December 5, 2019 Negotiation Session
Notes contributed by Negotiating Team member Dr. David Johnston, Natural Sciences
On December 5, 2019, the Oregon Tech and the OT-AAUP bargaining teams met for the first session of their fourth round of negotiations. Maureen De Armond, Oregon Tech’s new Associate Vice President of Human Resources, joined the Oregon Tech team, replacing Sandi Hanan. During this session, the teams exchanged their first set of proposals, beginning the 300-day, mandatory bargaining clock.
The OT-AAUP team presented Association Rights, Definitions, Non-Discrimination, and Recognition.
The Oregon Tech team presented Preamble, Successor Agreement, Severability, Statutory Compliance, and Totality of Agreement.
The teams spent most of the session introducing their articles and asking clarifying questions of the opposing team.
The teams agreed in principle to the language of Oregon Tech’s Successor Agreement proposal, but could not TA the article, as dates need to be filled in once the CBA has been finalized.
Both teams felt that the Recognition proposal was straightforward, but the Oregon Tech team requested a few clarifications be incorporated, the OT-AAUP team did not object.
Additionally, the teams agreed that the Definitions article would be a running document, which could be added to when necessary.
The OT-AAUP team said they would prepare counter proposals to Oregon Tech’s Preamble, Severability, and Totality of Agreement, and the Oregon Tech team said they would prepare a counters to OT-AAUP’s Non-Discrimination and Association Rights, but that it would most likely be several sessions before the counter to Association Rights was ready.
The OT-AAUP team, along with our AAUP representative, Sarah Lanius, felt that the Statutory Compliance article proposed by the Oregon Tech team was extraneous and unwarranted, as it is does not appear in any of the other Oregon University CBAs, and the only purpose it seemed to serve was to limit the rights of the Association. As such, the OT-AAUP team will not respond to this article, effectively rejecting it.
