The University of Toledo Board of Trustees voted eight to zero to reject the recommendations from the State Employment Relations Board’s Fact-Finding report regarding contract negotiations between UT and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees’ bargaining unit.
The vote came after discussions between UT President Lloyd Jacobs and attending trustees at a special board meeting in the Driscoll Center’s Schmakel Room on Friday evening.
After adjourning the board’s executive session, Jacobs addressed the trustees, advising them to reject the Fact-Finder’s proposal and stressing the importance in finding a more suitable bargaining plan for the AFSCME employees on UT’s Health Science Campus.
“I want very much for the AFSCME union to be treated fairly and have wages, salaries and benefits that are at or better than market, for them to be recompense appropriately for all of their excellent work,” Jacobs told the board. “In spite of all that, I believe, because the report is so difficult to understand, we should reject it – you should reject it.”
AFSCME President Tom Kosek said the Fact-Finder, Gregory Lavelle, is a fair-minded, knowledgeable individual who remained neutral from the beginning of the negotiations.
“He gave both sides ample opportunity to prepare and gave both sides ample opportunity to present their positions… [UT], along with AFSCME, had the opportunity to select or not select this gentleman,” Kosek said.
Chair of the Board Bill Fall said it is his “earnest desire” to find a settlement between UT and AFSCME, but the Fact-Finder report is not something with which UT should proceed.
“It’s sad that we don’t have a clear blueprint, by which we can follow in order to adapt, in a quicker fashion, an acceptable course here,” Fall said.
In an interview with the Independent Collegian, Fall said he thought there were some areas of the report that might cause some confusion if it was used as the basis for the collective bargaining process.
“We were extremely disappointed in the Fact-Finder’s report, and we thought it would be better to start face-to-face negotiations with the AFSCME union,” Fall said.
If the board accepted the Fact-Finder’s recommendations, that would mean the university and union would settle for a 1.67 percent per year increase in wages over a three-year span for the AFSCME employees on the HSC.
The Fact-Finder did not award AFSCME the approximately 9.3 percent wage scale increase it demanded during collective bargaining negotiations beginning in March 2009. UT’s proposal for a three-percent bonus one year and a three-percent wage increase the next year was also not included in the Fact-Finder’s recommendations.
The last collective bargaining agreement between UT and AFSCME expired on June 30, 2009, and the union members have been on a day-to-day contractual agreement ever since.
The day-to-day extended bargaining agreement can be held subject to a 10-day notice of termination.
The bargaining process was renewed on September 28, 2009, and the university approached AFSCME with its “best proposal,” which the union rejected 908 to 281 in December of that year. According to the Fact-Finder, that proposal included no wage increase during the first year of the contract, but instead, a bonus of $1,000 for full-time employees, a $500 bonus for full-time employees, and $250 bonus for contingent, or non-permanent, conditional employees.
The proposal also included a two-percent wage increase to go into effect beginning July 3, 2011 and zero-percent wage increase the following year.
According to the Fact-Finder, UT has defended its proposal by stating economic conditions permit their preferred terms and conditions.
According to an anonymous source from AFSCME, the day-to-day contracts do not give the union employees any protection from arbitrary cuts by the administration, leading to a tense work climate among the union employees on the medical campus.
“It’s terrible. Everybody’s walking on eggshells, afraid they’re going to be out of a job because they just make cuts and don’t even tell the union,” the anonymous source said. “They’re cutting people that are making $40,000 a year that are directly involved with patients, and that’s the bread and butter.”
According to the source, the AFSCME employees on the HSC do not earn the same pay parity as their Main Campus cohorts.
“We still don’t have the same medical [coverage] that main campus has. We’re supposed to get the same parity, we don’t get that….My counterpart on the other campus makes $20,000 more than me and they [the administration] haven’t done anything to rectify that situation.”
UT Trustee Baldemar Velasquez addressed the rest of the board, encouraging them to remain transparent throughout the renegotiation process and to communicate with the public.
“We are a public institution, and the public has the right to know the sentiment of this board and what its desires are... I want to make it very clear to the public as to where this Board of Trustees stands on this in terms of backing our administration to find a workable solution,” Velasquez said.
Jacobs said the major issue the board needs to address is where the renegotiation process should begin.
“Clearly we want to find a workable solution,” Jacobs said. “The issue that you may wish to consider is the starting point: To specify the last best offer as the starting point or not. That’s the issue that I don’t think there is unanimity or not.”
Kosek said there is nothing in the statutory process that speaks to a renegotiation process and that it would have to be accepted by both parties to renegotiate.
“The Fact-Finder is the end…There is no process called ‘renegotiate,’” Kosek said. “You negotiate through until you reach impasse.”
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