The university started the session with an ‘impasse’ over ground rules for negotiations. The two ground rules that were contentious dealt with whether GEO members other than the bargaining committee could be present in the room, and whether we had the right to speak to the press at any point during the negotiations. The GEO bargaining committee argued that since ground rules were not mandatory in the first place, they cannot be used as a condition to start negotiations. In the end, the university agreed to move ahead without the ground rules.

The GEO bargaining team presented our entire set of proposals, and also presented actual language on Articles 1, 3, 10 and 15 in order to start negotiations on these articles. The changes proposed are available here.

(Read the article)

Comments Off on Bargaining Update #2 1/26/2007

The Administration’s First Priority: Gag GEO & Impose a Media Blackout.
Our Response: We Want Ground Rules Not Gag Rules!

GEO’s bargaining committee sat down with representatives of the administration on Friday, January 19th in the hopes of reaching some basic ground rules for the contract negotiations GEO will be engaging in with the UMass administration this spring.

In this first meeting GEO’s main goal was to get the university to commit to meeting for negotiations a minimum of 8 hours per month, and to agree to longer meetings where GEO’s contract proposals could be discussed in-depth and at length.

At Friday’s meeting it quickly became clear what the Administration’s top priority was: to get GEO’s bargaining committee to agree to a total media blackout on all issues related to the contract negotiations: No press releases. No conversations with reporters. No news articles. The administration wants GEO’s bargaining committee to accept a completely unnecessary and unreasonable gag rule as a central ground rule of these contract negotiations.

(Read the article)

Comments Off on Bargaining Update #1- 1/19/07