Negotiations - Responses to HR emails

Aug 30, 2007

This morning the University’s Office of Human Resources sent out a negotiations update email that is a distortion of what happened yesterday at the negotiating table.

In an effort to achieve a settlement and get things moving our Union Negotiating Team put the following wage proposal on the table:

3.5% - first payroll period of FY 07
3.5% - first payroll period of FY 08

1% - January 08 – timed with health insurance increases
1% - January 08 – timed with health insurance increases

The Mediators asked us if a lump sum payment for those at the top of their pay scales would settle the contract. Our Team said “No.” We want increases that are on our base salary. Lump sums are a one-time payment that does nothing to affect our standard of living over the long haul. The only lump sum offer that was on the table was $50 in the first and second years of the contract. The only movement University Negotiators made yesterday was to formally take that $50 off the negotiating table.

The University gets to its figure of 13% (the U’s description of our wage proposal) by rolling steps into the general wage adjustment. We reject folding our step increases into the general wage adjustment. Our step increases represent the salary scale for our jobs. They are longevity increases. They are not cost of living increases. The University has been trying to eliminate our steps for years. This current method is just a back-door approach to accomplishing that.

This is the truth. We ask you to share it with all of your co-workers, faculty and staff. The University administration continues to show its disrespect for our Union by broadcasting emails that distort the facts, in an effort to sow doubt and confusion among clerical, technical and healthcare workers and those who would support us in the workplace.

Your Negotiating Committee, which is made up of your co-workers, is committed to getting a fair deal from the University’s Administration. Every one of us has a stake in this. It’s an economic and moral obligation to be on the picket line if a strike is called. It takes courage to initiate change. That’s what our strike is about. Everyone deserves to make economic progress.

University Administrators want to avert a strike

August 21, 2007

University Administrators want to avert a strike on the first day of classes, not by putting a reasonable wage offer on the negotiating table, but by convincing underpaid clerical, technical and healthcare workers to vote for a substandard offer.

Why are University AFSCME members hired today for 5% less than they were hired in 2002?   Why, at every level of the pay range, are University AFSCME members paid 5% less than they were in 2002?

Are any University Administrators hired today for 5% less than what they would have made 5 years ago?

Is it only chief administrators who deserve real economic progress?

It is unconscionable of Administrators, whose salaries are well abreast of inflation, to expound about competitive wages – shorthand for keeping staff wages at poverty levels.  Walk in the shoes of employees who work second and third jobs, who are losing their homes, who don’t have savings for retirement, who don’t take vacations, who are paying hundreds, and in some case thousands, of dollars more for health care than they did 10 years ago – then you will have earned the right to talk about “appropriate” and “competitive” wages.

U. Administrators are the only public employers in the state of Minnesota who appear to need help in differentiating between a cost of living increase and a step increase.

We are a Union of over 40,000 public employees in Minnesota.  We are involved in contract negotiations 365 days/year.  We have not found a single other public employer who has rolled steps into the general wage adjustment to make it look like their settlement offer is more than it is.

Why is it that the University always cries broke when it comes to staff salaries?

When the University fell short of dollars needed to build the stadium, U. Administrators didn’t send a letter out to employees saying “We’re sorry; we can’t go ahead with this project.”  No.  They said, “We’ll do whatever it takes to find the money.”

Our Union went to the Legislature on behalf of the University.  AFSCME made sure the University was included in the State salary supplement.  Our Union was prepared to get creative at the negotiating table – to discuss how get our members caught up with the rate of inflation over the life of the contract.  The University cut that discussion short with its “settlement offer” of 2.25% and 2.5% and the message that there was no more room for wage discussion.

Our members elected a negotiating team to represent them.  This time clerical, technical and healthcare workers are united.  Your Team has unanimously called for a reject and strike vote.  Your team is also ready to come back to the table anytime.  Our goal is settlement.

Each additional 1% wage increase is a cost of $1.1 million to the University.  Will it break the bank to make the economic wellbeing of AFSCME members a priority?  You do the math.

Presidents Rhonda Jennen, Phyllis Walker, Denise Osterholm, Barb Bezat
Your Joint Negotiating Team and Negotiators

Video Response to U of M Administration Regarding Steps

U of M AFSCME response to the U of M Administration on the question of step increases.

Inflation, our wages, and our steps - what's the real truth?

August 18, 2007

Hello U of M AFSCME employees,

By now you’ve probably seen the most recent e-mail from the University telling you that you have a lot of money and that, essentially, your wages are quite high and have risen sharply against inflation.
You know what’s happened to your own salaries. Many of you know that your net paycheck is actually smaller than it used to be, what with last year’s huge health care premium increase and parking increases, just to name a few University-based fees that are taken out of our checks.

The calculations AFSCME used regarding our salaries came only from base salaries in all cases – both for AFSCME workers and Administration positions. They did not include any of the bonuses and perks given to the higher-level administrators. We compared apples to apples, and the University is throwing in ugli fruit.

When AFSCME leaders presented our inflation calculations to senior University administrators, long before we ever approached our members with this information, the VP for Finance, Richard Pfutzenreuter said, “we hope no one in this room disputes these figures.” What changed?

Now, in addition to sending you messages telling you what we are saying about inflation is “not true”, the University continues to insist that steps are included as part of our general wage increase percentages. When we negotiated our first contracts with the University, the Union and the University agreed that our steps would not be used to offset the cost of living. It appears that now, 15 years later, not only is the University changing its position on this, but that the OHR director and the finance director hold opposing positions on our calculations.

We know that steps are “real”, but they are not real wages. They do not reflect any increase in value to our jobs. We know that steps have historically not been included as part of the calculation of the July 1st increase. Steps reflect that we’re getting better at our jobs. The top of the salary range reflects what the job is worth.

When our annual general wage increase is lower than inflation our jobs lose value. When our general wage increase is below the projected rate of inflation, which is conservatively calculated at about 3.5% in each year for the next two years – we’re not getting a raise, we’re taking a pay cut.

We know that we cannot continue to slide further behind. We need real economic progress.

Barbara Bezat, President
AFSCME Local 3937