Category Archives: The Strike of 2006

Well, we’re into the thick of it:  fact finding hearings are here and here in a big way.

There’s a bunch of stuff over at the EMU-AAUP web site, but quite frankly, I haven’t had the time to sit down to review the 145 slide PowerPoint presentation, mainly because I have a job and a life.  Maybe over the break.  One of my colleagues who did look at it told me that what bothered him was how small the numbers actually are– that is, the faculty and the administration or only a point or two apart.  On the one hand, my reaction is one of disgust with the whole process, just a revisiting of the whole “trench warfare” that has always characterized this debacle.  On the other hand, the union has given up enough, the administration’s position is still a problem, and hey, a percentage here and there adds up fast.  The faculty shouldn’t budge anymore, not for a penny.
Anyway, now that we are really into the fact finding process, I’m beginning to think that the suits are getting ready to change their tune about the promise of it all.

Let’s revisit some “ancient” history, way back in September 2006.  Just in case anyone has forgotten, the administration was the first to suggest fact finding (the union originally rejected that idea).  After we decided to take this path in mid-September, I wrote this post about the whole process on this very blog. The AA News article is no longer available online, but here is what Fallon said (and what I quoted back then):

The process could take several months, and the recommendations are not binding, although it’s likely the university would accept the findings, President John Fallon said Wednesday. (emphasis mine)

And I’m pretty sure that Fallon said more or less the same thing on WEMU and in a couple of other places.

Well, just this afternoon, I (and everyone else at EMU) received an email from the ever impartial Pam Young, which included the following passage:

“It is important to remind everyone that this process is not definitive, but a conflict resolution process,� [Provost Don] Loppnow said. “Once we get the recommendation from the fact finder we will go back to the bargaining table.�

I think the Echo had a similar quote from Ward Mullens, though their web site hasn’t been updated yet.  The point is this:  I think the suits are getting ready to weasel out of this.  Or at least some of them are.

Deep sigh….

I guess I just have two more thoughts for now.

First, I think that Fallon needs to once and for all decide if he is really the president of this place.  Is he actually willing to truly “call the shots” here, or is he just a yes-man trying to keep his job? Is it going to turn out that he was lying back in September?  Or is he going to stick to some of the weasel words in there, the “likely” word for example, and say he didn’t mean what he said all along?

Second, if there is not at least some sort of movement on the administration’s end on the contract as a result of fact finding (especially if fact finding more or less favors the faculty’s position and especially after spending all this money and time on this), then
the disfunction that’s been the undercurrent of EMU all year will only get worse and worse and worse.

Don’t weasel on us, my suited friends.  Do not at this point start a revisionist history where you claim that you never cared that much about this process in the first place.

In the whole excitement about caps in online courses (wow, when I put it like that, it isn’t exactly that exciting…) I completely forgot to mention that EMU-AAUP President Howard Bunsis sent around an email about the latest talks between the faculty and the administration. This is probably just my own perceptions, but it seems to me like something new is happening here. The union is sounding a lot more cool, collected, and, um, reasonable.

You can read all/more about it on the EMU-AAUP Negotiations Blog; here’s what I think.

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Here’s a nice way to end the year:

EMU-AAUP Prez Howard Bunsis sent around an email last night that announced the fact finder results for “comparable institutions.” This is an important first step in the whole fact finding process (frankly, it should be an important first step in any contract negotiation) because it gives folks on both sides of the table a sense of who we are “like,” which then suggests all kinds of other things (like salaries, TIAA-CREF, etc., etc.).

Okay, so here’s the list:

• Akron
• Kent State
• Toledo
• Central Michigan
• Western Michigan
• Ball State
• Grand Valley State

According to Bunsis, six out of the seven schools on this list were on the union’s list. But then he says:

a. All 5 universities from the MAC that the AAUP recommended were accepted by the fact finder
b. Only one of the 4 universities recommended by the administration were included
c. The report makes reference to the empirical and analytical approach utilized by the AAUP

I am probably missing something here, but the five versus six versus four thing is a little fuzzy to me.

Anyway, I think this says basically two things about the fact finding process so far. First, it seems to be working out because I think it’s really fair to say that this is a list of schools that is in many ways “like us.” Even Grand Valley, but that’s a different argument for a different time. Second, it would appear that the work that the union has put into the fact finding process so far is paying off.

Bunsis said that the first fact finding hearing is going to be on February 13. To me, what’s interesting is what might happen between now and then. I think this decision might prompt the administration to make a significant offer in an effort to “make this go away.” Which would be good. On the other hand, this decision might also prompt the EMU-AAUP to ride the fact finding process out. That might be good too because, you know, as much as I want a contract settlement, maybe it would be a good idea to have some “facts found.”

Of course, as Bunsis pointed out, this first decision doesn’t mean the final results of fact finding are going to be in our favor. For example, I can easily imagine a scenario where fact finding discovers that faculty at these comparable institutions pay way more for insurance than the administration is asking.

I guess we’ll just have to see what happens next year. It’s still good news, though, and congrats to the EMU-AAUP folks who crunched and presented the numbers on this.

PS:

The Ann Arbor News has an article about this here.

Just in time for the break comes a couple of interesting tidbits about the on-going/never-ending saga of the 2006 (soon to be 2006-7) faculty strike!

First, the EMU-AAUP a) has started posting again on its blog about current events, and b) has a new chief negotiator for the contract, Paul Leighton. I like to think that this little effort here had something to do with the reasons why the EMU-AAUP decided to finally start actually using its own web site to get the word out. I’m not sure what the deal is with Leighton taking over the negotiator role though; Paul’s a good guy and I’m sure he will do well, but I also suspect there is something going on behind the scenes.

Anyway, much of the public news on what has been going on with negotiations as of late seems to me to have recently been trumped with the leakage of the “deal” the administration was offering to faculty last week.

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I had a couple of curious email messages waiting for me this morning– well, me and every other faculty member at EMU. The first was from John Fallon; he wrote:

Last Thursday evening, December 7, 2006, members of the EMU-AAUP’s Executive Board and representatives of the University met to discuss the open issues. More specifically, the administrative team shared a variety of new perspectives on key items. It is my understanding that the parties found this conversation to be constructive and beneficial.

In an effort to further advance the discussions, on Tuesday, December 12, 2006, the University extended a formal contract offer to the EMU-AAUP and asked to resume negotiations as soon as possible. Today the AAUP communicated a willingness to resume negotiations. We expect that discussions will resume early in the new year.

I believe that both parties recognize and understand the urgency and importance of our resolving this matter in the best interest of the University, and are committed to that purpose.

The second was from EMU-AAUP president Howard Bunsis. Among other things, he wrote:

You recently received a ‘periodic update’ email from President Fallon that mischaracterized the talks between the AAUP and the administration.

As my last email indicated, their offer was not significantly different from what we have previously seen, and there were not “a variety of new perspectives on key items�. In the spirit of continued discussion, we agreed this afternoon to meet the administration early next year at a date that is yet to be determined. We are always willing to meet and explore avenues for a potential agreement.

However, we made it clear that we made no commitment to bring a counter-offer, and that we will be discussing concerns with their offer (like a substantially back-loaded long contract that badly lags long-term inflation). This is what President Fallon characterized as “the AAUP communicated a willingness to resume negotiations.�

We presented an overview of their offer to Bargaining Council this week and our actions are consistent with Bargaining Council’s resounding recommendation:

“Continue fact finding and tell the administration our objections without making a formal counteroffer that is less than our last offer.�

In the meantime, all of our focus is on preparing for the December 19th fact finding hearing. Your fact finding team has been working extremely hard to represent the faculty’s interest in the hearing next week.

So, the plot thickens.

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I was actually planning on writing a post a few days ago trying to make heads or tails of what the resigning regents had to say in Tuesday’s Ann Arbor News article, and also why Fallon would say “The level of animosity, distrust and angst is higher than at anyplace I’ve worked, by far.” That’s not a very cool thing to say for at least two reasons.

First off, the only reason why there this intense a level of distrust and angst is because of the protracted faculty strike, and, as I’ve said a million times before– including directly to Höft and Fallon– had the administration not dramatically walked out of the talks back in September, we would have had a deal before classes began and things would have moved along just fine. I have no doubt about that.

Second, this seems to be a pretty blatant violation of one of the main jobs of a university president, which is to be a “cheerleader” for the place. Trash-talking about the institution you’re in charge of– well, that’s not a good idea, IMO.

But I am not a “hater” in this post, and I have given up on trying to figure out what the three resigners were thinking (or, more likely, not thinking). Instead, I want to emphasize some of the honest-to-goodness potentially positive things going on here in the last week or so.

First off, there is the move for leaders in the EMU community to actually have some version of a strategy about lobbying the Governor’s office for Board of Regents appointees. The story I heard was that someone who is both a leader-type in the union and on faculty council suggested that the faculty union, faculty council, and the administration ought to get together to talk about these new regent appointments. Fallon’s office said “that’s a great idea– let’s meet.” Or something like that. Sure, they should have gotten some other unions and student groups and such involved, but it’s still good news to me.
Now, I ask you: would Sam Kirkpatrick have done that?

The second (and bigger shoe) is the process of the informal talks. It’s probably too delicate at this stage for either the EMU-AAUP folks in the know to say anything about this, but I did hear a rumor that the administration was planning on making an offer to move toward a settlement. Hard to say what that means, if it means anything at all. I hope it means that the administration realizes that the union isn’t going to settle for the old offer, but I also hope that the union doesn’t try to hold out for even more, losing site of the fact that we all want to get beyond this stupid strike. Don’t cave, union folk; but don’t get greedy and stupid, either.

Quite frankly, I don’t think the rank and file are going to know anything for sure for a while yet, which is fine. But if anyone knows anything about these shoes dropping….

Update:

Bunsis sent around an email last night while the EMU servers were down (scheduled maintenance) that more or less indicates no real news, but it doesn’t seem like bad news either.  The union and administration “informally” discussed ground rules for informal talks, and about how to balance “confidentiality” with some level of openness with folks at EMU– fair enough. These folks ought to be able to talk and make some deals with a degree of privacy.

On the one hand, I guess it’s a little unrealistic to expect the administration to hand an envelope across the table and say “I think you’ll find this offer very generous,” and then expect the union to look at it and say “Oooo, just what we asked for.  Done!”  In other words, a deal before the break was probably always not in the cards.

On the other hand, there are a few things in Howard’s email that give me pause.  He said “[W]e do not believe that the administration’s stance has changed significantly up to this point. While we want to achieve a fair contract in the near future, speed is ultimately less important than the long run best interests of the faculty at EMU.”  Hard to say what that means, but my fear is it means “At this point, we are going to hold out for more than is realistic because we think we’ve got the upper-hand here, and we don’t really care how long this drags out.”  I’m not saying we should settle too quickly only for the sake of settling, but speed actually is an issue.  Speaking as someone in the faculty rank and file, I think settling “soon” (let’s say by the time of winter break, for example) is in my interest as a faculty member, and it is certainly in the interest of the long-term future of EMU as an institution.

Oh, and it also looks like the talks between the union, the faculty senate, and the administration on BoR appointees went well.  That’s the sort of thing that really is in the long-term best interest of the faculty….

Here’s the latest in today’s episode of faculty contract negotiations, the soap opera/nightmare that we have all been forced to live through for the last three months: EMU President John Fallon sent around an email calling for “informal discussions” with the goal of “resolving all outstanding issues” in the faculty contract as soon as possible.

So, what does this mean? Is this for real? Well, hard to say, but I am ultimately optimistic about this.

My 3.5 cents (plus a reduction in the health care costs, preservation of the current PPO, 10% of base for all CE classes, and a point to TIAA-CREF) below. Continue reading →