Hello Friends,
This is Peter Campbell, your new communications officer. I’m writing to
provide everyone with some more details and explanation of what’s going on
with bargaining, and why the bargaining team has gone into federal
mediation with the University administration. Before I get into the
details, I want to say that after our initial announcement of what
happened in the GEO-L on Tuesday, there have been a lot of requests from
members for more information – as part of our ongoing effort to keep all
GEO members involved in the bargaining process, we’re putting up a contact
email for the bargaining team at geocontract.org. Feel free to contact me
or the team with any questions you have about bargaining, negotiations,
etc. We also welcome suggestions for information you would like to see
posted at geocontract.org.
When the bargaining team presented a comprehensive proposal for a new
contract to the administration on April 21st, the administration team
responded by saying that before discussing the contract, they wanted to
first agree on a set of ‘ground rules.’ ‘Ground rules’ are not a required
part of bargaining – the Illinois labor law already sets legal ground
rules for these negotiations. The bargaining team told the administration
that the Illinois labor law already sets ‘ground rules,’ and that they
would like to start discussing specific contract proposals on the topics
of union rights, parking, and notices of appointment on May 5.
On Tuesday, the bargaining team opened the session by attempting to pass
our initial contract proposals across, and the administration’s team
responded by passing around a written proposal for eight ‘ground rules.’
The administration team said these ‘ground rules’ would be necessary to
make sure that the negotiations proceed cooperatively and in good faith,
and that the document could serve as a “memorial” to a new spirit of
cooperation between the GEO and the administration.
Our team had several problems with this. First, this document was exactly
the same as the ‘ground rules’ that were proposed, and rejected, in 2007,
making the claim that it represents a new spirit of cooperation
disingenuous. Second, many of these ‘ground rules’ are clearly designed
to restrict our ability to bargain in good faith and to communicate with
our membership – the administration wanted us to agree to stop all
communication with the press, to restrict the number of representatives at
the meetings to eight, and to not communicate any details about bargaining
with the membership. From the bargaining team’s perspective, these rules
were completely unacceptable – they would prevent the team from doing
their jobs as the representatives of the entire GEO.
More importantly, ‘ground rules’ are part of what the labor law defines as
“permissible areas of bargaining.” This means that while either side can
propose them, neither side is obligated in any way to accept them – even
in mediation. This reinforces our interpretation of these ‘ground rules’
as a stalling tactic by the administration to avoid talking about our
contract proposal.
At the meeting on Tuesday, the bargaining team tried, over and over again,
to shift the discussion to our actual contract proposal – this is, after
all, the purpose of the negotiations. Over and over, the administration
team insisted on bringing the discussion back to ‘ground rules,’ ignoring
our position that the labor law already provides for ground rules, and
that we are here to bargain in good faith about the contract. Finally,
the bargaining team said that our position was that we are here to discuss
the contract, and that if the administration would refuse to discuss the
contract without discussing ground rules, then perhaps mediation would be
required. The administration team caucused (left the room to discuss),
and returned with five minutes left in the session to say that they would
like to go to mediation.
So that’s where we are now. Again, the administration team’s position was
that they would refuse to discuss the contract without first discussing
ground rules. The problem is that while they are legally obligated to
discuss the contract, there is no legal obligation to discuss ground
rules. This is important, because even though we are in mediation, we
will never be obligated to discuss anything but the contract proposal
itself – we’re hopeful that mediation will be an opportunity to steer the
administration back to a discussion of the contract.
Finally, while moving to mediation after only the second session of
bargaining is frustrating in many ways, it sends a clear signal to the
administration that we are not interested in their stall tactics, and that
we are also not interested in discussing any proposal to prevent the
bargaining team from communicating with its own membership and with the
public at large.
I think that pretty much covers the details of what’s happened – if you
have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please contact me at
odell.campbell@gmail.com, or contact the bargaining team using the contact
information up at geocontract.org (coming soon). Geocontract.org is also
a website that you can check regularly for updates on bargaining and
events related to bargaining. As your communications officer, I’ll
continue to keep you posted about developments during bargaining as they
happen, and I’ll work to be as detailed as possible with these updates.
Please email me any time you feel you need clarification on an
announcement we have made.
Thank you,
Peter