Bargaining VI Live-Blog, 1/24/2013

An appeal to reason: President Gottfredson, fire these lawyers before they destroy our university. Put CAS Dean Scott Coltrane in charge of your bargaining team. Build some trust with your faculty before it is too late.

Disclaimer: My opinion of what people said, meant to say, or should have said. Nothing is a quote unless in ” “.

Prologue: Who writes the stuff on the Admin’s union comment-free blog? The name on it is Barbara Altmann. Barbara is a very well-liked and respected faculty member, who applied for the VPAA job after Russ Tomlin quit. As it turned out she was a little too well-liked and respected by the faculty, so Lorraine Davis and Bob Berdahl gave the job to Doug Blandy. They claimed that since it was “an inside appointment” they could do what they wanted without consultation. There was a minor faculty rebellion, Lorraine caved and had them both do presentations to the faculty, then they appointed Blandy. There was another revolt, and Lorraine created a new junior VPAA job for Altmann, in an effort to buy back a quantum of trust with the faculty.

So Altmann is one of the few JH administrators the faculty know, like, and trust. The admins won’t let her in their “Executive Leadership Team”, but she’s the logical person to stick with the job of writing Gottfredson’s union blog. But does she really write it, or does one of the admin’s plethora of lawyers do it, and then paste Barbara Altmann’s name on it? Because she’s only been at one bargaining session, for about an hour.

So, let’s find out:

Hi [Lisa Thornton, Hubin’s PRO Officer], this is a public records request for  

1) the names and contact information of all of the editors and writers for the website http://uo-ua.uoregon.edu/. 

2) all notes for and drafts of the post identified as
Negotiation Update #3
January 21, 2013
with names of the authors/editors of each document. 

3) a copy of any emails showing who read/commented on/approved this post before publication. 

I’m ccing Barbara Altmann on this as she can presumably provide the information easily. 

I ask for a fee waiver on the basis of public interest in the bargaining process, inherent in its expense and effects on UO, and as demonstrated by the large number of hits and comments to the UO Matters blog whenever I post on this. 

Thanks, [UO Matters]

Live-Blog: starts 8AM in 450 Lillis. Drop by for a little, it’s fascinating – at least for the 20 billable hours so far.

Cast: No Geller, Mauers off. Extra non-speaking characters on Rudnick’s side:

• Kate Grado of Harrang etc, Rudnick’s junior helper lawyer, never speaks. Are we paying for her too?
• Brandalee Davis of Jamie Moffitt’s office, note-taker. Hey, those notes are a public record! That will save me a lot of typing.

Rudnick: We’re still working on our counters, not sure we’ve got 4 hours of stuff.

Art 38: Jury duty: Snoozer.

Art 18: Discipline and Termination for cause. Given the threats I’ve had from Berdahl and Geller, I’d better read this carefully. New union proposal. Rudnick: Wants to fire faculty if convicted (even just arrainged?) for, say, selling pot. Caucus break. Bramhall: Existing language about health and safety covers your worries. Rudnick: Worried about inappropriate off-duty conduct, even if it doesn’t involve students health and safety, but connected somehow to whether or not the admin thinks it’s appropriate for you to be a prof. we’d like to be able to fire your ass. Cecil, Pratt, Rudnick go on. Civil disobedience? Rudnick: University needs to have the right to consider this as a firing offense. Me: The issue is who would determine this and set the standards. Cecil: Show us your “well established procedures” for determining what would be a firing offense. Make a counter-proposal. Rudnick: Employer would still have to follow due-process. (What will that due proces be? She’s all about “the employer”. Stahl would say great – so we can fire the administrators too, for off duty conduct? Pratt: Faculty should explicitly be held to a standard of excellence for their job. Davidson: What do you mean by due process – arbitratable? Cecil: Yes, you’ve been telling us you want go to arbitration on academic matters. Rudnick: Seems ready to let this one be arbitrable – better get this in writing, folks. Gleason: Is your position that UO can’t hold faculty to a higher standard than the criminal justice system does? (Me: Back to pot – plenty of excellent teachers and researchers are, technically, federal felons. Or have been arrested for demonstrating, etc.) Pratt: You need to show us specifics about what you are thinking here.

Caucus.

More back and forth. Snoozer.

Art 28: Faculty Handbook: Cecil: Surprised at the level of passion about the missing faculty handbook. Needs to be a hardcopy. Rudnick is still having a hard time with the hard copy business. Jesus lady, just use a printer and print out the website.

Barbara Altmann shows up.

Long discussion. Blandy says his new Ac Aff website may be “so dynamic” that printing it out would be difficult to impossible. My God.

Art 36: Strike, Lockout: Faculty can’t be assigned to do work of striking staff, GTF’s Blandy, Rudnick: GTFF go on strike, who does grading, sections? Rudnick: Could UO say we know you can’t teach all the sections, but have to do something. Psaki: We are instructor of record, we will do grades. But what about things like scheduling rooms, classified support, etc. Rudnick: If GTF’s go on strike, faculty will need to make some accommodations in order to get vital work done. Cecil: Yes, some accommodations – go craft some language.

Rudnick: Librarians don’t fit in, we will deal with them somehow.

Caucus

I missed a bit, they are now on the elimination of the Research Assistant position classification. Rudnick is saying Esby still doesn’t have anything solid, reclassification is being considered in consultation with the relevant PI’s. Jobs may go into SEIU. Pratt: So, university could eliminate tenure, by a reclassification. Rudnick is shouting. Under statute, President runs the university, has broad authority. It is well established that the organization of the university is a management right and it not a mandatory subject of bargaining. Whoa. But, she says she doesn’t know what law says about tenure. Rudnick: We will negotiate these classifications for the first contract, but we will not commit to classification beyond the date of the contract expiration.

Gleason looks positively gleeful about this fight – his first smile. Rudnick’s going on about “management rights” now. Tricky stuff. She makes clear that this would *not* be done unilaterally, rather Pres would of course do it with consultation with faculty. So, trust Espy to consult with faculty on this, or want a requirement in the contract that she consult? Rudnick: Creation of the new category is a management right – salary, benefits, promotion rights, job security would be a mandatory subject of bargaining. Organization is a management right, rest is negotiable. Davidson: So you could create classifications, but couldn’t hire into that category until salary etc., were negotiated. Rudnick: correct. Cecil: Job description will then negotiable. Rudnick: No. We create the job description unilaterally, then negotiate about pay, promotion rights, etc. Cecil. Time for a pause. Pratt: Suppose you create a new classification that does what tenured professors do. Rudnick: Union could object, because pay and benefits for that sort of work would already be negotiated. Pratt: So the new position could take away tenure? Cecil: Problem even without TT issue. Gleason does the eye-roll. Rudnick: “I’m talking about legitimate organizational re-organization”! Cecil grandstanding a little here, but his point is right on, this is getting worked out a little, painfully. Rudnick: We agree to current classification, don’t give up right to create new ones. Cecil: We’ll need to talk.

Rudnick: Lots of stuff stuck in our pipeline, we hope to get it back to you for Feb 5th. Cecil: Hope so. Adjourn.