COHE Ratification News
April 28, 2013
Greetings!

As you may know, COHE, your collective bargaining representative, has reached tentative agreement with the Board of Regents on a new collective bargaining agreement covering nearly 1,200 faculty at the six public institutions of higher education.  The COHE Executive Board has unanimously recommended its members vote to approve the changes, because we think it is the best contract we can get at this time.  We have wrung every possible concession from the Board of Regents negotiators. 

We have worked hard on behalf of the rights of all faculty, COHE members and non-members alike.  We established a tough bargaining stance and it has paid off with several victories, including two more in this round. 
 
This process has taken two and one-half years, with nearly two dozen bargaining sessions in cities from Spearfish to Brookings and points in between, with our last session in Aberdeen earlier this month.  We worked just about every aspect of South Dakota public employee union law, including a declaration of impasse, conciliation, fact-finding, an imposed contract, and an unfair labor practice process. The latter will continue through this summer.   Indeed, we tried the patience and good humor of both sides, and discussed more than three dozen major proposals.   In reaching this agreement, nearly every part of the contract was touched or discussed in same way. This effort was a comprehensive review of our working conditions!

 

We clearly accomplished two major victories in this round: (1) recognition of rank and seniority in reduction in force (RIF) procedures, for the first time, and (2) strong non-renewal protections for the lecturer and librarian ranks, which we think are among the best in the country.  Meanwhile, we continue to mourn the loss of tenure-rights for all newly-hired librarians.  We fought, tooth-and-nail, to recover these rights and could not get the BOR negotiators to budge.  We offered numerous compromise proposals to improve conditions for both the "grandfathered" library faculty who retained their tenure rights and the newly-hired librarian ranks.  In the end, we obtain a few minor concessions.

 

We are preparing for a ratification vote, in which all dues-paying COHE members will be able to participate electronically.  Voting to approve contracts is yet another benefit of COHE membership.  If you are interested in joining us, please reply to this message or visit sdcohe.org.  Tentatively, that vote has been scheduled to open on Wednesday, May 1, and close Friday, May 10.  Dues-paying COHE members will receive further instructions in a few days.

 

To address any questions and concerns raised by our members, we have held a series of ratification meetings.  These meetings included four face-to-face meetings last week at each of the East River campuses, which I was pleased to be able to attend.  This week we have two more meetings, one conference call for all COHE members on Monday and another Tuesday at Black Hills State University.

 

We now invite you to participate in the discussion of our new proposed contract. COHE will host a conference call for all members of the bargaining unit (i.e., all faculty) this Friday, May 3, 3:00 p.m., Central (2:00 p.m., Mountain).  To participate call 888-394-8197 and use event #791837.  Here are the proposed changes and a highlight/summary sheet.

 
Yours in defense of faculty rights,
Gary Aguiar 
State President, COHE