Five months after the expiration of the last collective bargaining agreement, Ferris’ administration and faculty union are maintaining civil contract maintenance meetings.
Associate Provost Steve Reifert and Ferris Faculty Association president Charles Bacon both expect to sign a finalized, five-year contract by next semester.
What is the current state of the new contract?
Reifert: The contract’s been ratified both by the union and by the Board of Trustees. There’s a number of changes, and we call them tentative agreements, to the language that we’ve made in the contract that we’ve agreed to. These are written down and signed both by the Ferris Faculty Association and myself.
Bacon: Ratified, not yet signed.
How have contract discussions gone since the tentative agreement made in August?
Reifert: As we’ve gone through this process, we’ve had tentative agreements way back in May. As we reach an agreement, we sign it [and] we can set it aside.
We all get very, very busy at the beginning of semester. We had to wait for the Board of Trustees vote, we had to wait for the faculty vote, then the clerical work… It’s been a mutually agreed upon process. We agreed on a date to sit down and go over this again. There’s nothing negative about what’s going on. And actually, I have wanted to do this the whole time, we just haven’t been able to sit down and put it together.
Bacon: Very good. We’ve been solving most grievances.
The goal was to finalize the new contract before the previous one expired in June. Did you expect to be continuing discussions in late November?
Reifert: It took us three weeks longer than I thought, but that was a scheduling issue.
Bacon: These ongoing discussions are more contract maintenance, as opposed to negotiations.
What has been the most difficult element of contract discussions this semester?
Reifert: Just trying to get together. We’ve had we have monthly contract maintenance meetings. We’ve discussed some of the larger changes we made, the impact those have had.
The most difficult part, as we saw with the [United Auto Workers] is always the wages. It is kind of relieving when we get to that point where we’ve agreed on what wage increase will be. The union members vote and approve it, just like you’ve seen in the UAW, then the Board of Trustees voted and approved that.
Bacon: The changes made to promotion and merit have required new college committees which creates more questions from faculty and Deans.
When do you expect to see the contract finalized and released?
Reifert: Before the end of semester.
Bacon: Hopefully by the start of spring semester.