Before we report, a reminder to attend Faculty Assembly this Thursday, November 30 at 4:15pm, 102 Benton. This special Faculty Assembly was called by a petition signed by 117 faculty. Their resolution — to preserve shared governance by reinstating the All-Faculty Committee for Evaluation of Administrators — can be voted on if a quorum of 25% of Faculty Assembly is reached. That’s over 200 faculty and librarians. Be there, and bring a friend to ensure you and your colleagues can vote!
We made great progress in our fourth bargaining session for the FAM-Librarians today in Hamilton. Overall, our team has now proposed 11 new articles and four memoranda of understanding (MOU). We’ve also written four articles to counter several of their seven proposals and one MOU. We are making great progress and expect to make a lot more at our bargaining sessions in December and January.
Our Accessibility of Meetings MOU proposal would allow faculty and librarians to participate remotely in shared governance and other university-wide meetings. This MOU was sent to both legal teams on behalf of both the librarian and faculty units. By allowing virtual participation by faculty and librarians on different campuses, on leave, or at home caring for a dependent, the proposal will strengthen shared governance and our ability to protect our rights. Tomorrow’s upcoming Faculty Assembly would be so much easier and better if our MOU were in place. Still, we’re inspired by how many faculty and librarians have told us that they’ll make time to be there tomorrow at 4:15 pm in Benton 102.
The grievance and arbitration article is one of the most important articles in the contract, because it serves as the enforcement mechanism for everything you want in the contract. The administration made their initial proposal on how grievances and arbitration should work. Under the proposal management introduced today, if you file a grievance against your supervisor, you have to notify your supervisor and the supervisor gets to pick themself or their designee to start the investigation. There’s other language that encourages the administration to investigate itself for actionable wrong-doing undermining the due process rights our members expect. These kinds of clauses could make the contract unenforceable.
We seek fair working conditions that feature clarity in expectations, transparency in setting those expectations, and equity in the university’s treatment of our members with our Scope of Librarian Duties and Working Conditions. Our librarians have been continuously overworked with little regard for the ever evolving expectations placed upon them; we aim to change that. Part of improving our working conditions demands accountability of administration for better attainment of our mission and protection of our members. That’s why our Evaluation of Administrators proposal sets criteria for regularly evaluating Libraries department heads, all of the division’s deans, and the provost and president and mechanisms for holding them accountable.
In addition, management passed across a Health, Safety, and Security proposal and rejected our data sharing proposal, while FAM-L passed counters to the purpose and separability articles. Compensation proposals will be coming soon in future bargaining sessions!
Articles Passed Across
From FAM-L:
- Scope of Librarian Duties and Working Conditions (FAM Proposal 2023.11.29) defines what librarians do
- Evaluation of Administrators provides criteria and mechanisms for evaluating administrators
- Purpose; we sent back our counter to their counter ; defines the goals of the contract
- Separability; we sent back our counter to their counter; protects the contract in case a part of it is invalidated for some reason
- MOU – Accessibility of Meetings, seeks to open university-level meetings such as senate and Faculty Assembly to online participation.
From Management:
- HEALTH, SAFETY, AND SECURITY: regulates the working environment; needs a closer review from our team
- GRIEVANCE AND ARBITRATION: they want us to sign away our ability to take the university to court
- Management rejected our data request proposal; they said they don’t need to provide data, it is public — although we’ve submitted multiple public records requests to obtain data they have so far been unwilling to share.
What You Can Do
Did you know that FAM members (who set the direction for our democratic union and vote on FAM’s contract, constitution and bylaws, and officers) are now a majority of faculty and librarians? You can help us reach a super-majority of membership by bringing a friend with you to bargaining. So come and join us in person or on zoom! RSVP here for location and Zoom link.
For a complete list of proposals and MOUs submitted so far and where they are in the process, visit the FAM-L Proposal Tracker (scroll down).
We’ll be back for FAM-L negotiations on Friday, December 15, with a tentative location of Hamilton’s Wilks Conference Center, then December 21. The next FAM-T bargaining sessions are next Wednesday, December 6, then December 19. RSVP here for locations and Zoom link: tinyurl.com/FAMbargaining.
Meanwhile: help win a better contract by increasing union leverage at the table — join FAM!
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