President's Report -Negotiations
Planning Moving Forward

Both the full-time and the adjunct faculty negotiation teams have been meeting to finalize a set of demands for the upcoming negotiations with the college presidents and the governor’s office.  The teams consist of the executive officers of the Council and three members from each local.  In the formulation of these demands the teams are using the results of the surveys sent out to membership, as well as issues brought forward by members of the teams or the Council staff.  Until we formally present our demands to the Presidents and the Governor’s office we will not make our demands public, as this would give the other side a large advantage in preparing their proposals. As soon as we make our demands known to the State we will also make them available to membership, as well as the proposals that we will have received from the Presidents and the Governor’s office. Once that happens we will begin the process of negotiating over the differences in our positions. This can be a long process.  During this process both the Council and your local leadership will provide updates to keep everyone apprised of our progress.

We are also discussing negotiations strategy, and like the contract proposals, much of what we are discussing needs to remain within the confines of the negotiations team. This will continue to be true throughout negotiations.

I can tell you that we will enter into negotiations with the expectation that both sides will bargain in good faith and follow established labor law.  The first test of that presumption will be whether the Presidents and the Governor intend to honor the terms of the current contract until agreement on a new contract is reached.  During our last set of negotiations the Governor and the Presidents worked together to deliberately violate long established labor law by deciding they could unilaterally abrogate portions of our existing contract.  That was a dishonorable and we believe an illegal move on the part of management, and we were in litigation over the issue when the last contract was settled. As part of the settlement the litigation was dropped. We sincerely hope that management will bargain honorably, and in good faith towards their employees. We start with that presumption, but stand ready to respond appropriately should management choose a path of intentional harm to members of our campuses.