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The University of Alaska and its newest staff union have begun negotiations on its first contract. The university recently presented an initial contract proposal. But what’s in the proposal – as well as the university’s efforts to remove members from the union – are creating a rocky start to negotiations.
CAUSE-UAW officially became a union in April and represents more than 2,000 permanent staff at the University of Alaska. The university presented its initial proposed contract to the staff union late last month.
University Public Affairs Director Jonathon Taylor said the university is concerned about the pace of negotiations.
“Somebody had to get the ball rolling, and given the pace of negotiations, we were very concerned we weren’t going to be able to move towards the finish line to hit that March deadline,” he said. “And so we put together a full contract and put it across so that we could have at least something to start with to be able to negotiate back and forth over.”
State law requires the university to submit collective bargaining agreements – and any associated wage and benefits – to the Legislature by the sixtieth day of the session each year for it to be considered. That’s usually around the end of March.
Taylor said the university generally will not speak on the specifics of a proposed contract, but that the current one serves as a starting point for negotiations.
But members of CAUSE are not happy about the initial terms.
Ian Marks is the assistant athletic director for media relations at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He’s also on the union’s bargaining team and said the terms are a step back from what members currently have.
“We understand this is a first proposal, but we question how productive it is to take several steps backwards, while also saying they want to get done quickly,” he said. “Their proposal takes serious steps back on wage increases, existing practices, healthcare costs, and job security.”
For example, Marks said, the proposal reduces the amount of paid leave and eliminates tuition waivers. Marks said union representatives are excited to come to the table and continue bargaining.
In addition to negotiations, the university is also contesting whether hundreds of positions should be included in the union in the first place.
After the members voted to form the union, the university has been contacting specific employees about whether their position allows them to be in the union.
Taylor said the positions were identified before the election, but that the parties agreed to wait until after the election to review them.
“For folks who are on the contested list, just because they voted in the election, it doesn’t mean that they were guaranteed to be in the union,” Taylor said. “All that means is we said, ‘we’ll go ahead and vote, go ahead and have folks come together and cast their ballots, so we know what the decision is, and then we’ll address these contested positions later.’”
Taylor said the university identified around 300 positions that need to be reviewed.
The union disagrees with that number. Marks said his position is one that’s being disputed right now, and the union doesn’t want to bargain over them.
“We’re not legally obligated to bargain over them. We’re not interested in bargaining over them,” he said. “We had our election. It was overwhelmingly in support of a union, and we’re not interested in having people peeled away from our union.”
He said the union and university agreed to discuss the eligibility of a smaller number of positions – roughly 15. He said those were newly created or vacant positions.
Two positions were disputed and presented to the Alaska Labor Relations Agency, which oversees union and labor issues in the state.
Nicole Thibodeau is the hearing administrator for the agency. She said in an email those positions were challenged, but that both parties withdrew their dispute. She said in an email to KTOO, “as far as ALRA is concerned, all disputes over the placement of positions for that unit are resolved.”
However, the university can still challenge certain positions. That would have to be negotiated with the union, or filed with the agency. As of Friday, Taylor said the university has not filed anything with the agency. Instead, he said the university is trying to negotiate with the union to resolve the positions.
The union also filed an unfair labor practice in June alleging the university interfered with bargaining rights and retaliated against members.
The next bargaining meeting is scheduled for Aug. 4. The deadline to submit a contract to the legislature for next year’s budget is March 21.
