Join the FSU bargaining or bargaining support team
8/9/2019
Dear Colleague,
Bargaining our successor agreement will begin next Spring 2020. The FSU is looking for members to be on the bargaining team and the bargaining support committee. Although we will begin bargaining in Spring 2020, there is much to do in preparation for bargaining during the Fall 2019 semester, including constituting a bargaining team, a bargaining support committee, creating and administering a bargaining survey of our members, and soliciting feedback for bargaining.
Please let us know if you are interested in serving on the bargaining team or the bargaining support committee. If you would like to know more about what all of this entails in terms of workload, etc. please contact the FSU office. We also encourage you to read the FSU policies on bargaining (look for the Committees heading about half way down the page) and the FSU bylaws on bargaining (Article II, Section 9).
We have a new policy on bargaining that was passed at the FSU Annual Meeting on May 9, 2019. This policy establishes the principle of open bargaining whereby members will be informed of and invited to participate in the bargaining process.
Criteria for selection to the FSU bargaining team:
Bargaining is very challenging. Ideally, a good bargainer will fulfill all or most of the following. However, the first four are essential. Team members will be chosen on the number of these they can fulfill:
- The ability to work cooperatively and respectfully with members of a team.
- The ability and commitment to meet a very demanding schedule.
- The ability to bargain. The ability to argue persuasively with upper level management—to be able to convince them to agree to union proposals.
- The ability to consider the needs/desires of all members of FSU and not just one constituency (understanding NTT, TT, librarian, and junior faculty issues and needs and the willingness to fight for these, even if you may disagree).
- The ability to think creatively to bring unique perspectives/solutions to impasses or disagreements, including creatively thinking about tradeoffs and compromises.
- The willingness to write proposals, cost out proposals, take notes.
- The willingness and ability to examine contract language and final contract language.
- Attention to detail; good memory for details and accurate memory of what is said at the table.
Please let us know if you are interested in serving on the team for next year, or on the bargaining support team, which will help identify bargaining topics, write proposals, and provide feedback to the bargaining team, by Friday September 13. You can do the latter for certain topics if you want (e.g. distance learning only, librarian only, research intensive semester only). Members of the bargaining team are eligible to receive a course release or payment of $3,000 for every semester in which bargaining occurs.
Let us know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Marlene Kim
FSU President
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