new contract offer
James Cartwright
committee of UHPA appears to me to be collective cave-in rather than
collective bargaining.
We throw away the payroll lag issue which a court has already ruled
in our favor. The contract does not call for the lag to be resotred.
It mean that during one twelve-month period, we will receive twenty-
three checks, not twenty-four. While the word from the union is that
there will be negotiations that this will not reduce the high three,
nothing is in writing.
We throw away our evergreen clause which keeps the contract in force
after its expiration until another contract is ratified. This clause
kept our health insurance benefits at 60/40 because a clause in our
contract tied our health benefits to the best labor contract with any
public union.
We throw the health insurance ratio away as well, since the new
contract states that we get the same as the best in any contract
ratified after 1 July 2009. The labor contract which served as the
base of the 60/40 ratio is with SHOPO, negotiated in 2007.
We throw away our suit against the University for unilaterally
initiating a pay cut. Once the agreement is ratified by the
membership, the law suit is a non-issue. There will be less
protection against unilateral action against us or any other union in
the future.
While we obtained minima for each rank, the levels set are extremely
low. Moreover, the minima are fully in effect only after the eighteen
months of salary cuts. Moreover, the lowest rank gets abandoned. Rank
II have a minimum of $45,000 established the first year, which will
be reduced by the 6.67% cut. Then the minima goes up to $50,000 but
still subjected to the salary reduction. After that, the minima for
rank II does not increase though the minima for ranks III through V do
continue increasing. This is not important for instructor faculty, as
they are not even hired at rank II. Librarians, however, can not only
be hired as II, they can receive tenure at rank II. The minima for the
higher ranks are also quite low. A graduate last spring from the
University of California School of Information Science, from which I
graduated 22 years ago, can expect a beginning salary higher than I
now earn after 22 years at UH, yet I am paid enough that I'm above the
minimum for my rank.
The union suggested last October two years of a four-year contract to
increase our salaries by 7.5% each year. The counter offer by the
University is for 0% for those two years and then two years at 3% each
year. This is a six-year contract with a total of 6% increase. Yes,
there are statements that the union will negotiate for higher
increases for the final two years, but the University has not
established a good record of negotiating in recent years.
We are asked to trust that some clauses will not last but will be
modified in future MOU's. Among these are the fact that if you are
about to retire, you must do so by 31 December 2010 or wait until
September 2014 in order to have all the salary restorations count in
the high three on which your retirement is based. The contract under
consideration explicitly states that any salary payback which comes
after retirement will not be included in the retirement benefit
calculation; the final payment of these paybacks occurs 1 August 2014
and amounts to 50% of the total. If you retire 1 August 2014, the
payment will be paid out after your retirement. Anyone who separates
from the University prior to paybacks will forfeit those paybacks.
This contract offer abandons most of the protections we have worked
hard to obtain. It has little to offer beyond what the LBFO contained
last September.
Jim Cartwright
Manoa Library.