November 12 UNAC-UA negotiations )
In responding to the University’s proposal of 2024-11-04, UNAC covered a lot of ground, so just read their summary.
Here a few highlights that strike us:
- The University still proposes meagre raises of 2.75%, 3%, and 3%. UNAC is now asking for raises of 4%, 4.5%, and 5%. This is worse than the timid, insufficient “5% each year” that they began with. The two sides are between 1.25% and 2% points apart. Not good enough! For this we don’t blame the union, but rather the timidity of the UA workforce.
- The University still proposes to remove the me-too language. UNAC will no longer accept this. Previously, UNAC had conditioned dropping its me-too clause on raises of 5%, 5%, and 7% (see our coverage of the October 15 negotiations.
- UNAC rejected the University’s efforts to increase faculty health insurance costs (which would diminish or even nullify raises) and efforts to weaken faculty representation on the Joint Health Care Committee.
- UNAC said the University’s “earlier idea to exclude postdocs from raises, workloads, and evaluations was not part of their most recent proposal.”
- The University has not budged on longer contracts for non-tenure track faculty. UNAC retains this demand.
- The University still demands that faculty not use “compensated time” for union activities. UNAC says that this amounts to barring union members from discussing the union on UA property, and would ban at least certain union members from participating in shared governance.
- Both sides are possibly reaching an agreement that faculty without research in their workloads will no longer have to include external review letters in their files.
While we are heartened by UNAC’s resistance to administration worst demands, we remind readers of the simple premise our on which this site: In battle there is no law!
Only an extralegal, class-wide struggle can bring the bosses to their knees. To fight according to the rules, and segmented by employment type, is to tie our hands behind our backs.