By now, you may have seen the news that management’s lead lawyer on the FAM-T side has stepped away, and will soon be replaced. Read FAM’s statement below.
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FAM statement about the change to management’s negotiating team
FAM, AAUP-AFT has been negotiating with Miami University for over 460 days. In that time, we have faced numerous delays on the part of the university. We hope that this latest change to the university’s negotiating team will not cause even further delays.
It is unfortunate that Miami University has decided to spend upwards of a million dollars on two outside law firms to fight its faculty and librarian unions instead of working with us to pay employees fairly.
We are committed to working out a fair contract as soon as possible, and we demand that the university make a good-faith and timely effort to work with us on raises, benefits, and job security.
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Now for your bargaining update.
Today at FAM-T bargaining, we had many surprisingly productive conversations with management about your top priorities: compensation and job security. FAM began the day by countering on Compensation, maintaining high across-the-board percentage increases and progressive equity measures. Despite the momentum we have seen at the table, we have yet to see Management have any sense of urgency to meet to get this contract done. We have repeatedly pushed for additional dates for December, but Management was only willing to commit to meeting on two days next month: January 3 and 14.
For their part, management countered with two packages:
- Management Rights, Association Rights, and Intellectual Property
- Leaves, Faculty Evaluations, Performance Improvement Plans, and Compensation
Management’s packages made good movement toward providing both service credit for faculty work on behalf of FAM, promotion increases, and some other measures. While Management refused to commit most of their movement on paper in their counters, we have made good progress in terms of clarifying how we can continue to make forward movement to get this contract done. Our team is committed to quickly converting conversations into counter proposals, which we will send to Management’s team as quickly as possible in hopes that they will respond over the break.
We need YOU there to get this contract done! On Friday morning, December 13th, at 8:45am, we are planning a major show of force at the Board of Trustees meeting and we need as many people as possible to demonstrate the strength of solidarity. RSVP here! (And if you’re still fired up after that, join our Negotiation Team at Demske for FAM-L’s bargaining session on the same day.)
You can read all proposals in full at our website!
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FAM Fact of the Day
Miami’s Board of Trustees voted in September to grant President Crawford a 3% raise, for a total salary of $572,335 (retroactive to July 1, 2024), not including an additional bonus payment of yet another $75,000. Moreover, they voted to raise University Ambassador Renate Crawford’s salary to $59,000 (retroactive to 2023). We look forward to our retroactive raises soon.
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