Yesterday, we completed our 12th bargaining session. The University had a chance to respond to our demand for more time, backed by a petition signed by a majority of members of our bargaining unit—but they refused to offer new sessions. Instead, they asked our union to abandon our pursuit of the protections we deserve to increase the pace of negotiations.
We received five counter proposals from the administration, but zero responses to our economic proposals including nothing on compensation, health, or other benefits. One of these counter proposals was on the grievance procedure in our contract, and during this discussion they reiterated their refusal to grant protections from harassment and discrimination as part of our grievance procedure.
Our position is clear: We can’t wait. We need a contract this semester that will go into effect in fall 2019. We saw yesterday that we will need to keep the pressure up to win our contract this year.
If you would like to get more involved, or have questions about bargaining, feel free to reply to this message.
