During the second bargaining session, Admin proposed requiring in-person observers to use personal leave or vacation time to attend bargaining sessions. We believe that would be a violation of our contract and labor law. In fact, last year the Federation filed an Unfair Labor Practice complaint against the College after some Academic Professionals (APs) were required to use leave time to attend bargaining. The College settled with us by restoring the leave of the impacted employees.
In response, we proposed language stating that employees who attend bargaining in-person will do so in accordance with Article 6, which contains hard-won protections for APs around schedule and work modality. We agreed to table the issue until the next meeting.
During the second part of the meeting, we shared and discussed our Issue Tracker, which is where members can see a comprehensive list of our members’ bargaining priorities. We discussed a plan to establish some common ground for costing everything.