FSU Nuts & Bolts: MTA rep, Canvas is coming, Paid Leave and Longevity Bonus
2/12/2024
Dear Members,
If you are reading this from your UMB office, then you are not one of the estimated sixteen million who call in sick the day after the super bowl. There is even a legislative push to make this Monday a national holiday. With so many with the super bowl flu, I hope for a lighter commute.
MTA Field Representative
Each MTA local is assigned a field representative to assist and support the local in such areas as bargaining, organizing, membership development and contracts.
The FSU is pleased to welcome our new field representative Maria Hegbloom. Maria has recently served as the president of the Massachusetts State College Association which is the union that represents the faculty and librarians of the state universities. She is also a faculty member at Bridgewater State University.
In welcoming Maria, we also say goodbye and thank you to Katie D’Urso who we worked with for five years.
Blackboard to Canvas: Update
Last week’s issue we stated that we were going to learn more about the move from Blackboard to Canvas. At the Feb 7th Labor Management meeting with the provost office and HR Labor Relations, we asked when this will take place. The answer was Canvas will be fully operational Fall 2025 semester with piloting, training and migration occurring over the next eighteen months.
We were also informed a campuswide memorandum is forthcoming. Once we see in writing the details we will act accordingly. We also look forward to hearing your comments and concerns.
Our Contract: Paid Leave and K-12 teachers
I attended the MTA Winter Skills workshops Saturday and met a high school history teacher from Newton. I did not fully realize how lucky we are. We have paid leave in our contract (see Article 27.3 of the contract for more).
This includes:
All TT and Librarians get a semester of paid parental leave.
All NTT with 3 years of full-time service get a semester of paid parental leave. (NOTE: this is NOT 3 full-time equivalent years; it’s 3 AY’s, not necessarily consecutive, in which the member was 100%).
All members who are 50% or more accumulate individual paid sick leave.
All members who are eligible for sick leave can apply for time from the Sick Leave Bank if they run out of individual sick leave.
Seems municipal employees (K-12 teachers) are not eligible to participate in the state Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) plan and school districts provide limited paid leave. School districts do not want to provide the time, but this is changing. Newton was able to guarantee 40 days of paid leave. Sunday afternoon the town of Wakefield (where I live and am a product of the schools) was able to come to a contract agreement that included increased paid leave.
Our Contract: Longevity Bonus
Retiring bargaining unit members (TT, NTT, and Librarians) are entitled to 1.5 days of pay for every year of service (see Article 27.8). Retiring members should contact HR prior to their retirement date to ensure the payment will be made.
MTA Benefits: Student Loan Management & Forgiveness
Attend one of six upcoming webinars to learn about “the fundamentals of federal student loan repayment and forgiveness options, including the One-Time Payment Count Revision for Eligible IDR Borrowers and the newly extended deadline.” For more information and to register go to https://www.mtabenefits.com/student-loan-webinars
REMINDER: FSU Annual Meeting, April 23rd 3:00-5:00PM
Each year we are required to hold an annual member meeting where we present reports, adopt bylaws, and adopt an annual budget. Please save the date and watch Nuts & Bolts for the meeting details. This meeting is open to FSU members in good standing only.
Sincerely,
Caroline Coscia
FSU President
Senior Lecturer II
Political Science Department