As UVM staff, we have a decision to make:

 

Do we want to be treated as a suggestion box  

or participate as a full partner?

 

 

Currently, UVM's faculty (members of United Academics-AFT-AAUP) and the service, trades, and maintenance staff (members of Local 267 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers) are engaged in contract negotiations with the UVM Administration.   

 

As members of a union, they have the legal authority to sit as equals with the Administration and bargain over key issues like wages, benefits and working conditions. 

  

Over the years that the faculty and service and maintenance employees have been union-represented, they have succeeded in making many advances in their work, including the following examples:

• improved medical leave and benefits;
• increased parental leave from 6 weeks to 15 weeks;
• secured tuition remission;
• secured workload determination procedures;
• union work release time;
• helped define safe working conditions;
• negotiated clear discipline procedures;
• defined grievance procedures;
• bargained intellectual property rights;
• bargained the Cultural Holiday that was extended to all UVM employees;
• bargained a process by which employees can challenge their job classifications and  
• secure wage increases;

 Click here to read the joint letter of endorsement from United Academics (UA), the UVM faculty union, and the service, trades and maintenance employees union, United Electrical Workers (UE).  

 

Our UVM colleagues, have chosen to be full partners by working together in their unions.  

 

We believe that we deserve the same opportunity to participate in the decisions that guide our professions. Join us in learning more and supporting our efforts as UVM staff to join the Vermont State Employees' Association (VSEA) and give staff the opportunity to fully participate in defining our workplace. For more information about VSEA, or for more information about signing a card: email to set up a time to get your questions answered.  

When we, as UVM staff, vote to form a union we will have the right to negotiate a contract that defines the conditions of our workplace, our salary increases, our benefits and secure the pieces that we have come to expect and appreciate about working at UVM, including flexibility, retirement, and tuition remission.