Bargaining Update III

COHE Bargaining Update

Second Bargaining Session

January 7, 2011

In This Issue

Ground Rules Established

Both Sides' Proposals

An Observer's Comments

Ground Rules Established
Shh
At this week's meeting, we negotiated ground rules for releasing information about the contract bargaining. Please help us abide by these rules.

The materials provided in this newsletter can be shared with COHE members and select others. You may share them with potential members and those who possess expertise in the issues, but not generally with the faculty or others.

Our ground rules allow the bargaining team to report on the process and general progress. We agreed not to reveal particular statements. We will also refrain from offering interpretations and judgements, except in one-on-one conversations with trusted colleagues.

However, we are free to share all information with members of the state COHE Board and former bargainers.

In negotiating these rules, we tried to balance faculty's right to learn about the negotiations and the harm that may come from negotiating in public. We think we struck a fair balance.

Public Employee Labor Unions Under Assault:

Read about it in a recent New York Times article.

Greetings!

This newsletter provides the most up-to-date information on our bargaining and other items of interest.

Both Sides' Proposals

We met with the BOR bargainers on Wednesday, January 5, 9:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. in the BOR conference room in Pierre. They offered us an updated set of their proposals, which can be found here.

We provided them with a copy of our proposals, which we send to you for the first time here.

Also, here are the survey results and analysis that led to these proposals:

Original Survey Items
COHE Members Results
COHE Members Analysis - 1 (Number of respondents who strongly or moderately agree with each item, ranked, out of 59 total respondents)
COHE Members Analysis - 2 (Items which half or more of COHE respondents strongly agree)
COHE Members Analysis - 3 (Items which two-thirds or more of COHE respondents strongly agree)
COHE Members Analysis - 4 (Items which a high percent of COHE respondents DISAGREED)
Non-Members Results
Non-Members Analysis (Percent of respondents who strongly or moderately agree with each item, ranked.)

An Observer's Comments

by Delmer Lonowski, Full Professor of Political Science, SDSU

I had the opportunity to attend the COHE-BOR bargaining session on January 5 since classes were not in session. Gary has assembled an excellent negotiating team. As you would expect, he is providing the leadership necessary to obtain the very best contract that we can.

Leroy Meyer a philosopher from the University of South Dakota was able to match wits with the pompousness of the BOR representatives while Dan Talley, an economist from Dakota State University was able to quickly analyze and evaluate the data that the BOR presented.

Two librarians, Alan Aldrich from the University of South Dakota and Risë Smith from Dakota State University were brought in to this particular negotiating session to challenge and question the changes that are being proposed on the status of our librarians. They so embarrassed the BOR representatives that they apologized for the way that they had disparaged librarians. While I recognize that this embarrassment probably will not show up in the new contract, I believe that it provides our team with an advantage in future negotiations.

The next bargaining session is January 29 at Al's Oasis. This is a Saturday. Since most of us do not have classes on that date, I encourage you to attend to not only demonstrate support for our team but to demonstrate to the BOR representatives how strongly we feel about the issues involved. While the ground rules do not allow you to enter directly into the discussion, I am sure that our team appreciates your reaction and input during breaks and after the meeting.

They can only represent our views if we tell them what we think. Keep informed on the issues; let our bargaining team know what you think. Let's try to get the best contract that we can.

Legislative Update

by Corey Landeen, Executive Director, SD State Employees Organization

Dear State Employees:

I wish I could be coming to you under better circumstances. Unfortunately, we are again facing the possibility of going without a basic salary increase.

This will almost certainly happen unless we act now. SDSEO is working on several pieces of legislation for the upcoming legislation session to improve our circumstances. Because these bills have not been submitted yet and to honor the request of the legislators we are working with we cannot share them until the session opens and they are submitted.

Once this happens, every state employee will need to contact their elected representatives and tell them to support our efforts to show appreciation for the great work you do. You can find out who your legislators are by clicking here or going to

http://legis.state.sd.us/who/index.aspx.

To say that employees deserve due consideration in the FY2012 budget might be the understatement of the year. The State of South Dakota does face budget challenges, but the answer to those challenges is NOT to continually look to our state workforce to make sacrifice after sacrifice. We do have budget reserves; our elected officials like to call these "rainy day" funds.

I don't have to tell you that it's been raining a lot lately on state employees. The constant talk of reducing the size of our state government, the lack of basic salary adjustments to keep up with the cost-of-living, and the diminishing impact no salary policy has had on our retirement benefits.

The best way to be effective is for you to contact your representative during the legislative session and to encourage every state employee you know to do the same.

The legislative session begins Jan. 11, and groups are lining up to compete for every available dollar. It's time state employees were made a priority.

It's time to start talking about what we can do for employees, not what we can do to our employees.

It has never been clearer that state employees need a voice and as the executive director of SDSEO I am asking you on behalf of the SDSEO board and the SDSEO membership to join our cause by ensuring that YOU have a voice in the decisions that affect your lives. Join SDSEO today!

or http://www.sdseo.org/files/sign%20up%20page%202.jpg.

Keep Informed

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Aguiar's Comments to BOR

For the first time in my presidency, I requested time to speak directly to the BOR. Here are my comments, I strikethrough those I intended to say, but did not.