FAM-T Bargaining, Day 3

“No” is a complete sentence, but so is “Yes, academic freedom is part of faculty working conditions!”

Today, September 26, 2023, marked FAM-T’s third bargaining session. FAM’s Negotiating Team once again made the long drive to Voice of America to bargain the administration in good faith.

The team were met with a number of frustrating declarations:

1. No, the administration will not extend the 2% raise to all faculty and librarians — even though the budget for it for was approved by the Board of Trustees. Pre-contract raises are not unusual and do not have to be considered part of the economic proposals that will be put forth at the table later in the process. Nevertheless, it’s a no. Why? As a colleague at another union school explained, employers do this kind of thing “to deter others from unionizing. Stand strong!”
   
2. No, they won’t discuss the currently paused All-University Faculty Committee for Evaluation of Administrators — or will they? At first, claiming that it didn’t fall under mandatory subjects of bargaining, the university refused to discuss resuming this important committee, which is defined in the Enabling Act, Miami’s founding constitution. FAM’s team reminded Miami’s lawyer that the administration had paused this committee because of unionization, pending discussion at the table. FAM has emails from both the Provost and the lawyer confirming this. But Miami’s lawyer denied that unionization played a part in the decision.
       Let’s be clear: if unionization is not the reason, the only other possibility is that faculty governance rights were revoked at the whim of the administration in violation of Miami’s founding shared governance document.
       Following a caucus, the administration agreed to look into the issue and promised to get back to us. Our team will not let this matter fall off the table. It’s important that shared governance committees continue, and that the faculty and librarians elected to serve on AFCEA can resume their key role in the evaluation of university administrators.
   
3. No, they say, academic freedom is not part of our working conditions. FAM’s team last week passed across a proposal that would improve the protections afforded to our faculty’s academic freedom. The University has not decided yet if they will even consider it. They claim academic freedom is a permissive subject of bargaining (that is, they think they don’t have to negotiate with us about it) and disagree that academic freedom rights have direct impact on our working conditions. Our bargaining team will continue to fight to protect FAM-T members’ academic freedom in an increasingly challenging political environment for research and teaching.
   
4. No to bargaining at a location accessible to more faculty. FAM pushed the University to agree to a bargaining location in Oxford, even off campus. They will not even consider locations that are not on any Miami campus. We did finally get them to agree to evaluate McGuffey Hall, a building on Miami’s Oxford campus where the first FAM-L bargaining session will be held, or possibly Hamilton campus, but it is likely they will continue to insist on bargaining at Voice of America.

The University brought five new proposals to the table on: discipline and discharge; health, safety, and security; appointments; duration; and grievance and arbitration. They reviewed FAM’s counter proposals for separability and labor management, but have only made a counter proposal for labor management. Our team is hard at work reviewing these before the next bargaining session. Here’s a Proposal Status Tracker (scroll down) with information on the proposals from both sides and where they stand. 

So, is there any good news from today?

Today did bring two successes: first, FAM passed a proposal on non-discrimination across the table; second, we TA’ed FAM’s counter proposal for recognition (that means that we have a tentative agreement on a proposal that will be part of the contract).

You’re probably angry. You should be. Let’s do something about it.

Here’s what you can do to take action:

1. Ask your chair, either in person or by phone, about the status of academic freedom at Miami. Ask them if academic freedom is NOT part of your working conditions at Miami, because you heard that this is what the administration said at bargaining.
   
2. Attend President Crawford’s State of the University address and show support for FAM! The address will happen on Tuesday, October 3 at Hall Auditorium. The doors open at 3pm, and remarks begin at 3:30pm. Wear FAM buttons!
   
3. Post FAM’s Bargaining Platform poster outside your office. If you don’t have one, email info@famiami.org and we will bring one to you!
   
4. Mountains don’t move themselves. Build the necessary leverage by signing a membership card — and if you already have, encourage a colleague to sign. Contact your liaison or request a membership card here!

 As you recall from our last session, the administration gave a firm “no” to faculty and librarian units bargaining at the same table (and are thus paying two outside law firms to negotiate what will be nearly identical contracts). So, while the librarian unit (“FAM-L”) remains an essential part of FAM, we reported above on bargaining for “FAM-T,” the tenured, tenure-track and TCPL faculty unit.

Librarians will be having their first bargaining session this Friday, September 29, in McGuffey 322 with an 11:00am start time. Please attend to support your amazing librarians! FAM-T’s next bargaining session will be on Wednesday, October 18.

If you want the latest updates on bargaining as soon as we hear them, please follow FAM on social media!