Bargaining Blog 8.25.26

On Tuesday, we had our second to last bargaining session before the expiration of our contract at the end of the month, and staff from all across the library showed up in force. 27 people took their lunch hour and/or PTO to show up wearing their "NO 0" buttons and use their presence to demonstrate to the University how much these negotiations matter and how invested they are in the outcome. Altogether, including added members of the bargaining committee, 40 members of the bargaining unit were represented. That's nearly half of us!

This session, we presented our counters and started off with tentative agreements on New or Changed Classifications, Artificial Intelligence, and Incidental Sick Time and Extended Sick Time. 

Compensation
Our counter proposals led with Compensation. Our Union Representative, Frank, underlined the importance of these issues to us, alluding to all the people in the room. To really impress that point upon them, two testimonials were given. These testimonials laid out the real-world, human impact that their counter proposals have, particularly no raise in the coming year. Individuals are paying over $300 a month more now due to the University's changes in health care alone. When you add in the continually rising costs of housing, food, and utilities, many of us are not even able to live paycheck to paycheck. Many of us, despite liking our work, may have to leave. Testimonials like these show how much your voice matters.

With that, we outlined our counter proposals. First, there is nothing in their offer enticing enough to go beyond a 3 year contract. We laid out a reasonable increase for next year and moved in their direction for the following two years. We returned the salary floor increases to the original contract language, and we accepted their counter for longevity increases for non-faculty represented workers at 25 and 30 years. We are holding on Cost of Living Adjustment and insurance premium caps proposals. 

Frank reiterated our reasoning behind these core economic proposals and the financial constraints that represented workers are under. We're not asking for the world. We're asking for one of the twenty richest Universities in the country for a living wage. We are considering all of these economic issues holistically, and movement from management here could help us toward agreement in other areas. Nonetheless, no raises in the first year is unacceptable, especially with the economic challenges we are already facing day to day. 

Professional Development
We have largely agreed to their proposals, with one change to make it more clear that the amounts listed are minimums, and additional funds may be requested which may not be unreasonably denied. 

Faculty Promotion
This began with four testimonials, which laid out the facts that despite proposing requirements for Peer Review, the University does not offer any additional support or incentives to do so, nor does Northwestern University Libraries have a culture of research. Most MLIS programs don't even teach research methodologies. The terms they set forth are more draconian than those of any of our Big 10 peers and far from the standard in our field. They are stricter than the University's own standards for promotion for Non-Tenure Eligible Faculty or Teaching Track Faculty. Requiring librarians to be lead authors on these peer reviewed papers does not take into account that different fields have different standards for author order. In addition, it would pit our Librarian Faculty against each other to see who will be lead author when they should be collaborating. Further, the notion of a singular focus on "peer review" ignores the value and lasting impact of scholarship shared through national, regional, and local conferences where we share our learned experiences, best practices, and engage in scholarly conversations with our peers, which is much more of a standard practice in our field. Finally, they proposed to remove our basic right to grieve the process, which is the only way to ensure that the process, which happens without transparency or any form of rubric, is being applied fairly, equitably, and correctly. Documents about these standards and expectations were shared with them to review when they went to caucus later. 

We then outlined our counter proposal which accepted some of their language while making further changes: focusing on equivalent experience instead of title/position; a more comprehensive list of contributions; the removal of language weighting different types of contributions; not restricting conferences by geographic scope; replacing the "peer review" standard with language that is more inclusive of the different types of strenuous review that publications may receive; and clarifying that candidates for Senior Librarian should have their whole career taken into consideration, not just since they were promoted. And, of course, retaining our right to grieve.

The University had some clarifying questions. They feel the language around peer review was a compromise out of the last negotiation and that we are changing the language that was the result of that compromise.  They had questions about the removal of "national and international" language attached to conference types. We explained that the language was both confusing and restricting. 

Staff Promotion
This proposal remained much the same, given the lack of any movement whatsoever on the University's side. We reduced the number of designations from 2 to 1. Our proposal attempts to address the lack of opportunity for growth in jobs that are particular to the library. 

The University outlined what they see as the sticking point in this matter. Buckle up for this part. 

They say they cannot create a Senior designation. Further, LA3 is considered a terminal position, meaning that there is no LA4 position and they have no intent to create one. A person who believes they have grown beyond an LA3 role would be considering their next job as a different job. The implication here is that you would be applying for a different job, perhaps a supervisory job (which would just so happen to fall outside of the Bargaining Unit). If the skills required to do the job have become more complex or the responsibilities have drifted substantially, it is probable that it will be considered a different type of job, probably an exempt position. The examples given were program assistant or an IT role. We learned that how the University determines a job classification is based on the skills required to do the job, rather than the area of expertise or the expectations of the job. There is also a Department of Labor test that is applied to determine if a job is hourly or salary. The University looks at the skills required for the position to determine the University job family it belongs to by looking at a broad group of skills that are roughly similar. It is clear that they consider the work of non-exempt staff in the library as aligning with a clerical or administrative skillset. We do not know how they arrived at this judgement, but they treat it as if it were a given.

Regardless, more work does not result in reclassification if the type/level of skills required to do the work are believed to be the same. The nature of the work may change, but that does not equal reclassification. They believe that accurate job descriptions and review, as we have tentatively agreed to, should result in aligning the job description requirements with proper job classification.

We asked for information on how an LA3 job is decided and judged as well as a document that identifies how the University's broad classifications are applied to LA positions. We have also asked for the Department of Labor test. 

Birth, Adoption, Parental Leave
We are largely in agreement. The only adjustment is adding that if someone comes back from leave and wants to use up some extra PTO time to extend their leave, it wouldn’t be unreasonably denied. 

TL;DR
We feel we made very good cases on very important issues, and we are hoping they hear us. The presence of union members in the room adds a lot of volume to the voice of our concerns. THANK YOU AGAIN to everyone who was able to join us!  They will be presenting their counter offers first thing on Thursday. 

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