September 16, 2024

“The fact that it has taken two and half months for University HR to generate a list [compiling a roster of 3rd party applications that use faculty names on campus] points to the fact that this list should exist. How is an individual faculty member supposed to do all this?” Dr. Derek Sparby, English 

Today’s session began with greetings and Co-Lead Spokesperson Ashley Farmer asking, again, if the administration had economic proposals for us. They did not, again. What are these economic proposals we have been awaiting for over seven months? They include everything related to our pay and workload. Administration has failed to counter a single economic proposal. We will continue to push for economic counters at the start of every session until the administration provides them.

Today we signed a Tentative Agreement (TA) on Limitations and Savings. This is an important article stating that if changes are made to Federal or State laws or regulations, Board of Trustees governing documents and policies, or University employment processes or procedures, we are able to bargain on the impact of those changes. 

In today’s afternoon session, we began with Administration Spokesperson Mark Bennett presenting their counter-proposals on Faculty Appointment, Salary, Promotion and Tenure, and Evaluation; Limitations and Savings; and Duration and Implementation. A major administration movement in Faculty Appointment, Salary, Promotion and Tenure, and Evaluation is that any documents presented to a DFSC/SFSC for use in an Employee’s annual evaluation will be shared with the employee no later than December 23rd of the calendar year. Also, they proposed an option that if tenure is recommended by the DFSC/SFSC and CFSC but not the Provost, the employee may submit an appeal to the FRC. This is not in our current ASPT, and this movement on a new right to appeal resulted from our bargaining team arguing that the Provost should not have unchecked authority in tenure cases. Administration also resubmitted their prior counter-proposal on Duration and Implementation with no changes. 

UFISU’s Co-Lead Spokesperson Ashley Farmer presented our counter-proposals on Program Reorganization and Staff Reduction Procedures. Major changes include that language around layoffs has been moved to the Staff Reduction Procedures proposal. Major movement in Staff Reduction Procedures includes a reiteration of statements in ISU governing documents: an employee may only be laid off as a result of demonstrable financial exigency or a reduction or elimination of a program. We have agreed on factors (e.g. documented financial exigency) for consideration in determining who is laid off, including length of full-time service at the University and at the Department, educational qualifications, and/or professional training or experiences. A reasonable effort should be made to relocate the employee within the university, with options to give duties in more than one department, part-time employment, or a transfer to another department. A non-tenured (but tenure-track) employee is given the same notice in the event of a layoff as they would for non-renewal of their appointment. Also, a laid-off individual will remain on a recall list for 4 years.

We then went to a two-hour caucus, which started with a sidebar to discuss a package with Grievance and Arbitration, Non-Discrimination, Disability Accommodation, and Name Changes. Administration stated in sidebar that they were not interested in negotiating on this package, so we did not present it at the table and we will revisit those articles at future sessions.  

After caucus we signed a TA on Limitations and Savings. Ashley then presented and discussed our counter-proposals on Duration, Professional Ethics, and Grievance. We made some movement on Duration (of the agreement). The administration proposal is that either party can request renegotiation of the Agreement between 90 and 120 days prior to the expiration of the Agreement. We have been in agreement on a term of 90 days, and we have moved from 365 to 240 days before the contract’s termination in requesting renegotiation.

We continue to reject the admin's Implementation proposal that would make salary increases dependent on state appropriations. While “Implementation” might sound technical and divorced from economics, the admin’s inclusion of this language suggests that it wishes to keep faculty wages near the status quo and retain ultimate control over raises.  Close questioning by Co-Lead Spokesperson Tice Sirmans (Assoc Prof, Finance) revealed that Bennett had a poor grasp of how faculty salaries are budgeted at ISU. While Bennett pressed for time in answering, Mike Kruger of ISU Human Resources stepped in and suggested that Tice didn’t really understand the salary process (public institution finances is Professor Sirman’s specialty). For now, Admin says they will “get back to us on that.” 

Another telling exchange occurred when Derek Sparby shared member concerns about the admin’s lack of movement on Name Changes, as he pointed out that it was taking University Human Resources two and half months to compile a list of all the 3rd party apps that keep faculty names. Kruger again tried to minimize the complaint by suggesting that it was only Derek’s personal concern, but the truth is that a significant percentage of ISU faculty will change their names during their time at ISU. Derek’s point stands: HR needs to create and maintain a list to inform employees about who is using their names. Finally, our Professional Ethics counter-proposal removed language that repeats ISU Policy 1.17A Code of Ethics: Professional Relationships.

In our counter-proposal on Grievance, we are holding on not including a mandatory informal step in the process of addressing and resolving a grievance. We have encouraged informal discussion elsewhere in the article, and we do not believe that a mandatory informal step is actually informal. We adapted language so that the employer is not able to tell our members “go file a lawsuit” when we, as a union, can solve these problems in-house. We countered their language that restricts an arbitrator to awarding salary damages only. Our philosophy is that the Employee should be made whole. We can imagine situations in which the violation being grieved results in monetary loss that is non-salary, e.g., violations which result in the Employee paying out of pocket for conferences or professional development. Those should be reimbursable if the out of pocket costs resulted from a violation of the agreement. An Employee might also suffer harm to their reputation, and an arbitrator should be able to award penalties related to that. 

We need as many members as possible at bargaining so that we can push for a strong contract--come join us! We look forward to seeing you soon!