At FAM-T’s seventh bargaining session today, many proposals and counter-proposals passed across the table. The team is optimistic — we are making steady progress through the non-economic proposals.

There’s a lot to discuss here, plua additional information in several short post-bargaining videos from FAM’s Negotiating Team here. Let us know if you have questions or feedback.

Proposals and Counterproposals

FAM put forward a proposal on Promotion, Tenure, and Time. This proposal articulates and clarifies the timeline for bargaining unit faculty going up for promotion, including how many years of credit new faculty can come in with. It would also improve current policy for faculty whose life circumstances require a reasonable extension, so that they can obtain one and know how to do so. 

We continued our back-and-forth on Appointment, Renewal, and Promotion of TCPL Faculty. Over the past decade, the Faculty Welfare Committee worked through shared governance to improve job security and promotion opportunities for TCPL and to clarify their appointment processes, qualifications and evaluation. We put forward a proposal at an earlier session that seeks to protect and build on these advancements. Management responded with a counter-proposal that strips them away, taking TCPL backward. Our counter-proposal (at link) again seeks to codify and strengthen them.

We also passed across a counterproposal on Purpose. This contract article states the purpose of the new partnership between FAM and management. Management wants a simple legal statement of a contractual relationship, while FAM would like to capture how the agreement furthers the mission of the university.

Our counterproposal on Dues Deduction describes how dues will be paid to FAM using payroll deduction to make it easier and more responsive for our membership and for FAM bookkeeping. We want to have a reliable list of members and to be able to audit deductions to ensure accuracy.

Finally, we submitted an Information request for a searchable PDF of the Policy Library (formally MUPIM). The online format of the Policy Library makes it hard to be certain we have consulted every relevant policy, and we want to ensure all our proposals carefully consider all current policies so we can improve upon them.

When Will We Bargain in Oxford?

We’re still pushing hard for holding bargaining sessions where the majority of faculty are, in Oxford. Management have declined to use Roudebush, Shriver, Marcum, and many other spaces we have proposed including community spaces uptown. They want the FAM team to propose all possible locations, though faculty do not yet have access to the spring room scheduling information that management could no doubt obtain. 

When we inquired with both the FAM-T and the FAM-L law firms about future bargaining locations in Oxford, one law firm responded for both firms, leading us once again to question why management continues to require two separate bargaining tables, and why our employer is paying for two outside law firms to negotiate a substantially identical contract.

Use Your Power

• How to show management that keeping most faculty at a distance from bargaining is losing them support: join the majority of your colleagues as a FAM member! Request a membership card here: bit.ly/FAMMembership.

• Protect shared governance rights by turning out for the special Faculty Assembly on November 30. The Assembly is happening because over 100 colleagues petitioned to demand reinstatement of the All-Faculty Committee on Evaluation of Administrators. 
  
  A quorum of 25% will enable a vote for reinstatement. That’s over 200 faculty! Be there so the administration hears, loud and clear, what faculty think about the dismantling of this important elected shared governance committee.

Together we will win a strong foundational contract. Solidarity!