Last week on October 21 and 22, our SEIU Higher Ed Bargaining Team met with management for our third negotiation session, where both teams offered multiple proposals.

During this session, Management proposed the following takeaways to our rights as a union and as workers:

• Removal of layoff protections: “Temporary interruptions of employment,” where there is no work and the employee isn’t on the schedule or paid, should not be considered layoffs and affected employees shouldn’t have the layoff protections of our contract. There should be no limit on the length of time these ‘temporary’ interruptions can last.
• Erosion of work/life balance: Remove “call-back” pay for workers who don’t report to campus. This would mean that if we are called in to work from home in the middle of the night, even for 15 minutes, we wouldn’t be guaranteed two hours of call-back pay.
• Changes to our working conditions: If our contract doesn’t specifically address an issue, management should be allowed to change any of our working conditions even while our contract is in place. If we have concerns about the change, we can discuss it with them as a union but if we don’t agree, management would be able to implement the change unilaterally.

Our team proposed the following:

• A two-year contract, with increases to wage scales that keep up with the rising cost of living (5.4% in the first year, and 3.5% in the second year).
• Raising all wage scales to at least $15 per hour.
• Selective salary increases for multiple classifications, including positions in the Administrative Job Family that are historically underpaid and held by women.
• Employees pay 3% for all lower-cost health insurance plans, not just the cheapest option available.
• A new article on remote work that ensures management can’t arbitrarily deny requests to work remotely and must respond to requests in a timely way.
• Language dealing with inclement weather, health and safety, layoff procedures, and work schedules.

Our next bargaining session will take place November 16-17 at PSU.