Four AFSCME locals reached tentative contract agreements with the University of Minnesota Nov. 23, nine days after negotiators rejected what the university had called its "final offer."
The agreements cover nearly 3,300 clerical, technical and health-care workers at the Twin Cities, Duluth, Crookston, and Morris campuses, plus Extension Service employees statewide. The workers have been without a contract since July 1; the settlement came during a 22-hour bargaining session.
Members of Locals 3260, 3800, 3801 and 3937 will vote on the proposals in mail balloting later in December, said Candace Lund, president of Local 3937.
"Our goal is to have them back and counted by the first week in January," she said. The agreements:
? Provide across-the-board raises of 2 percent to 2.25 percent on July 1 of 2005 and 2006.
? Increase scales at the top of pay ranges by 2 percent on Jan. 1, 2006, for technical workers and 3 percent for health-care workers. Clerical workers at the top of their pay ranges will receive lump-sum payments.
? Provide a general $300 lump-sum payment on July 1, 2006.
? Provide a $300 payment in 2006 and a $150 payment in 2007 to help workers who choose family coverage under the university's new four-tier health-insurance plan.
The clerical workers' settlement also revises job classifications but rebuffed university attempts to eliminate salary grids. Gladys McKenzie, business agent for AFSCME Council 5, said the university wanted to replace the step grids with new pay ranges that would have made it easier to cluster workers at lower wages.
"There are all kinds of hidden ways this was bad news," she said. Further, the proposal threatened to undo one of Local 3800's core accomplishments. "When we first organized the union in 1991," she said, job classifications and step grids were "at the center of the first contract we negotiated."
Targeting union president?
The clerical contract also preserves up to 20 hours a week of paid leave for Local 3800 president Phyllis Walker to conduct union business.
Members interpreted the attempt to eliminate the leave as a sign that the Bruininks administration is targeting Walker for her outspoken opposition to administration policies, Lund said. Lund's local has a similar union leave provision in its contract, which the university did not attempt to eliminate.
Earlier this year, the university filed a criminal charge against Walker, claiming she obstructed university security who were arresting students during a sit-in opposing the decision to close General College.
Walker, who was in a parking garage near where arrests were being made, was not served with the charge until a month after the May protest. On Nov. 10, a Hennepin County District Court judge dismissed the charge before it went to a jury trial, granting a motion of acquittal because of insufficient evidence.
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Michael Kuchta edits the Union Advocate, the official publication of the St. Paul Trades & Labor Assembly. E-mail him at advocate@stpaulunions.org or check out the Assembly's website, www.stpaulunions.org
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Four AFSCME locals reached tentative contract agreements with the University of Minnesota Nov. 23, nine days after negotiators rejected what the university had called its “final offer.”
The agreements cover nearly 3,300 clerical, technical and health-care workers at the Twin Cities, Duluth, Crookston, and Morris campuses, plus Extension Service employees statewide. The workers have been without a contract since July 1; the settlement came during a 22-hour bargaining session.
Members of Locals 3260, 3800, 3801 and 3937 will vote on the proposals in mail balloting later in December, said Candace Lund, president of Local 3937.
“Our goal is to have them back and counted by the first week in January,” she said. The agreements:
? Provide across-the-board raises of 2 percent to 2.25 percent on July 1 of 2005 and 2006.
? Increase scales at the top of pay ranges by 2 percent on Jan. 1, 2006, for technical workers and 3 percent for health-care workers. Clerical workers at the top of their pay ranges will receive lump-sum payments.
? Provide a general $300 lump-sum payment on July 1, 2006.
? Provide a $300 payment in 2006 and a $150 payment in 2007 to help workers who choose family coverage under the university’s new four-tier health-insurance plan.
The clerical workers’ settlement also revises job classifications but rebuffed university attempts to eliminate salary grids. Gladys McKenzie, business agent for AFSCME Council 5, said the university wanted to replace the step grids with new pay ranges that would have made it easier to cluster workers at lower wages.
“There are all kinds of hidden ways this was bad news,” she said. Further, the proposal threatened to undo one of Local 3800’s core accomplishments. “When we first organized the union in 1991,” she said, job classifications and step grids were “at the center of the first contract we negotiated.”
Targeting union president?
The clerical contract also preserves up to 20 hours a week of paid leave for Local 3800 president Phyllis Walker to conduct union business.
Members interpreted the attempt to eliminate the leave as a sign that the Bruininks administration is targeting Walker for her outspoken opposition to administration policies, Lund said. Lund’s local has a similar union leave provision in its contract, which the university did not attempt to eliminate.
Earlier this year, the university filed a criminal charge against Walker, claiming she obstructed university security who were arresting students during a sit-in opposing the decision to close General College.
Walker, who was in a parking garage near where arrests were being made, was not served with the charge until a month after the May protest. On Nov. 10, a Hennepin County District Court judge dismissed the charge before it went to a jury trial, granting a motion of acquittal because of insufficient evidence.
online pharmacy purchase rogaine online with best prices today in the USA
Michael Kuchta edits the Union Advocate, the official publication of the St. Paul Trades & Labor Assembly. E-mail him at advocate@stpaulunions.org or check out the Assembly’s website, www.stpaulunions.org