Interim Report on UFE Bargaining
Sept. 15, 2008

How close are we to a tentative contract agreement? The UFE Bargaining Team has been hard at work throughout the summer. Since our last report on May 7, we have had two further negotiation sessions in May, four sessions in June, four in July, three in August, and we will have four this month and are prepared to continue into October. As schedules permit, we’ve moved into longer, all-day sessions. Counter proposals are crossing the table in both directions, and both sides are working hard, productively, and with a sense of urgency to reach an overall agreement in a matter of weeks, not months. We’re well into the substance of resolution, compromise and agreement. Everyone has this Big Question in mind and hopes the answer is “Quite close.”

The UFE bargaining team continues to pursue our three principal objectives: preserving and enhancing Evergreen’s traditions and ideals - those features that make us a distinctive, outstanding liberal arts college; ensuring that faculty are compensated at the level of their true worth, which means pressing hard to realize the long-standing goal of reaching the 75th percentile in comparison with peer institutions (not letting this remain a “long-term” goal); and achieving parity that restores our sense we are one faculty without hierarchical distinctions that impede collegial, collaborative relationships. These objectives remain the standards against which we measure our work and our progress towards a tentative agreement we can bring to UFE membership for ratification.

Breaking up a log-jam on Faculty Membership, Responsibilities, and Reappointment: Categories of Faculty Membership (Article IV in our March proposed contract), Professional Responsibilities (Article XIII) and Reappointment and Conversion (Article VI) tie together in direct ways: one’s responsibilities as, for example, a regular member of the faculty (rather than visitor or adjunct), bear directly on one’s reappointment to a further contract (term or continuing). We are making substantial progress addressing these relationships, and we hope for tentative agreements on Articles IV, VI, and XIII in the near future. This will clear the way for a number of smaller, although certainly important, matters that have been on hold while we sort out this large, complex set of agreements. At this point, we believe we’re arriving at a good balance between faculty autonomy and responsibility, a way of solving problems in “staffing the curriculum” that respects important differences among faculty in how their time and energy are best used.

Shared Governance: As we reported in May, we are seeking to protect and strengthen the role of faculty in College governance: faculty responsibilities for curriculum, academic structures and standards, and all that pertains to our work as professionals. We are making important progress in sorting out what will have to be addressed in the “Revised Faculty Handbook” once we have a ratified contract. Members of the UFE Coordinating Committee and Bargaining Team joined the Agenda Committee retreat last week to begin thinking about how this revision will be carried out. Also, as we said in May, we find that the Administration team shares the goal of protecting shared governance. We’re optimistic we can reach an agreement that will respect and enhance our past and present practices.

Tentative Agreements: Early on we had reached tentative agreements on a Conflict of Interest policy (Article XXI) and on the UFE-Management Committee (Article XVIII). In addition to these relatively simple matters, we now have come to tentative agreements on a Grievance Procedure (Article XVII) (one that includes third party arbitration), and another on important aspects of Faculty Workload (Article XIV). We also are closing in on a TA for Discipline and Discharge (Article XVI).

Overall Compensation: Faculty compensation includes several things beyond wages – professional development and travel, opportunities for leave, retirement and insurance benefits among them. These matters tend to come to the table near the end of negotiations. Everyone at the table recognizes that Evergreen faculty are not being compensated adequately, but how this will play out concretely won’t be known until we’re nearly done. We noted in our May report that in his Supplemental Budget Request for 2008-09, President Purce had again endorsed the goal of bringing Evergreen faculty compensation levels “...to the 75th percentile of the national marketplace.” We are pushing hard for this commitment to be recognizable in the levels of compensation we achieve in our first contract.

Around the Corner: We are approaching several issues that haven’t yet been discussed in detail: Academic Freedom, Faculty Development and Travel, Professional Leave and Leave Without Pay, Faculty Working Conditions and Safety, Retirement and Insurance Benefits, Reduction in Force, and others. We have made good progress on Reappointment and Conversion for Regular Faculty, and we have had fruitful discussions of the need for longer-term adjunct contracts. We are still waiting, however, for the Administration’s response to our proposed policy for Long-Term Visitors (and those who already meet criteria for this category of faculty), the LTVAFAP DTF recommendations adopted by the Faculty in February. We have discussed approaching this in a working session that includes conversations (not formal negotiations) with the academic deans. This proved to be productive in addressing the “log-jam” mentioned above.

How close are we, then, to a Tentative Agreement on the entire contract? We said in May that we were hoping to present a tentative agreement for ratification “early in the fall.” After four additional months and many sessions, and because our negotiations have led both teams into respectful, productive strategies that promise resolution of even our most challenging differences, we hold this hope with greater confidence. We cannot say we know we will have a tentative agreement in a month or so, but...

We propose to meet with the Faculty
Friday, Oct. 17, 5 pm - 7 pm, Sem 2 C 1107
with one of two objectives:

- EITHER WE WILL ANNOUNCE A TENTATIVE AGREEMENT
OR
- WE WILL PRESENT THE ISSUES
WE WANT FACULTY TO STAND UP FOR AND SUPPORT

Chuck Pailthorp,
for UFE Bargaining Team

José Gómez
Jeanne Hahn
Laurie Meeker
Gary McNeil*
Zahid Shariff
Rebecca Sunderman
Edward Taub*

*United Faculty of Washington State (WEA/AFT)