Last thoughts on not striking/the latest contract

Slight update #2: Here’s a link to the Annarbor.com wrap-up article, one that I don’t think is quite right, but….

A slight update: I’ve cut and pasted EMU-AAUP President Susan Moeller’s email to faculty below after the “read more” part. Note that the two links in her email take you to PDF files.

A few last thoughts on the tentative agreement that the EMU-AAUP negotiated with the administration:

• The feeling/vibe I had from the negotiating team and the crowd in general in Roosevelt this afternoon was more of “relief” than it was of a feeling of “victory” or even of “happiness.”  I suspect it got pretty brutal in the last throws of the negotiation process.  In any event, I think that the negotiating team calculated– correctly, in my view– that this was as good as they were going to get and to go on strike again would get the faculty very little more than this agreement.  So, as Kenny Rogers reminds us, one needs to know when to hold ‘em, and when to fold ‘em.
• And this is also part of the two year deal, no doubt.  I have to assume the union is feeling like the shorter term on the contract will help them in the next round of negotiations; I have no idea if that is right or not.
• It was interesting to me how long this stupid idea about tying faculty pay raises to rises in enrollment apparently stayed on the table.  According to what we heard at the meeting today, that was an issue of negotiation until 9:30 this morning, and it was also the “brain child” of Board of Regent member Jim Stapleton.  Jeesh.  Anyway, I think that was a “line in the sand issue” for the union– rightfully so– and the administration gave up on the idea.  And I suspect that the administrators negotiating at the table also knew it was a stupid idea.
• I am disappointed that the pay raise for full professors after 10 years was taken off the table, though.  I don’t know exactly what the details were with that and maybe it was something too complicated to work out for this contract, but I really REALLY wish there could be a deal here.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:  it is too easy to get tenure and promotion at EMU (at least it is in my department), and there ought to be some sort of reward/motivation for people who get promoted to full professor to keep active in terms of scholarship, service, and innovation in teaching.  In any event, this is an issue that might actually motivate me to participate in the Bargaining Council for 2011.
• By the end/middle of the meeting today, the villains here were the Board of Regents.  Supposedly, there were all sorts of threats from them and in-fighting amongst them, and there was a lot of energy at this meeting for political action and organizing to educate folks about the problem of the Board, but I have to say, I am a bit of a skeptic that anything will come of that.
• If there is an effort to make something happen with a political action committee or some other charge to educate people about what’s happening with the board, I’m happy to contribute this space or my expertise with making a space like this work for this yet to be formed group.
• Speaking of which:  EMUTalk.org came up a couple of time over this process in ways I thought were kind of interesting.  One of my friends/colleagues tied to the negotiating process wasn’t happy with something I posted earlier; someone who has been involved in union stuff/Faculty senate stuff around here for a long time complimented me today on what I’ve been posting; and someone mentioned EMUTalk.org in a comment/question at the meeting today in a way I’m nut sure was favorable or not.

  Well, look:  the thing about EMUTalk is I want and encourage people associated with and interested in EMU to participate.  That includes everyone and anyone: faculty, students, staff, administrators, alumni, people in the community, whoever.  So if you read something here that you don’t like and/don’t agree with, why not go ahead and comment on it? As long as it falls within the realm of “The Rules,” I will happily allow it and encourage it.

  And better yet, why not apply to be a writer on EMUTalk so you can write original posts and start conversations on your own?  Just write me at emutalk@gmail.com

  One of my colleagues (who is not yet tenured) expressed some interest in becoming an EMUTalk writer, but was worried about it.  Be assured that while I need to know who is writing original posts, there is no reason why you can’t write under a pseudonym.  And has clearly been the case many times over the years, you can comment on posts anonymously and/or with a pseudonym, too.

And now, from the EMU-AAUP:

Dear Faculty Colleagues:

Thank you all so much for your support of the work of the AAUP negotiating team. We appreciate that so many of you attended today’s noon meeting and that you were supportive of the tentative agreement.

We believe that this was the best contract we could obtain for the EMU faculty at this time, given the health care rates paid by our comparable institutions. We agreed to a two-year contract with the hope that the Michigan economy will improve over the next two years.

In addition, this tentative agreement met our two main principles:

1. No faculty member take a pay cut – the 1% raise and the $1000 flat raise in the first year of the contract will cover the pre-tax health care hit.

2. No raise will be tied to enrollment and/or appropriations.

You can review today’s presentation on the tentative agreement at:

http://emuprofessors.org/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=200099&view=finish&cid=4&catid=1

And the new health care premiums of the PPO1 and PPO2 at:

http://emuprofessors.org/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=200099&view=finish&cid=6&catid=1

We are tired – more news tomorrow.

Susan Moeller
EMU-AAUP President