NEIUPI

Your UPI negotiating team met with the administration and their new attorney, Andrea Waintroob, for approximately 90 minutes this morning. Your team passed counter proposals on several articles that have a negotiating history but never reached tentative agreement (TA). We grouped these articles as an evaluation package. Included in this package were articles on evaluation of Teaching and Resource Professionals, evaluation of Instructors and Academic Resource Professionals (ARP), retention of Academic Support Professionals (ASP), status statements for Instructors, ARP and ASP and the two articles that address sanction and termination of bargaining unit employees.

We had anticipated a response to our July 27 counter to the administration’s compensation proposal. Unfortunately, the administration’s response on compensation passed today was incomplete so we will have to wait for the administration’s finished document.

Our lead negotiator, Jamie Daniel, suggested several options for future negotiation sessions: Tuesday mornings, Thursdays, Fridays after 10:30, evenings and weekends. The administration offered the following dates through September so if you are counting days until we reach agreement, mark your calendars for August 31, September 14, September 21 and September 28.

The administration brought a list of 18 questions to negotiations today. A few questions addressed a specific aspect of the UPI proposal that needed clarification. The majority of the questions were open-ended and appeared to be “retreads” of issues discussed during our IBB years. For example, two of the questions were:

1. What professional responsibility do Teaching Professionals and Resource Professionals have to engage in some/any research and service whether it is on a workload assignment or not?

2. How can unassigned obligations/responsibilities of professionals to a university (such as attending meetings, attending graduation, participating is admissions decisions, attending University Day, assessing student work and outcomes) be articulated without listing these specific obligations on an annual workload assignment?

Your UPI team caucused for a little more than an hour to develop responses to the administration’s questions. Negotiations reconvened and our responses delivered to the administration along with a clear statement that we expected the administration to deliver counter proposals rather than revert to discussions covered during the IBB process.

The most interesting development of day came at the end of the session. The administration’s lead negotiator, Attorney Kyle Johansen, reported that today was his last session. Andrea Waintroob of Franczek and Radelet (same firm) would take on the responsibilities of lead negotiator but she requires more time to become familiar with the history of our negotiations. As a result, negotiations scheduled for next week is canceled but our last date in August (23rd) will stand.