The FAM team prepares to discuss proposals on January 12, 2024

FAM-L Bargaining, Day 8

Your joint faculty-librarian negotiating team continued to make good progress at the FAM-L bargaining table today.

Proposals and Agreements

FAM’s proposal on compensation seeks to assure fair wages for our librarians. It would restore our purchasing power eroded from inflation and years of below-market salaries. It seeks transparency and greater predictability and will increase parity with peer institutions and equity within Miami libraries. Not only would salaries increase beyond recent experience, but librarians will have greater assurance that their labor will be more fairly compensated and the current inequities would be reduced. To accomplish this, our proposal includes: 

  • Immediate raises effective July 1 2023 to be paid as a lump sum
  • Minimum salary floors for each rank of librarian and year of the contract
  • Predictable, set increases for the life of the contract and any interim period before a new contract is negotiated
  • Guaranteed compensation for work undertaken by librarians that is in addition to their primary professional responsibilities
  • A merit pool to recognize the contributions of librarians 

Management’s counter-proposal on Intellectual Property and Copyright demonstrated a major lack of understanding about how artificial intelligence is already affecting higher education. Their counter does not cover AI at all, because they do not view it as an issue currently affecting us. Our own counter-proposal on Intellectual Property, Copyright, and AI (see file 03) ensures that all bargaining members retain the right to their intellectual property. We also propose guarantees and protections of member rights in the face of uncertainty and changes brought by AI — issues already affecting the library and librarians at Miami. 

Management’s non-discrimination counter-proposal still does not meet the minimum requirement for equity and protections of the rights of our members, but they have moved in the right direction by incorporating two phrases from our proposal. Our team is currently reviewing their counter and will continue to advocate for ALL our members.

We reached a Tentative Agreement on Dues Deduction, and we agreed on extending into the summer the Memorandum of Understanding currently in place that covers Library committee activities

Coming up next

Management indicated that they expect to have responses for some of our more substantive proposals by the next time we meet (February 9), but they have yet to confirm a bargaining location.

We continue to demand that negotiations take place more frequently on the Oxford campus so that more librarians and FAM-T faculty can attend. It seems clear that the university fears our numbers and our solidarity. Keep up the good work of showing up and supporting each other! In the meantime, plan to attend the FAM-T bargaining session next Wednesday, January 17 (location TBA).

Also save the date(s) to attend our next major event: the FAM State of Bargaining! There will be two sessions offered in person and on Zoom (register here: https://famiami.org/2024/01/save-the-date-state-of-bargaining): February 8 at 6pm and February 9 at 3pm. Our Negotiation Team will discuss the progress of both units and answer your questions about the process.

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