COHE Bargaining Update #4
March 16, 2011
 

Greetings!


Your COHE Bargaining Team met with two BOR staffers to continue our contract negotiations. Representing COHE were Dan Talley (DSU), Leroy Meyer (USD), Jim Kennedy (NSU), David Boyles (SDSM&T), Tim Martinez (BHSU), Ron Utecht (SDSU), Gary Aguiar (state COHE President), and Loren Paul (SDEA UniServ Director).   Representing the Board were Jim Shekleton (General Counsel) and Sam Gingerich (System Vice President for Academic Affairs). 

This was our fifth bargaining session this round.  In two of these five sessions, we have had representatives from each of six universities. For the other three sessions, we had representatives from at least four universities.  This is a terrific effort by local leaders to participate in these important discussions!  Thank you to all who have attended.  (Only Jim Shekleton and I have been able to make every one of the five bargaining sessions. Lucky me, huh?)

 

Here are two new documents which you may download:

 

 

The latest bargaining packet that includes both sides' proposals and the progress we have accomplished.  

 

A simple guide of our tentative agreements and their counter-proposals with references to pages in above document.

 

At the meeting Tuesday, we acknowledged both sides face a statutory deadline to resolve any differences on compensation issues by April 15.   So, I identified seven compensation proposals; they agreed these were the relevant items. 

 

COHE - No salary cuts (19.1, p. 68)

COHE - COLA (19.1, Paragraph 2, p. 68)

COHE - Minimum of OK (19.1, Paragraph 3, p.68)

COHE - Eight Percent Overload (19.5, p. 76)

Board - Twelve Month Payout (8.10, p. 25)

Board -Performance Averaging (19.1, 2.B.ii, p. 71 et al.)

Board - Delete Calculation when no salary increase (19.1, 2, p. 71 et al.)

 

We discussed each of these items.  At Tuesday's meeting, COHE tentatively agreed to the Board's proposal on the last item.  Their original proposed was to insert the following underlined language, In years in which the Legislature has not appropriated funds to increase employee salaries, the annual appointment notice may omit details that are irrelevant to the proffered salary. (p. 71)  We tentatively agreed, if they included language that specifically stated that the legislature did not fund salary increases for that year.

 

We made some progress on our Eight Percent proposal for self-support courses and the Twelve Month Payout.   Through careful maneuvering and persistent questioning, we made noteworthy progress on performance averaging.  However, we did not reach an agreement on any of these items. As you know, our ground rules do not allow me to divulge the particulars here yet.

 

However, we are arranging live e-conferences open to all-COHE members.  These electronic town hall meetings will allow the COHE bargaining team to offer unfiltered information.  We will probably use Adobe Connect to host these sessions (it is broadly similar to Elluminate)..  Our plan is to hold a couple of live e-conferences after our next negotiating session.  I would act as moderator on audio and video.  At least one bargainer from each university would participate with audio and, perhaps, video.  Other members could log on via any computer as participants to listen and view the conversation, ask questions via chat, and possibly respond to a poll.  

 

Your machine would only require the latest Adobe Flash Player for your browser.   Download it here. These sessions will be recorded for later viewing by those who are unable to participate synchronously.   Please indicate your availability via this link. (Note: West River folks, please select Mountain Time Zone before clicking your available times.  All, be sure to click the "folds" to see all of the options.)

 

Finally, we proposed to the Board team that we hold a marathon negotiating session to begin Friday, April 8, 7:00 p.m., continue all-day Saturday, and through Sunday, April 10, 6:00 p.m.  This would be held in the Chamberlain/Oacoma area.   Our goal would be to attempt to reach agreement on all remaining proposals by the end of the weekend.  They will get back to us on whether this arrangement will work for their side.

 

If not, the two final bargaining sessions are scheduled as follows:

 

April 9 (Sat), Pierre, lunch location TBA, 11:30 a.m., Central (10:30 a.m., Mountain).  We meet BOR team at BOR Building at 1 p.m.

 

May 5 (Thurs), Pierre, lunch location TBA, 11:30 a.m., Central (10:30 a.m., Mountain).  We meet BOR team at BOR Building at 1 p.m.

 

All COHE Members are invited to attend any and all of these sessions.  Please reply to this message if you are interested.  In particular, if we have the marathon session, members are invited to attend any part and/or day of the session they are able.  Moreover, local COHE Presidents and/or lead bargainers will identify and notify their local leadership teams to be available by phone and/or digitized communication for consultation on major issues during that marathon weekend, if it happens.

 

Your brother in defense of faculty rights,

Gary