NULWU blog

 On Tuesday May 19, we had our third bargaining session with management. While we made significant movement towards agreement on some proposals, we continue to disagree on others. We are still working on the non-economic proposals presented during our first and second bargaining sessions. In this session, we had multiple counterproposals to present on management rights, stewards, artificial intelligence, discipline, and open positions. Management rights include adding titles to the list of represented workers covered by the contract and defining who can do bargaining unit work and when. We are still redeveloping our proposals on equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination and will counter at our next session, on June 4. After our initial presentation, each side went into caucus for a very, very long time… Half an hour before bargaining was due to end, management returned and hastily presented their counterproposals. They countered on flexible work strategies, open positions...

On Tuesday, May 5, we had our second bargaining session which resulted in our first Tentative Agreements (TAs)! As a reminder, a TA means that we have reached a consensus on proposals between the NULWU bargaining committee and the NU Administration; but these are not officially approved until after our union members vote on and ratify our contract. Our TAs for this session covered: Union Rights - we ensured that the Union can utilize the Forum Room for meetings  Grievance and Arbitration - if more than one Represented Worker files on the same issue simultaneously, we can now expedite the grievance process  Our bargaining session began with NU Administration responding to the 12 proposals we introduced at our first session on April 14. They provided five counter-proposals to our original twelve, two of which resulted in our TAs listed above. Although they rejected the other seven of our original proposals, they did seem willing to engage in further conversation around these iss...

On Tuesday, we had our first bargaining session for our second contract! Before we presented our first set of proposals to the University, we discussed ground rules. As we did for our first contract, we agreed to open bargaining, meaning union members who are not on the bargaining committee can attend bargaining sessions on their lunch breaks or PTO. Having members attend bargaining sessions signals to the University that members care about the issues being discussed. Members can also share testimonials on how the issues at hand affect them. This will become especially important when we get to economic proposals further down the road, so stay tuned! We also agreed that the Union can share information about bargaining sessions publicly, like on this blog and on social media! This will help us share updates about our bargaining sessions for our bargaining unit, the campus community, and the general public. After introductions, we shared our first set of non-economic proposals, or proposa...

It’s been a long time coming! We have a contract! On Thursday, 91% of our union membership voted to ratify our first contract!!! We are thrilled to be here after three years of organizing. The contract has many wins that meet our bargaining priorities: Raises Across the Board Protect Our Benefits Path to Promotion Invest in Our Development Transparency, Equity, and a Voice Wins include: Raises for everyone! The first year everyone will get a 3.75% raise OR the minimum salary of their rank, whichever is higher. We will get 3% raises in Years 2 and 3 of the contract Non-librarians will be eligible for longevity raises based on their years of service: 1% at 5 years, 1.5% at 10 years, 2% at 15 years, and 2.5% at 20 years. Librarian rank and promotion! We will have three ranks for librarians: Assistant, Associate, and Senior. The ranks will have salary minimums the first year of $70k for Assistant, $80k for Associate, and $90k for Senior. Librarians will start applying for promotion in the...

We are very happy to announce that we have come to a tentative agreement on our first contract! Since our last bargaining session, we reached an agreement on the two remaining proposals, Compensation and Librarian Promotion.  For Compensation, we agreed that: Our salary floors for each position will be increased by at least 5% for every title, with some above 20%! For the first year of the contract, everyone will either receive a 3.75% increase, or the new salary floor, whichever is greater. Everyone will receive a 3% increase for the second and third years of the contract Non-librarian staff will receive percentage-based longevity raises at 5, 10, 15 and 20 years  For Librarian Promotion, we agreed that: Entry-level librarians will start at Assistant Librarian, and can get promoted to Associate Librarian after 5 years, and Senior Librarian 5 years after that We are promoted based on job performance, research and scholarly contributions, and service to the profession and unive...

Thursday’s bargaining session was eight hours long! Thankfully, our time was well-spent, and we are extremely close to finalizing our first contract. We are in agreement on Professional Development, Emergency Closings, Flexible Work, and Vacation. We are going back and forth on the remaining proposals: Librarian Promotion and Compensation. We didn’t come to any tentative agreements this session since all of these proposals are part of a package; we need to come to an agreement on all of them before we can TA. For Professional Development, we agreed that: Professional development funds for non-exempt staff will increase by 50% The University will pre-pay conference registration The University will pay for up to $250 of membership in professional organizations We will reinstate the portable tuition benefit for staff pursuing an MLS For Emergency Closings, we agreed that: If there is an emergency closing, only essential staff need to report to work in person If the University cancels clas...