language as too vague about what University communication channels the Union could use. He also stated there is no way they could provide a list to the Union of who is on leave because no such centralized list exists. This statement, if true, is alarming because it implies that ISU has no systematic way of tracking when we are on leave. 

We then broke for an hour-long caucus to discuss the presented proposals and prepare counters. Our team returned from caucus with counters on Union Dues and Personnel Files to present to the administration team. 

Bennett raised concerns that our proposal on Personnel File restrictively limits what the administration can hold on to at the Department and College level. The goal of our proposal is to limit anonymous documents (aside from student course evaluations) from being used in  evaluation or as evidence in discipline processes. We also want to prevent materials from appearing in our personnel records without our knowledge, which many of our members report having experienced. 

The administration team responded to our Non-Discrimination proposal by saying they are “holding on” (sticking to) their language from May 7. They assert that issues pertaining to Non-Discrimination need to go to the OEOA and not be subject to grievance. Bennett stated that our concerns about the OEOA should be resolved in the next Academic Year. 

We returned to caucus to discuss the proposals on the table, but the Administration called for an early end to the session. We agreed to this, though Admin did not submit additional counters. 

Throughout the bargaining session, Ashley held three different sidebars with Bennett and the administration team to discuss what counters we still need to present, what might be contained in personnel files, and then to let us know we would end early because the admin would not be ready with counters today.  

We hope you are enjoying your summer, and we need to see our members at bargaining to show the administration how serious we are about our proposals. Let’s show the administration that you want a fair contract and you want it now!