This just in: EMU-AAUP President Howard Bunsis just sent an email out to everyone that says the strike is indeed a “go.” Given that this message was sent about an hour before the deadline, I guess this means a) neither side wants to blink, and b) I guess I’m going to lose the pool on the strike thing.
So, my “to do” list for tomorrow, more or less in this order:
- Go to the gym, mainly because the Washtenaw Country Rec Center has been closed for the last couple of weeks and I’m feeling the need to try to be a little less flabby.
- Picket. Probably with my son in tow, who will not be happy about it for all kind of reasons, not the lest of which is it’s his ninth birthday tomorrow.
- Make up for picketing with my son by going out for sushi. Yes, he likes sushi.
- Enjoy more birthday celebrations with both him and my wife.
And until the strike is over, which hopefully will be soon, I’ll basically repeat.
A colleague emailed me tonight and told me he liked what I was posting but he wasn’t as pro-union as I was on this one. Fair enough, though I guess I’d describe my feelings about the union as profoundly mixed for lots and lots of reasons that I’m not going to rehash now. But hey, that’s the way it is.
There will be a few folks who cross some lines and there will be a few folks who decide to participate in the orientation stuff this weekend. But if for some reason the administration thinks that the faculty union is going to cave now– after 30 or so years, after five or six strikes (most of which lasted only a few hours), after various ups and downs and everything else with this group– that’s just silly.
So, like I said, picketing at about 10 am; sushi at about noon.
Time for a new pool – when will it be over? My bet is 7 am on September 6th, as both sides move away from brinksmanship.
The settlement will do away with the HMO and require everyone to move to the PPO, though with no premiums; salary increases of 2.5%, 3.0% and 3.5% in a 3-year deal. Everyone will be unhappy.
Well, two thoughts:
* I find it really annoying that both sides of the table are sort of implying that we don’t really need to have a deal until classes start. Besides the stress and arguably illegal nature of being on strike, I have lots of work to do before classes start. I’m going to need to email my department head today and give her a “head’s up” that I’m not going to be at a meeting on Tuesday where I was supposed to tell a group of lecturers and part-timers about stuff having to do with the first year writing program. There’s all the stuff about orientation this weekend. And then there’s the fact that faculty do all kinds of work beyond just the classroom. So that kind of pisses me off that the only standard is standing in front of a group of students and talking. As if that’s pretty much all we do.
* If the deal is what you predict in you’re second paragraph there, I’d sign that in a heartbeat and I’d be pretty happy about it. My family is in the PPO right now and we are perfectly happy with this insurance. What concerns me is that the “line in the stone” that the administration has chiseled is that we’re going to pay something for the PPO, no matter what. And I’d even be okay with that, but not if it means taking a paycut.