Parking Bargaining is Back – FSU General Meeting, July 20th
7/13/2021
Dear FSU Member,
The UMB Administration has notified the campus unions that the Bayside Lot is anticipated to be closed around June 2022. This would eliminate all of the lower-cost parking available to students and employees. To address this and other on-going concerns about the current parking fees, a coalition of campus unions (including the CSU, DCU, FSU and PSU) held an initial meeting with management on July 8th.
The coalition has decided that pushing for expanded bargaining at this point would be detrimental to efforts to reach some agreement/clarity for parking for Fall semester since it is likely that Admin’s resistance would delay the bargaining process into the semester. The coalition will, however, be seeking to push for expanded bargaining for negotiations on parking that will occur after the Fall agreement is reached. Because FSU policy requires that all FSU bargaining is done through expanded bargaining the FSU is holding a general meeting – July 20th from 1:30-2:30 -- to vote on an exception for this round of parking bargaining.
(contact FSU or Steve Striffler for Zoom information).
Meanwhile, the unions have asked for information about usage, revenues, and costs of parking over the last several years. We have received some of that information and have begun to analyze it. We raised our key concerns about the current parking system:
- It is too expensive and the cost creates barriers for students to attend school and employees to work here. In addition, the high parking fees have pushed students and employees to park in the surrounding neighborhoods, raising complaints from UMB's neighbors.
- It is unfair to students/employees who do not drive to campus 4 or 5 days a week since the multi-use passes which provided a discounted rate to individuals who came to campus less frequently were eliminated.
- The safety and accessibility for individuals with limited mobility is a very serious concern that must be addressed promptly to minimize the risks of accidents and injuries.
We are working on proposals that could provide some short-term relief for students and employees for this fall semester, as well as longer-term restructuring of parking fees to address the closing of the Bayside lot. Stay tuned for more updates.
FSU Parking Bargaining Team:
Joseph Brown, Assistant Professor, Political Science
Caroline Coscia, Senior Lecturer II, Political Science, FSU Vice President
For information on the FSU, links to our contract and bargaining updates, and a calendar of events, see the FSU webpage