Bargaining Blog 6/4/2026

 On Thursday June 4, we had our fourth bargaining session with management. This was a big one; we introduced two new major proposals and we came to 2 new Tentative Agreements (TAs). 


Our TAs for this session covered:


Discipline - Represented workers will now be informed of their right to have a union representative present at discipline-related meetings.


Open Positions - If a represented worker’s position is reclassified, the resulting role does not need to be posted and that employee does not need to apply for their own job. If a vacancy occurs and Northwestern decides to fill that open position, the job will be posted and a search will be conducted.


We began the session by presenting counterproposals on nondiscrimination, artificial intelligence, layoffs and furloughs, and flexible work arrangements. 


Then, we presented two proposals that the bargaining committee has been working on for a long time. The first of these deals with librarian and staff job classification and promotion. This proposal is broken into two parts: one for librarian faculty and a second for non-librarian staff. 


Part 1 adds more flexibility to the prior service requirement for applying to the Associate Librarian and Senior Librarian levels, making it easier for librarians with prior service experience at other institutions to apply for promotion. It also introduces some changes aimed at making the review process more accessible for applicants, such as expanding the types of contributions that count toward promotion and moving the deadline for submission from the beginning of Spring Quarter to mid-summer. 


Part 2 addresses non-librarian staff reclassification and promotion. The proposal outlines a process for updating job descriptions and defines a reclassification process when a job has changed significantly. This part of the proposal is based directly on conversations we have had with management in Labor Management Committee meetings. We also proposed additional classifications for jobs unique to the library. We hope that management will treat this proposal seriously, as it is important to create a more transparent process for recognizing the contributions of library staff. 


The second of our new proposals deals with professional development. We’re proposing that all represented workers (both staff and faculty) receive an increase in professional development funding based on inflation.


After our initial presentation, management went into caucus for what ended up being over two hours. They returned at the exact time that the session was supposed to end and presented their counterproposals on Equal Employment Opportunity and nondiscrimination, layoffs and furloughs, and flexible work arrangements. They held on to our other counterproposals for further consideration. This includes proposals that they had previously rejected outright, such as artificial intelligence. We hope this indicates a serious effort to provide meaningful counterproposals. We will review the counterproosals provided to us at our next bargaining committee meeting, and hope to come to an agreement soon. Both sides also signed our newest TAs. 


In our next bargaining session, we expect management to present their counterproposals for our job promotion and professional development proposals. We are hopeful that there will be a good amount of back and forth across the table on these two proposals. That said, management has shown a willingness to engage with us and to consider our requests, so we remain optimistic.


As ever we encourage you to show support for our union by wearing buttons and changing Zoom backgrounds to our logo! Follow us on Facebook or Instagram to keep up with the latest updates. Reach out to us with questions or ideas through social media, email, or by contacting a bargaining committee member.


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