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.

The rest of the session saw a set of initial proposals from the university, although there was nothing forthcoming on the substantive issues of wages and benefits. In a direct attack on the union, the university proposed cutting GEO staff to one half-time position. The university also proposed

• increasing the time they take for responding to our information requests,

• removing language that stops health plan co-payment increases and sets an upper limit on how much our co-pays are, and

• allowing unpaid leave under the FMLA only to grad employees who have worked for at least 4 consecutive months prior to the start of the leave. In effect this means denying unpaid leave to anyone in the Fall semester, irrespective of how long they have been employed.

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.

Both teams discussed minor housekeeping changes (changes in dates, lapsed articles and the status of pilot programs and procedures from the last contract).

Both teams agreed to meet for at least 12 hours over every two-month period. The next bargaining session is scheduled Friday, February 16th 2007 at 2.30 pm

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