Bargaining Diary Archives

Another long afternoon at the table for our team. Steve Mackey, OU’s CFO, gave a budget presentation at today’s session and we were joined for that presentation by three of our SBA faculty. We discussed almost all of the remaining language items with little progress, in part because some team members were missing from both sides. Additionally the employer offered a counter to our economic proposal. The teams meet next on Thursday, July 18th.

Economics – The employer’s counter to the OU-AAUP economic proposal saw very little movement from their initial proposal presented on July 3 and it did not accept any of the OU-AAUP proposed economic changes.  Their current proposal includes the following:

• An increase to their initial proposed Year 5 salary for all faculty from 2% to 2.2%.  No other salary increase changes were offered;
• An increase to the promotion raise for faculty moving from Associate to Professor from the existing $8,000 to $8,500.  No other increases to promotion raises were proposed;
• No Faculty Travel funding increase;
• No Professional Development and Research Leave funding increase;
• No Change to Retirement Contributions;
• No Change to Paid Parental Leave.

Language – Both sides shared counter proposals on language items today.  While discussions were collegial, little progress was made. The following items were discussed:

• OU-AAUP Counter on Article X (Professional Responsibility):  Our team presented a counter that rejected the concept of a universal teaching load for Special Instructors, thereby preserving individual academic units’ ownership of workload.  It also reimagined a voluntary increase to teaching load that goes along with a reduction to either service or research expectations to be initiated by a faculty member and requiring AAUP approval.  And finally, the counter included largely-agreed-upon language regarding outside professional work that slightly differentiated timelines for notification of outside teaching and notification of other outside professional work.
• OU-AAUP Counter on Article XXIX and Appendix I (Calendar):  Our team presented a calendar proposal that sought to address some of the main concerns about class days and potential holidays while still maintaining the two 8-week summer sessions.
• Appendix Q (Medical Insurance Advisory Group):  The employer refused to consider our proposal to introduce a medical insurance advisory group.  Our team continues to believe that collaborative discussions on plan selections and rate discussions could help reduce medical insurance costs and improve plan options for all employees and the university.
• The employer introduced the concept of a limited category for 12-month faculty.  While not an actual proposal, the concept imagined what such a position may look like in the contract.  Our team will spend time reviewing the concept and continue the conversation at our next session.

Keep using your voices to share how you feel about what’s happening at the bargaining table!  We honestly cannot truly convey how helpful your input and support is as we work through this process.