Not quite time for Kumbaya (Bargaining on 3/15)

This last Monday’s bargaining session is not what you would call radical or highly successful, but for me it represented a shift in thinking about our bargaining experience. Even though we did reach a tentative agreement on medical disputes and came close to a couple of others, for me, the progress was in the interactions between the union and the administration. More than once we had discussions about the issues, what we were attempting to achieve with our language and what the administration was attempting with theirs. We did not sit around and sing Kumbaya together, but I think it did foster some indication that we are all interested in helping to strengthen the university.

It strengthen was during one of these explanations of viewpoint that I realized one of the difficulties we are wrestling with at the table is with the level of organization. Anyone who has been at MSU long can tell you that it has a very strong decentralized approach to many of its academic policies. This approach allows departments to have a lot of freedom for how they approach education, which can be a good thing. However, this approach has allowed for some departments to exploit non-tenure track faculty. Many of the things the union is asking for is a centralizing and standardizing of some academic policies, which may go against MSU’s institutional “grain”.

So, I guess the epiphany for me this week was that institutional structure may be one of the bigger hurdles we have to overcome to reach our goals for this contract…and it isn’t just a greedy, power-hungry administration trying to keep the little guy down (I think).

--A Bargain

From the Table 3/11

At the table today, March 11, 2010, Penny Gardner, Bargaining Committee reporting!

Sometimes I am a Rachel Madow wannabe..

Anyway, at the negotiating table today, we made progress through testy moments provided by those across the table from the UNTF bargaining committee. Proposals and counter proposals were presented by both sides, and hallelujah even three tentative agreements were signed. It is a chipping away process to come to agreement and our chief negotiator keeps strong presence in light of hostility and negativity that erupts from the other side. The last thing today was our words "without penalty" in the medical dispute section being replaced by them with the words "without termination" counter proposed by us with the words "without discipline" countered by them, "without discipline and/or discharge". We agreed. Of course there was much more to this than meets the eye, but I couldn't resist sharing this little moment of progress....

Come join us. There is lots to learn. Contact us to sign-up and be caught up! Penny

Thoughts from an Observer

I was mostly aware of the energy flows in the room. It was interesting to observe the ritual of gauging the opposing side by
their demeanor, their tone of voice, eye contact, sense of humor, and ability to articulate points in a logically convincing way. On one level, it seemed there was a lot of straight forward stuff, given that there are precedents for many of the contract points discussed, so that the process became more of a reasonable exchange (compromise) on both parts to arrive at the middle, where some things may be granted and others withheld given the particular atmosphere in the room that day. By that I mean that, everything else being equal (the precedent of other contracts), our presence in the room or the perception of it by management may tip the scale. So, while some things did seem more difficult to pass and were deferred, others seemed to respond more easily to the atmosphere and presence that we may have in the room either as articulate, intelligent, and able to counter back arguments or as an incompetent and easily tricked bunch of people. Alyssa--our lead negotiator--seems to handle them (and their egos) beautifully. So, it seems that, at least on one level, management?s perception of a strong will (ours) and controlled egos (ours) does play a role in our favor.

Coffee Talk

Today’s session at the bargaining table, as far as they go, was quite congenial. We were able to sign a couple of tentative agreements and got closer to two or three more. Right now we are looking at non-economic issues, with today’s main attraction being the resources fixed-term faculty have to carry out their jobs (office space, mailboxes, textbooks, access to classrooms, etc.).

The administration thought some of our language was taken from other contracts and that it did not represent the situation on MSU’s campus. For example, they thought that all faculty had office space and resources that accompany an office. We told them that is not the case and gave examples of fixed-term faculty who share one desk with 10 other faculty. To gain access to this office, administrative assistants have to unlock the door for the faculty, and they only have two hours in that space for each class they teach. Other fixed-term faculty have to hold office hours in coffee shops because they don’t have an office. Although this improve drink options, it makes it hard to set the proper tone to discuss issues such as student grades with mocha lattes surrounding you. The administration seemed to take the examples to heart.

In general the tone was better than I had seen to date. There were a few times where the two sides seemed to be cooperatively working on creating a formal system of recognition and rights for nontenure-track faculty. It was very warming...not like having your own barista in your “office”, but a definite start.