Be prepared, folks! The University's hired gun attorney and the BOT team that he leads are angry about the Union's recent win before the Special Master, and it looks like they are gearing up to punish the workers and blame the Union. It appears that they are soon going to try to tell you that the Union has made it impossible for them to continue some of the popular benefits that were written into the "new" University Regulations. They're going to tell you that the Union's successful challenge to particular Regulations means that management, despite their reluctance, will be forced to throw out the good changes along with the bad. The fact is that nothing in the Special Master's Recommendation supports this action. The University is hauling out its favorite blame and punishment game, pure and simple. We've seen them play it before and are watching them gear up to do it again. We need to be ready this time.
As most of us are aware, in 2001, the State University System (SUS) was dissolved. In 2003, the University was charged with developing new USF Regulations to replace the old SUS Rules. In most cases, the language, intent and effect of the Regulations remained the same as the old Rules. In some cases, changes were made that benefitted the workers, including increased bereavement leave and the addition of floating holidays. In some cases, the changes were not so beneficial. Bill McClelland, staff Union President, pored over those rules for months in order to bring the discrepancies to the Special Master to protect the employee rights that the new Regulations had modified or tossed out.
Ultimately, the Special Master decided in favor of one of the University's changes to the Regulations and decided that the Union had the right to bargain the rest. He never said that all the Regulations were bad and had to be thrown out, nor did he rule that the University had to review all those Regulations already on the books. He clearly did not advocate the dumping of the baby along with the bathwater.
The University has been using the all-or-none argument at the bargaining table since we first introduced the issue of Rules vs. Regs. They claimed all along that a change to one Regulation risked changing all. The Special Master's split decision clearly indicates that this argument does not hold water. That the University will soon be dragging it out again despite the Recommendation is purely to discredit the Union by punishing its constituents, threatening to take away our floating holidays and extended bereavement leave because we won the right to bargain the potentially harmful changes to the status quo. Clearly if the Union does not object to any particular change, then it is the University and the University alone that is objecting to and changing its own Regulations.
From the start of these negotiations, the University has made an assumption of staff ignorance and incompetence. By now, they should know better. We are the ones who keep this University ticking and we are the ones whose arguments prevailed at the Special Master's Impasse Hearing. Was our presentation perfect? No, we made a few mistakes and missed a few turns. But by and large, we prevailed because our arguments were logical, precise and fair. That the University is going to once again attempt to bank on our supposed ignorance and our lower status within the University hierarchy is a disgrace and a shame. Let's not allow them to get away with it.
This next part was written today in response to the pay issue:
As noted in the University’s post, the Union was not contacted with any new pay deal until yesterday. This is tactical timing, folks. While both sides were reviewing the recommendation, we offered to meet with the University IF they had something substantive to discuss but did not receive a reply. We had no opportunity to meet and bargain this new pay deal. We did quickly study it and request clarification which we did not receive. Bear in mind also, that the University witnesses swore with hands in the air that the pay proposal presented before the Special Master was the best the University could do. They gave no indication before yesterday that they had testified wrongfully.
Also, the University’s claim that most people would get more money under this new plan ignores the fact that many of the lowest paid people would get $250 less than the Special Master recommended they receive. These are the people the University wants you and the Union to forget.
Additionally, not only would this new proposal provide less money to the large pool of the most neglected USF workers, It would perpetuate the unfair performance evaluation system that the Special Master objected to in every single aspect outlined by the Union, a system that promised to keep these same full-time workers living in poverty year after year, the same system that the University is desperate to maintain in its current form.
Finally, the threat that we would lose the benefits outlined in the University’s post was made repeatedly at the bargaining table but it was notably absent from the testimony given before the Special Master. It is disingenuous, it is untrue, and if we lose those benefits, it is because the University has chosen to take them away.
