Negotiations toward a first collective bargaining agreement (CBA) for the new Bargaining Unit consisting of the non-tenure-eligible "NTE" faculty began on Monday, March 11. Negotiations continued on Mondays through the end of the spring semester and moved to Fridays for the summer session. Below, you will find a roster of the AAUP-WSU negotiating team; brief reports about each Monday's negotiation session; and an article-by-article summary table with links to detailed information about each individual article that either party proposes to include in the CBA.

These negotiations concluded successfully and have produced a CBA that our NTE "Regular Chapter Members" ratified, along with the companion workload agreement, by an overwhelming majority in voting that concluded on September 17, 2013.

AAUP-WSU Negotiating Team

In these negotiations, AAUP-WSU is represented by the following team. All members of AAUP-WSU, and especially those among the NTE Bargaining Unit, are most welcome to contact team members about any issue that will or might arise during negotiations. See also the list of Executive Committee members on our Officers page.

The administration's counterpart of our Chief Negotiator Dr. Rudy Fichtenbaum is Dr. Bill Rickert.

Session-by-Session Reports

August 27, 2012 update: tentative CBA posted online

You may now view the CBA for NTE faculty. Please note that there are many cross-references in this document -- that is, one article or section may refer to another. These cross-references have not yet been checked, as the yellow-highlighted note at the top of each page asserts.

The AAUP-WSU Executive Committee is expected to announce soon the particulars of the ratification process. Eligible voters will include Regular Chapter Members who are in the NTE Collective Bargaining Unit. (A Regular Chapter Member -- RCM -- is a person in either collective bargaining unit who has chosen to join AAUP-WSU.)

August 20, 2013 update: new CBA essentially complete!

On Monday, August 19, the parties' chief negotiators initialed all the remaining articles and appendices, thus signifying tentative agreement on those items. Therefore, negotiations toward the first CBA for the NTE faculty are essentially complete. Regular Chapter Members (persons in either collective bargaining unit who have chosen to join AAUP-WSU) among the NTE faculty can expect to receive information soon regarding the ratification process.

Here are the items that the parties initialed on August 19:

• Article 11 (Annual Evaluation)
• Article 13 (Appointment and Promotion)
• Article 17 (Retrenchment)
• Article 20 (Intellectual Property)
• Article 21 (Distance Learning)
• Article 23 (Compensation)
• Article 24 (Minimum Salaries)
• Article 32 (Dues Check-Off and Fair Share)
• Appendices A-F (direct link to TA'd document showing all these appendices)
  • Appendix A (Candidate Review Statement)
  • Appendix B (intentionally left blank)
  • Appendix C (Record of Promotion Votes and Recommendations)
  • Appendix D (Promotion Schedule for 2013-2014)
  • Appendix E (Summary of Medical, Dental, and Vision Benefits)
  • Appendix F (Side Letter on Compensation for Distance Learning)

See also our workload page about that important topic.

August 10, 2013 update

The parties have continued to tinker with language for the new CBA, reaching tentative agreement on several articles:

• Article 7 (Faculty Rights and Responsibilities)
• Article 8 (AAUP-WSU Rights)
• Article 12 (Student Evaluation of Learning and Teaching)
• Article 14 (Discipline)
• Article 15 (Termination of Appointments)
• Article 18 (Institutional Environment)
• Article 19 (Workload)
• Article 26 (Medical, Dental and Vision Insurance)
• Article 30 (Leaves)
• Article 31 (Other Benefits)

In addition, a revised tentative agreement was jointly agreed to on Article 25 (Additional Compensation).

July 5, 2013 -- tentative agreement taking shape

At this session, the parties reached an outline of a tentative agreement on essentially all the contentious issues. Here is a summary of the key features we expect the tentative agreement to include.

• Job security: From the beginning of the seventh year of service as an NTE, a Bargaining Unit Faculty Member can be dismissed only if appropriate criteria are met and appropriate procedures are followed. These criteria and procedures will provide tenure-like job security.
• Compensation:
  • Across-the-board: Each continuing NTE BUFM will receive a 2.0% raise to the 2012-13 base salary.
  • Market: There will be a 0.4% "market" raise pool whose distribution must be agreed upon by AAUP-WSU and the administration. If the parties fail to agree on how to distribute some (or all) of this pool, then the monies whose distribution is not agreed upon will be distributed across-the-board, as a percentage of individuals' 2012-13 base salary. In the most extreme case, in which the parties fail to agree on how to distribute any of this pool, the result would be an additional 0.4% across-the-board raise, i.e., 2.4% total.
  • Minimum salaries: There will be significant minimum salary figures for each rank. These minimum salaries will provide additional raises for the lowest-paid individuals at each rank and are equivalent to an additional 1.6% across-the-board raise.
• Health care: In 2014, NTE BUFMs will continue to pay health care premiums on a sliding scale -- how much one pays depends in part upon one's base salary -- and the actual amounts will be the same as (or possibly less than) what non-unionized employees pay.
• Professional development funds: Each NTE BUFM will receive $500 per year in professional development funds. Legitimate expenses will include a wide range of teaching-related expenditures, including for example obtaining a computer that is better than what the usual Faculty Computer Initiate funds would allow, travel to conferences, and so forth. Unspent funds will carry over to the next year.

Once a complete tentative agreement is written down and checked by our attorney (and presumably by an attorney for the administration), it will be submitted to those NTE Regular Chapter Members (RCMs: persons in the [NTE] Bargaining Unit who have chosen to join AAUP-WSU) for a ratification vote. If the ratification vote is favorable, then the first official Collective Bargaining Agreement for NTE BUFMs will go into effect.

Please also see our workload page for favorable development on that matter.

June 28, 2013

Most of this session was devoted to a long off-the-record discussion of the key issues that the parties have not yet settled. Briefly stated, there is good reason to believe that an overall settlement can be reached.

On the record, our negotiating team put forth a counterproposal on Article 15 (Termination of Appointments).

June 21, 2013

This session began with a quick examination of an administration draft of Article 16 (Grievance and Arbitration), almost entirely identical to the corresponding article in the current CBA for tenure-eligible and tenured (TET) faculty. They likewise viewed our draft of Article 25 (Additional Compensation). The parties decided they could TA (tentatively agree upon) both.

Our negotiating team presented a counterproposal on Article 8 (AAUP-WSU Rights) with only one difference from the administration's previous offer.

The parties then discussed at some length an AAUP-WSU counterproposal on Article 11 (Annual Evaluation), debating the role of how faculty give grades in annual evaluations, and also what criteria chairs should use in their annual evaluations of teaching and service.

Next, the administration gave us a counterproposal on the three major economic articles: Article 23 (Compensation), Article 24 (Minimum Salaries), and Article 26 (Medical, Dental and Vision Insurance). This trio of proposals features

• a 1.5% raise and no compensation for the forthcoming 1% increase in STRS and ARP contributions, which means a de facto 0.5% increase [Article 23],
• very large increases in health insurance premiums [Article 26], and
• no raises whatever via the minimum salaries article [Article 24].

Please see our article-specific pages for more details.

June 11, 2013

The parties TA'd (tentatively agreed upon) Article 10 (Faculty Involvement in Governance), specifically the May 28 draft.

Our negotiating team presented a counterproposal on Article 18 (Institutional Environment) whose most noteworthy feature is a slight reduction in the annual amount provided in professional development funds.

June 3, 2013

This session began with the administration stating two circumstances under which it should be able to terminate the employment of an NTE BUFM, even one who has continuing employment status: (1) very bad performance, and (2) lack of courses that an individual was either hired to teach or can reasonably teach. Reacting to (2), our team asked how long the dearth of such courses must occur, or must be expected to continue. In reply, the administration stated that the parties could discuss that point. We stated that at the University of Northern Iowa, the administration defined "programs" that faculty did not even know they were in as an excuse for terminating them -- with the obvious message that we wanted nothing of the sort to occur here.

The parties then turned to Article 10 (Faculty Involvement in Governance) and decided that they could TA (tentatively agree upon) the administration's version of May 28.

Next, the parties examined a June 3 counterproposal from AAUP-WSU on Article 7 (Faculty Rights and Responsibilities). Our negotiating team pointed out changes we had made in the language on textbook selection and summer teaching.

AAUP-WSU Proposes Basic Economic Articles

Our negotiating team presented the opening proposals on three key economic articles (that is, articles in which substantial amounts of money are involved): Article 23 (Compensation), Article 24 (Minimum Salaries), and Article 26 (Medical, Dental and Vision Insurance).

• For Article 23, we proposed a 3% across-the-board raise, plus 1% to cover the forthcoming 1% increase in retirement system contributions.
• For Article 24, we proposed minimum salaries whose cost (as a percentage of overall salaries) would match the cost of a special increase the administration recently announced for the classified staff.
• For Article 26, we proposed maintaining the status quo.

The administration had not expected these economic proposals from us and thus mostly listened to our description of these proposals. After an upcoming meeting at which it expects these issues to be aired, the administration expects that it can respond at the negotiating session of Friday, June 21.

The administration presented counterproposals on Article 8 (AAUP-WSU Rights) and Article 18 (Institutional Environment). Its Article 8 reduced course releases available to AAUP-WSU. In Article 18, the major change was the complete removal of Professional Development Funds, and that engendered considerable discussion.

May 24, 2013

At this session, the parties targeted Articles 10 (Faculty Involvement in Governance), 13 (Appointment and Promotion), 15 (Termination of Appointments), and 17 (Retrenchment).

On Article 10, the parties are very close to a tentative agreement. On Article 13, the negotiations were considerably less straightforward and centered on circumstances under which NTE faculty on continuing appointments could be dismissed. However, the parties did come to a better understanding of their respective positions and gave some sign that an agreement might well be reached.

Article 15 per se was not formally discussed, though the issue of its title, Termination of Appointments, was certainly negotiated in the context of Article 13.

Finally, after a brief look at the AAUP-WSU proposal for Article 17, the parties agreed to postpone further work on that article pending resolution of 15.

May 10, 2013

Our team presented a counter-proposal on Article 10 (Faculty Involvement in Governance) in which we specified a bit more fully what the parties would do after this CBA is ratified to incorporate NTE faculty into the bylaws system and to specify -- either in a successor CBA or perhaps in bylaws -- annual evaluation criteria for NTE faculty.

Negotiations then turned to an overview of Article 13 (Appointment and Promotion), Article 15 (Termination of Appointments), and Article 17 (Retrenchment), the three whose provisions most directly bear on employment security for NTE BUFMs. Because much of the ensuing discussions pertained to all three articles, we will summarize those discussions below rather than on our article-specific pages.

The administration stated that it wanted efficiency and predictability and a system that is easily understandable. It stated that it needed the flexibility to make one-year appointments (of Instructors) even when there is essentially no chance that the appointment would be continued for a second year (e.g., when a replacement is needed for a person on sabbatical). It stated that it likewise needed great flexibility in the appointment of visiting faculty. Our team did not dispute those points.

Continuing, the administration stated that for NTE faculty who have been at Wright State seven years or longer, there is a different (employer-employee) relationship. It acknowledged that we wanted job security for our NTE faculty. It repeated its desire for flexibility, and it acknowledged that it now has some flexibility even with tenured faculty (presumably alluding to articles in the current CBA for tenure-eligible and tenured (TET) faculty that allow the dismissal of tenured faculty: 17 [Retrenchment] and 15 [Termination and Unpaid Suspension]).

The administration stated that AAUP-WSU wants to protect faculty against the whims of semi-competent -- and our team interrupted, "Yes", in mid-sentence.

The administration stated that it was not good for us if someone with twelve or twenty-two years of service as a faculty member may be worried about her or his job according to what person happens to be the current department chair.

However, the administrated also stated that too much of an employment guarantee could result in Deans choosing to hire Instructors, keep them six years, and then replace them with other Instructors. Our team replied immediately that Deans wanted to keep NTE faculty for more than six years, and this was the genesis of the Lecturer rank. We further stated that no lecturer has ever been dismissed due to declining enrollments. (Presumably, being "stuck" with too many faculty in the face of declining enrollments is a scenario in which the administration wants flexibility.)

The administration then brought up retrenchment. It stated that the administration is obviously reluctant to invoke retrenchment, because people do not distinguish between financial exigency (meaning, according to the current CBA, "that severe financial problems exist which threaten the University’s ability to maintain its operations at an acceptable level of quality") and significant reduction in enrollments in a given program, department, or college. Our team believed oppositely that people can distinguish between those problems. When the administration asked us what is a significant reduction in enrollment, we stated that the administration would have to make a case that a significant reduction had occurred if it wanted to invoke that provision of the retrenchment article in the current CBA. Finally, the administration asked if there was a significant difference between the job security protections we have proposed for NTE faculty with "a continuing appointment with no identified date of termination" and having tenure; we stated that we did not wish to mislead the administration, and we stated that there was no major difference.

A large majority of the remainder of this session was off the record. Please see our May 10 report on Article 13 for particulars about the on-the-record particulars of the rest of this session.

May 3, 2013

Negotiations began with a brief examination of the administration's proposal for Article 19 (Workload). Our team's acceptance of it will depend upon progress in workload discussions.

The teams then discussed the administration's proposal for Article 10 (Faculty Involvement in Governance). After extensive discussions and a long caucus, our team agreed to the key idea in the administration's proposal: that the parties postpone settling governance issues until a later date, e.g., after the new CBA is ratified.

The administration's counter proposal on Article 7 (Faculty Rights and Responsibilities) was next. Thus far, the administration has offered nothing in the way of summer teaching rights for NTE faculty.

The two negotiating teams used the rest of this session on AAUP-WSU counterproposals for Article 13 (Appointment and Promotion) and, very briefly, Article 15 (Termination of Appointments). Among the many crucial issues in two articles, the parties covered at length only one: our proposal that all NTE faculty outside CoNH and the Lake Campus should be appointed in identified academic departments. To facilitate progress on these two articles and the related Article 17 (Retrenchment), the parties agreed to have an overview discussion of the three of them at the next negotiating session.

April 22, 2013

As expected, the parties' Chief Negotiators initialed -- "Ta's" -- Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38, thus signifying tentative agreement on these articles. Please see the right hand column of the article-by-article summary table below for links to PDF files showing the TA'd articles.

The parties then turned to the administration's proposal for Article 20 (Intellectual Property), agreement on which will apparently hinge on the related issue of Article 21 (Distance Learning).

Next came the administration's proposal for Article 30 (Leaves). There, the parties simply reviewed the proposed changes from the current CBA for tenure-eligible and tenured (TET) faculty.

On Article 31 (Other Benefits), the administration's counterproposal to our March 11 original was discussed; and, the administration's proposals for Appendices A (Candidate Review Statement), B (Guidelines for Evaluating Leadership), and C (Record of Promotion Votes and Recommendations) were briefly examined.

To close the session, the two negotiating teams discussed informally Article 10 (Faculty Involvement in Governance), even though neither party has yet produced a formal proposal for that article. At the heart of the matter is how to bring NTE faculty into the bylaws system brought into being by the current CBA for tenure-eligible and tenured (TET) faculty.

April 15, 2013

The parties agreed to and formally signed the following ground rules:

Ground Rules

1. Meetings -- A schedule of meetings will be jointly determined. Starting and ending times for each session may be altered as the need arises, by mutual consent. Meetings will not be audio or video recorded. Computers are permitted for note taking.
2. Quorum -- The presence of the chief negotiator and at least one other team member from both the AAUP and the University shall constitute a quorum for all meetings.
3. Agenda -- The agenda for each session will be mutually determined in advance insofar as possible, usually as the last item of business at the previous session. The agenda may be modified during the course of a meeting by mutual consent. This does not preclude a party from raising an issue that does not appear on the agenda. When such issues do arise, the parties may agree to pursue them; however, the "surprised" party need not respond in detail at that session. In addition, neither party is obligated to discuss changes received less than 72 hours in advance of the session, as set forth in paragraph 4.
4. Document Exchange -- March 25, 2013 both parties will exchange a list of articles and appendixes that they propose to include in the CBA. Counter proposals will be in writing and, whenever possible, exchanged 72 hours in advance of the session at which they are to be discussed to minimize possible confusion or misunderstanding and give each side sufficient time to understand the position of the other side. Exchange of proposals and counter proposals will be done electronically between chief negotiators. Electronic files will be segregated by article; that is a single data file will contain only one CBA article or appendix.
5. Bargaining Team Membership -- The parties are free to amend the size and membership of their respective teams at the bargaining table. The other team will be advised of changes in advance. All participants will abide by these ground rules.
6. Proceedings -- Each chief negotiator will be responsible for the recognition and participation of each member of her/his team. All questions by team members or resource people should be directed to or through the chief negotiator.
7. Recesses and Caucuses -- Either chief negotiator may call for a caucus whenever she/he deems it necessary, with time limits set and changed by mutual understanding. If either side feels it has the need for an extended caucus it can inform the other side and postpone negotiations until the next scheduled session.
8. Minutes -- There will be no joint minutes. Each party will be responsible for keeping its own record of the negotiations.
9. Temporary Impasse -- If the parties fail to reach an agreement on a particular item, negotiations will continue on other items and the parties will subsequently return to the item that was not settled. If a temporary impasse arises, both parties may agree to turn the issue over to a sub-committee for additional settlement efforts with any possible solutions reached brought back to the full table for discussion.
10. Tentative Agreements -- Once both parties have reached agreement on all language in an article or appendix, that tentative agreement will be confirmed at the table in writing by having each chief negotiator initial a copy of the article or appendix. All such agreements remain tentative pending completion of a total agreement. Only the chief negotiators may make a commitment for their respective parties.
11. Communications -- Both parties have the responsibility to keep their constituents informed about the progress of negotiations. Each party has the right to make periodic progress reports to the party's constituencies; such reports shall be truthful and designed to be informative of the bargaining process.
12. Confidentiality -- If both chief negotiators agree that a conversation will be kept "off the record" then no notes will be taken and all elements of the "off the record" exchange will be kept strictly confidential.
13. All negotiation sessions shall be closed to the public, including WSU students and the media.
14. It is the intent of both parties that negotiations be conducted at the bargaining table and in good faith towards achieving a contract mutually beneficial to all.

Please note that the parties had previously agreed to handle the matter of workload for NTE faculty separately.

The two negotiating teams then agreed that they could "TA" -- Tentatively Agree to -- Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38.

Our team gave a counterproposal for Article 8 (AAUP-WSU Rights) featuring a less extensive increase in course releases available to AAUP-WSU officers.

The parties examined the administration's initial proposal for Article 11 (Annual Evaluation). It is reasonably likely that annual evaluations will be done in accordance with past practice for this one-year agreement, and that the parties will attend to an overhaul of annual evaluation for both bargaining units at a later date.

On the critical Article 13 (Appointment and Promotion), the parties began to discuss the administration's opening proposal in general and the major issue of employment security for NTE faculty in particular.

April 1, 2013

The parties began this session with an opening discussion of workload, as has been expected. About that, please see our workload page.

They then turned to an expected agreement to frame the matter of workload and to ground rules. For the former, AAUP-WSU proposed the following:

• The parties (the University and AAUP-WSU) will discuss and work to attain a workload agreement applicable to faculty in the NTE Bargaining Unit.
• These discussions will be separate from the CBA negotiations now taking place.
• Any agreement resulting from these discussions will not be part of the CBA.

Assuming the above language or equivalent is agreed to, the parties expect to agree on ground rules which do not mention workload.

The administration submitted a proposal for Article 3 (Non-Discrimination), that is the same as the version proposed by AAUP-WSU save only technical changes regarding terminology used to refer to NTE faculty. The parties then agreed to extend their mutual obligations under this article (about which see our Article 3 report for April 1).

The administration submitted a counterproposal for Article 5 (Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibilities) with minor changes in wording.

On Article 8 (AAUP-WSU Rights), the administration put forth a counterproposal featuring no release time (beyond that allocated in the current CBA for tenure-eligible and tenured (TET) faculty) for AAUP-WSU officers.

Our team briefly interrupted the parties' progression through the articles by asking the administration if its intent was to negotiate a one year initial CBA for the NTE faculty, since the administration had prepared no counterproposal for Article 38 (Agreement Duration), which is where the one year term is specified. The administration confirmed that it does intend for there to be a one year agreement.

The administration submitted an unobjectionable counterproposal for Article 9 (Academic Calendar).

The administration put forth an initial proposal for Article 12, Student Evaluation of Learning and Teaching. The administration's proposal offered no protection, regarding the mis-use of numerical student evaluation scores, for any NTE faculty akin to that now available to tenured faculty.

In Article 14 (Discipline), the administration submitted a counterproposal featuring revised wording in a section pertaining to tenure removal.

The administration put forth Article 15 (Termination of Appointments), an article that one may regard as vaguely analogous to Article 15, Termination and Unpaid Suspension, in the current CBA. Briefly put, the administration's proposal provides for considerably less protection for NTE faculty than does the current CBA for TET faculty.

The administration submitted Article 17 (Retrenchment), which again would provide NTE faculty with substantially less protection that does the current CBA for TET faculty. The ensuing negotiation, though hardly encouraging, perhaps provided a glimmer of hope that the administration might be willing to move on this issue.

The administration submitted minor counterproposals for Articles 22 (Outside Employment), 27 (Life and Disability Insurance), 28 (Vacation and Sick Leave), and 33 (Retirement), in which it simply adopted the parties' decision in Article 2 (Recognition) about how to refer to NTE faculty.

On Article 34 (Emeritus), the administration put forth a counterproposal that it described as being functionally the same as ours.

To close the session, the parties agreed that they would next negotiate on Monday, April 15 -- thus having a two-week gap between sessions -- due to scheduling constraints of two of our team members. They also agreed to come to that session with lists of articles that they believe can be "TA'd" -- tentatively agreed upon.

Monday, March 25, 2013

As expected, the parties began this session by exchanging lists of articles and appendices they proposed to include in the CBA. The outcome was also as expected: one party or the other listed every article in current CBA for tenure-eligible and tenured (TET) faculty or suitably renamed versions thereof, and likewise every appendix. See the Table of Contents for the semester-based half of the current CBA. In effect, then, the parties have agreed to follow the current CBA in developing the new one for NTE faculty. They also agreed that article names (titles) could be decided upon later, if need be, after substantive negotiations about article content.

Regarding the ground rules (a written agreement to govern the negotiations themselves) and the crucial matter of workload, the parties came to the following understanding.

• Workload: This matter will be dealt with in separate discussions, and the resulting agreement will be outside the CBA for NTE faculty, just as was the case for the workload agreement applicable to the TET faculty. AAUP-WSU expects to use precisely the same negotiating team for these discussions, whereas the administration expects to use Bill Rickert and Associate Provost Henry Limouze (both of whom serve on the administration's CBA Negotiating Team), and Deans or representatives thereof. Workload will be dealt with starting at 4pm on Monday, April 1, with CBA negotiations to follow that, and likewise on subsequent Mondays.
• Document exchange:
  • The parties will establish no formal deadlines for the exchange of initial proposals.
  • The parties will endeavor to share proposals and counterproposals electronically 72 hours before a given negotiating session.

The administration put forth proposals for Article 6 (Management Rights), Article 25 (Additional Compensation), and Article 36 (No Strike / No Lockout), stating that its proposals were taken from the current CBA.

The administration also gave a counter-proposal on Article 21 (Distance Learning) that engendered extensive discussion about support (especially computing and other technological support) for the work of WSU faculty, whether distance learning teaching assignments can be imposed on faculty, and the effects of external parties (MOOCs, for example) on distance learning issues at Wright State.

Monday, March 18, 2013

At this session, the parties began with a brief discussion pertaining to Article 38 (Agreement Duration), in which the administration team stated that "as far as they knew" (approximate quotation), the one-year duration proposed by AAUP-WSU would be acceptable.

In the above paragraph and elsewhere, please see the links to the individual articles to learn more.

Our team then raised the idea that the parties could postpone the topic of annual evaluation (leaving past practice for annual evaluation intact for one more year) and its effect on merit-based pay raises, assuming that the administration would agree that this one-year CBA would, roughly speaking, include only across-the-board pay raises for NTE BUFMs. We believe that the administration is receptive to this idea.

The parties then returned to Article 2 (Recognition), examining a counter-proposal brought to the table by the administration. Notably, the administration proposed that the final section (2.6) in the initial AAUP-WSU proposal be extended to read as follows:

The parties agree to cooperate with each other in the enforcement of this Agreement and recognize that in all matters of negotiation with the University, the Bargaining Unit will join with the TET Bargaining Unit as a single entity.

Thus, the administration may not oppose a goal strongly espoused by the AAUP-WSU Executive Committee: merging the two Bargaining Units into one!

There was brief discussion of Article 9 (Academic Calendar).

In this context, our team noted that some provisions in the new CBA might well call for changes in the current CBA for TET faculty, and we recommended that the parties keep a list of all such provisions so that all such changes could be dealt with in a single Memorandum of Understanding. Our team also reminded the administration that although minor changes to the current CBA could be agreed to by our Executive Committee, major changes required a vote of our members in the TET bargaining unit. (See the chapter Constitution and Bylaws, Article V A 2 o.)

Similarly, after even briefer discussion of Article 14 (Discipline), the parties noted that they should eventually check the various cross-references in the new CBA. Our team stated that when one party brings glitches of this sort to the attention of the other, it should not be regarded as bargaining in bad faith. Albeit silently, the administration team apparently agreed.

On Article 18 (Institutional Environment), the administrated took note of our proposal to provide professional development funds to NTE faculty. On Article 21 (Distance Learning), the brief discussion led the parties to observe that they had expected to formulate a new agreement on this topic by June 2012 but had failed to do so.

Article 31 (Other Benefits) engendered a discussion of wellness programs and whether the administration had already begun one.

The parties touched briefly upon Articles 22 (Outside Employment), 27 (Life and Disability Insurance), 28 (Vacation and Sick Leave), 32 (Dues Check-Off and Fair Share), 33 (Retirement), 34 (Emeritus), 35 (Separability), and 37 (Amendments). It seems unlikely that any of these will be controversial.

Regarding Article 38 (Agreement Duration), the administrated reiterated its expectation to agree to our proposal for a one-year initial CBA.

The parties then returned to the AAUP-WSU proposal for Article 7 (Faculty Rights and Responsibilities). Importantly, a discussion of summer teaching rights for NTE faculty was begun but not concluded.

Monday, March 11, 2013

At this session, the members of the two negotiating teams began by introducing themselves.

The administration provided copies of the Ground Rules -- which are simply a written agreement to govern the negotiations themselves -- that the parties adopted in 2011 when negotiating the current CBA for tenure-eligible and tenured (TET) faculty. Our team, which had already drafted Ground Rules for the current negotiations based in large measure on the 2011 version, distributed our draft along with initial proposals for twenty-one CBA articles.

Here are the Ground Rules we proposed:

1. Meetings -- A schedule of meetings will be jointly determined. Starting and ending times for each session may be altered as the need arises, by mutual consent. Meetings will not be audio or video recorded. Computers are permitted for note taking.
2. Quorum -- The presence of the chief negotiator and at least one other team member from both the AAUP and the University shall constitute a quorum for all meetings.
3. Agenda -- The agenda for each session will be mutually determined in advance insofar as possible, usually as the last item of business at the previous session. The agenda may be modified during the course of a meeting by mutual consent. This does not preclude a party from raising an issue that does not appear on the agenda. When such issues do arise, the parties may agree to pursue them; however, the "surprised" party need not respond in detail at that session. In addition, neither party is obligated to discuss changes received less than 48 hours in advance of the session, as set forth in paragraph 4.
4. Document Exchange -- March 18, 2013 both parties will exchange a list of articles and appendixes that they propose to include in the CBA. The deadline by which either party may put forth an initial proposal for an article or appendix is May 6, 2013. Counter proposals will be in writing and, whenever possible, exchanged 48 hours in advance of the session at which they are to be discussed to minimize possible confusion or misunderstanding and give each side sufficient time to understand the position of the other side. Exchange of proposals and counter proposals will be done electronically between chief negotiators. Electronic files will be segregated by article; that is a single data file will contain only one CBA article or appendix. The two deadlines in paragraph 4 may be changed by mutual consent.
5. Workload -- Discussions regarding workload will be included in negotiations, although the parties agree that an agreement on workload will be in the form of a memorandum of understanding and will not be included in the CBA.
6. Bargaining Team Membership -- The parties are free to amend the size and membership of their respective teams at the bargaining table. The other team will be advised of changes in advance. All participants will abide by these ground rules.
7. Proceedings -- Each chief negotiator will be responsible for the recognition and participation of each member of her/his team. All questions by team members or resource people should be directed to or through the chief negotiator.
8. Recesses and Caucuses -- Either chief negotiator may call for a caucus whenever she/he deems it necessary, with time limits set and changed by mutual understanding. If either side feels it has the need for an extended caucus it can inform the other side and postpone negotiations until the next scheduled session.
9. Minutes -- There will be no joint minutes. Each party will be responsible for keeping its own record of the negotiations.
10. Temporary Impasse -- If the parties fail to reach an agreement on a particular item, negotiations will continue on other items and the parties will subsequently return to the item that was not settled. If a temporary impasse arises, both parties may agree to turn the issue over to a sub-committee for additional settlement efforts with any possible solutions reached brought back to the full table for discussion.
11. Tentative Agreements -- Once both parties have reached agreement on all language in an article or appendix, that tentative agreement will be confirmed at the table in writing by having each chief negotiator initial a copy of the article or appendix. All such agreements remain tentative pending completion of a total agreement. Only the chief negotiators may make a commitment for their respective parties.
12. Communications -- Both parties have the responsibility to keep their constituents informed about the progress of negotiations. Each party has the right to make periodic progress reports to the party's constituencies; such reports shall be truthful and designed to be informative of the bargaining process.
13. Confidentiality -- If both chief negotiators agree that a conversation will be kept "off the record" then no notes will be taken and all elements of the "off the record" exchange will be kept strictly confidential.
14. All negotiation sessions shall be closed to the public, including WSU students and the media.
15. It is the intent of both parties that negotiations be conducted at the bargaining table and in good faith towards achieving a contract mutually beneficial to all.

[Note: the parties adopted final ground rules on April 15.]

Our team noted that although our proposal was based upon the 2011 Ground Rules, there were some differences. We of course adjusted the dates for Document Exchange (item 4); we added a new item 5 on workload; and we indicated in item 11 that the parties would actually initial tentative agreements (with the expectation that establishing this practice would serve the parties well when the two Chief Negotiators, who have long served their respective parties, have fully retired). We also deleted an item from the 2011 Ground Rules that restricted the dates on which a Fact-Finder's report could be received.

The administration replied that it could not officially agree to anything until the new Provost, who takes office on March 18, can be consulted.

Our team confirmed that our proposals for actual CBA articles were largely based on the current CBA for TET faculty. The administration stated that the Faculty Handbook offers another possible starting point. Our team replied that our team might be satisfied with some provisions of the Faculty Handbook, if our NTE members are -- but that we intended to "plow some new ground" , e.g., with respect to employment security for NTE faculty (though we were not prepared to make proposals along those lines at this session).

The parties then focused on the Ground Rules. After extensive discussion, the parties agreed to replace the first two sentences of our item 4, Document Exchange, by these:

March 25, 2013 both parties will exchange a list of articles and appendixes that they propose be included in the CBA. The deadlines by which the parties will put forth initial proposals will be determined on March 25, 2013.

Regarding our item 5, Workload, the administration stated that it had no authorization to negotiate workload as part of the new CBA and that it expected that it would subsequently receive no such authorization. The administration noted that as of March 18, WSU will have had three Provosts in well less than one year. Our team replied that our message to the Provost and the Board of Trustees is that it is very unlikely that we could reach an agreement on economic issues if the administration will not talk about workload, though we would not object to separating CBA negotiations per se from discussions about workload for NTE faculty. We reminded the administration that NTE faculty have felt a significant workload increase after the transition to semesters. We also stated that the summer pay schedule for TET faculty, agreed to as part of the grand bargain over workload for TET faculty, provided the administration with a semester hour of teaching for the same that a quarter hour used to cost them -- and that we fully expected the administration wanted to apply the same summer pay schedule to NTE faculty with no corresponding NTE workload consideration.

The administration stated plainly that they wanted us to withdraw our item 5, Workload, from the Ground Rules. After extensive discussion and a caucus by our team, we stated that we could take 5 out if we had an agreement for a mechanism for the parties to talk about workload.

The administration accepted our item 11, Tentative Agreements, and the parties had no disagreement about the other items.

The parties then turned to preliminary discussions of some of the proposed CBA Articles submitted by AAUP-WSU, touching upon Article 1 (Preamble), Article 2 (Recognition), Article 3 (Non-Discrimination), Article 4 (Affirmative Action), Article 5 (Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibilities), Article 7 (Faculty Rights and Responsibilities), Article 8 (AAUP-WSU Rights), and Article 38 (Agreement Duration) before running out of time. Most of these articles and the others we proposed at this first session are not likely to produce much controversy; see the links to individual articles provided in the previous sentence and in the article-by-article summary table below to view the actual proposals and to read about the mostly low-key discussions that ensued.

Article-by-Article Summary Table

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