MSP Member Raise Delay Vote
Submitted by Lori Reardon on Wed, 06/30/2010 - 1:41pm.
Email date: 06/22/2010 Description: Governor Patrick demands concession pay package -- MSP president details situation and asks for member vote 1. We accept 364 day delays in our raises for each of the 3 years of the contract, but we get the raises in the end. 1a. Furloughs and GIC adjustments are off the table. 2. Nearly all other public higher ed unions have accepted these concessions, and we are not at all likely to find a better deal on our own. Pattern bargaining is clearly the rule.... on the other hand... 3. There is money in the UMass system to pay our contracts, but the Chancellor is refusing to spend it in that way, claiming that there is a state system for funding our contracts that has not led to funding. 4. We worked hard to lobby the House, Senate and Governor to get our contract funding through, and were denied. 5. We must consider how this affects the premise of collective bargaining, the respect for our contracts in the future. critically... 6. The legislative clock has run out, and if this bill is not submitted to the floor by the end of June, 2010, it will face many more legislative hurdles that make chances of funding much more difficult or impossible. The most critical elements here are #2 and #6. Other state employee unions have already taken these concessions, and many other public higher ed unions have now conceded to these very raise delays. Our chances of prevailing on our own are clearly minimized by those facts, the state of the economy and the political winds. If we don't do this now, the chances of us, as lone players, getting this through in a new legislative session are very difficult. In the past, getting our contracts funded years after the normal legislative cycle only occurred because we were in full solidarity with all other higher ed unions. We are not in this case. ** With deep frustration and considerable anger, I recommend that we accept these concessions, get our base pay increases, even delayed, and work to prevent this from ever happening again. ** Please read the documents below. One is the formal language of the concession, and the other is the message that describes our efforts to date and a rationale to consider when you vote up or down on this concession package. The MSP Executive Board recommends that MSP members accept negotiated raise delays in order to get our raises funded by the legislature on a vote of 16 yea, 2 nay, 1 abstention. MSP motion from the President: Yes Randall Phillis |
