Steven D. Krause

President John Fallon is on WEMU as I type this this morning. Here’s what he said:

• Fallon the offer we got on Tuesday was no improvement over what we were offered originally; it was merely a rearrangment of the dollars.
• For the first time ever, the reason he gave for the not great offer in the first place was poverty. Fallon claims that 67% of every dollar of expenses come from students and we just can’t afford these extra expenses. I suppose he means faculty salaries, but he’s conveniently forgetting administrator salaries, the football team, the new student union, etc., etc. And besides that: had they left insurance untouched, I think they could have given everyone 1.5-2%, not spent anymore money, and gotten a deal.
• To paraphrase, “I care about faculty, but we can’t willy-nilly spend our money on just anything.” For sure! Faculty are the heart of the institution and our buildings are collapsing but jeez, we just can’t spend money on these things!
• Fallon said fact finding could take as long as two months, even longer. Then he said he thinks that fact finding is a great idea, because it represents “stability,” even though it’s going to take “some months, eight months to a year.” (So, what is it? 2 or 8 or 12?!) I agree with him about the benefits of fact finding, and I think it’s something that I think both the union and the administration ought to consider next time at the start of this negotiating process. But a year?! How does this save the administration any money?
• David Fair from WEMU flat-out asked if the administration would adhere to the fact finders findings. Fallon very clumsily stepped around that one. He said some pretty words about the recommendations, about them being public, etc. And then he said these recommendations “Cannot be summarily dismissed. That feature alone means that we can’t just walk away from the fact finding results.” Fair kept pressing him on this, but of course, no comittment was given. He did say at some point in this interview that he’s confident that the fact finder will find in favor of the administration.
• They talked about the other contracts on campus. Fallon said that he didn’t think the faculty union contract would signal a different approach by the other bargaining units; rather, he had hoped that the deal they had made with the other units would have had an effect on how the administration negotiated with the faculty. First off, the only other bargaining unit that has a contract that I know of right now is the lecturers. Second, they got a pretty crappy contract. And third, what he was hoping has never happened here before. Because the faculty union is by far the largest on campus, we have tended to be the one that has set the pace for everyone else. It doesn’t work the other way around.

I’m sure the whole thing will be up on the WEMU web site soon.

I don’t have much time to post right now– I’m sure I’ll come back to this later. But three things for now:

• In case you haven’t heard, the EMU-AAUP has suspended “Ended” the strike so we can take the administration up on their offer of “fact finding.” See the union’s press release here.
• In my opinion, this was the best option– followed closely by simply agreeing to the administration’s deal, and distantly by going back out on strike.
• I’m going to try to get a version of my previously suggested “EMUtalk.org” up and running yet this weekend. It will be merely a shell at this point, but something to get us started.

Now it’s later…

Some of what I’ve come across in the papers and such:

• From the Detroit News, “EMU’s renegade professors should stay on job.” This is the one that was supposedly on the EMU web site for a while, though I think they took it off. Really, this strikes me as so ridiculously pro-administration as to not even be worthy of comment. I suspect this is why they took it off of their web site.
• The Detroit Free Press’ “At EMU, Teach, Talk and Settle” is a bit better. I mostly agree with this paragraph: “With EMU refusing to negotiate until the American Association of University Professors ended its walkout, the union, in effect, blinked first. But the school administration has nothing to crow about until a contract is settled. Given the ever-increasing costs of college, neither side can expect much public support for failing to deliver on its end of the higher education bargain. They owe the university constituency a better effort.” Though I’m not sure I would say that the union “blinked.” I think we demonstrated that we had souls and we actually cared for students. If that’s “blinking,” well….

And then the rest of what I came across was about what you’d expect.

So, here’s some of what I remember from the day:

I went in today and met with one of the graduate students I’m teaching/mentoring as part of my interim Writing Program Administrator duties, someone who was having an interesting teaching issue. Needless to say, I’m not going to say anything more about it than that. But I will say this: first, the issues all had some version of a happy ending. Second, this student said something I really appreciated and that says a lot about the whole situation. She (I guess I can let that out) said “I’m really glad you weren’t on strike today.” I kind of laughed and said “yeah, me too.” And she said “No, really. I’m really REALLY glad you weren’t on strike today.”

Yeah, me too.

After all this got sorted out, it was time for the noon meeting in Roosevelt Hall. The short version was the offer the administration ended the morning sessions with today (at like five in the morning, by the way) were not any better and, in some ways, a regression. At least that’s what the union team said. I’m not completely sure. One thing though that is missing from the administration’s “latest and greatest” offer is a contribution to retirement. In other words, while the percentages of what they are willing to give us for salary are higher in this latest version, they got that way by taking away money from someplace else.

Tangent #1 in two parts: First, one of the many things that is so frustrating about this whole thing is that the administration could have made all of this go away SOOO easily. As one of my colleagues said in the hallway today, if they had said something like “okay, we’ll pay for insurance– at least we’ll pay for the decent PPO– and we’ll give y’all 2%,” we would have settled for that in a second. And that deal probably would have cost the administration less, too. Certainly less than the legal fees of the last 11 or 12 days.

Second, I’m not completely convinced that this is that bad of a deal. Not a great deal for sure, but not that bad. As far as I can tell, it isn’t a pay cut, and right now, that’s good enough for me.
/tangent

Anyway, the bargaining team, union executive committee, and, most importantly, a very articulate guy from the national AAUP office (I can’t remember his name right now) basically offered two options: go on strike again or take the offer of fact finding. And they were pushing fact finding. Approving/considering the contract as offered was pretty much out of the question. While some folks spoke up for the idea of a strike, I think the vast majority of people were for fact finding even before we got the pitch for it. Striking was simply not working, we were obviously losing public support (see above editorials, for example), and I think there was a general sentiment that it was time to try something new.

Tangent #2: I might have time to write more in terms of a reflection as a wrap-up to this whole strike mess later, but I am totally TOTALLY convinced that this union has hit a time to give up on striking as a strategy and try something new, and I mean that for now and in the future. We’ve been going on strike now (off and on) for 30 years, and, while the union has made a lot of gains in different areas, it hasn’t gotten us a lot more money. When we went on strike in 2000, we were near the bottom of the MAC and Michigan colleges and universities in terms of salaries. In 2002 or 03 (I forget which), same deal. In 2006, same deal. And I’m pretty sure this was all the same in the mid ’70s. All I’m saying is we need a different approach here, and I for one am just not convinced that we would be that worse off by working without a contract instead of going on strike. I do know that working without a contract would be a hell of a lot less stressful and disruptive on my life, not to mention my students’ lives. But like I said, maybe more on that another time. /tangent

There was a lot of disappointment amongst folks, of course. For one thing, it means we didn’t win. I don’t think it means we lost exactly, but the relationship between the union and the administration has, up to this point, been about “winning.”

For another, it means this isn’t over yet. Really, fact finding just puts us into limbo, at least until the fact finder finds facts (which could be December easily), until the administration does something about it (or not, which is the main fear of going down the fact finding paty in the first place). One good argument for this is the old contract is arguably better than the new one, but the process is still annoying and stressful.

Tangent #3 And I guess what also frustrates me about this is we really could have avoided this minimal gain and highly stressful version of trench warfare called “picketing” by agreeing to fact finding last week. Back on September 8, the EMU-AAUP poo-pooed fact finding; now it’s the way we’re going. /tangent

Some/many of my colleagues saw this as the beginning of the end of the union. I actually don’t think that is true at all. You know, one of the good things that comes out of crises like this is it forces a different way of thinking. Carrying around sticks with paper stapled to them wasn’t working, and, IMO, it has never worked that great here anyway. Folks are still united in this group, and I actually got a sense of some potential energy and a larger involvement in this “next step,” during fact finding, by the rank and file of the union.

That, as a certain former imprisoned professional homemaker might say, is a good thing.

The word this morning is that the administration once again offered its “last best offer” (can you keep offering slightly different last best offers?), and, according to Howard Bunsis, there has not been “significant movement from their original position.” So, as he told the crowd at a 6 am rally (which I did not attend– I just heard from phone call) and in an email, the suspension has been extended to midnight tonight, and there’s a meeting of union members at noon today where the bargaining team will seek guidance about what to do next.

Now, I have TOTALLY supported the way that the union has handled stuff since the administration walked out. Not even a monkey would have agreed to a deal which would directly impact the work lives of nearly 700 people (not to mention indirectly effect thousands of students and co-workers) without taking at least an hour or two to mull it over. Hell, the administration’s team takes hours to decide anything and they have the gaul to say “well, we gave you 15 minutes to decide your next five years.” Of course, the administration’s lawyers and PR firm do bill by the hour. And the fact that the union was able to put together any counter-offer at all is remarkable.

Tangent: And let me just say a few things to some of my friends and colleagues who are dubious about this whole 10 pm walk-out by the administration. First off, this process is known as “collective bargaining.” As I understand it, the way that works is that one side gives an offer, the other side gives a counter-offer (and so on), and then, through this exchange, the parties reach an agreement. If either side says “at such-and-such time, I am done talking with you,” then that side is not really bargaining. In other words, when the administration set up this ultimatum (and when they didn’t do all kinds of other stuff, like not provide information about health care costs that the union requested until after we were on strike), they were demonstrating that they fundamentally were not all that interested in collective bargaining all along. Second, and this is key, the administration left the table and the building. So let’s just say for the sake of argument, as I have heard rumor of, that really, the union team had this final offer long before 9:45 Tuesday night. Had the administration’s bargaining team simply stayed in the room about a week ago, we would have either been teaching Wednesday morning or shortly after that. /Tangent

Having said all that, I think we need to seriously consider whatever this offer is now. I of course want to reserve judgment until after we actually hear what the offer is. But as I have always said, my bottom line is pretty simple: I don’t want paying for insurance to force me to take a pay cut. I personally don’t think this is the time to ask for a lot of money, which is why asking for money based on inflation is problematic, even though it probably is true that we will either be behind or pretty much in the same place money-wise in three to five years.

So, if the offer is only a little bit better than the offer the administration published before, well, I think it may be time to take it. But like I said, let’s see what happens at noon today.

This might be a matter of not so ancient history, depending on where the talks are and what happens tomorrow, but I thought I’d offer a couple of links from other takes on the strike, things that offer a few more takes on it.

First, there’s this article by Cary Nelson, who is the president of the AAUP, called “Solidarity” in Inside Higher Ed. Obviously, Nelson has a point of view here, but I basically agree with what he’s saying. Note the way that he describes the infamous walkout from talks.

Second, there’s this YouTube “EMU Protest Update,” which gives you the point of view narrative of a pretty typical student. Well, one with a video camera.

And finally, there’s this YouTube clip titled “The ruined tour:”

This is actually my favorite of the lot because I like how the filmmaker/videographer sort of shows how his tour becomes “ruined” by the strike, though I interpret this as one in support of the strikers. This clip is a nice companion with the Nelson essay because it illustrates the multiple pickets that he talks about. Oh, and you can also see some good footage of the Ypsilanti Watertower and it’s more colorful name.

There were a couple of different articles out there about the suspension of the strike; I think this one in the Ann Arbor News “EMU faculty back in class,” sums it up pretty well. We did indeed go back to work today. Well, that sort of assumes that faculty actually stopped working entirely, I suppose. Also, channel 7 just reported that the DPS teachers were going to vote on a contract tomorrow.

It was a kind of weird, actually. It was striking (no pun intended) to me coming to campus because there were so many more students around today than there were yesterday. They had gotten the news. Generally, I think the mood was up-beat, at least early in the day. I don’t know how much work folks actually accomplished; I didn’t get much done, but then again, I wasn’t teaching today. I did spend some time meeting with some students, including one I had a few years ago who was coming back because he’s thinking about graduate school. He told me some great stories about teaching in China, mostly about how it was surprisingly boring.

But I still have this overwhelming feeling of being sooo very far behind. These last two weeks have felt like two months, what with all the stress, the craziness, the lack of sleep, the “all strike all the time,” etc. You can’t move from that mental place back to the “now I’m a college professor again” in just a day. I want to/need to make a “to do” list, but I’m kind of scared to make that list.

And then there’s the whole disturbing possibility that we might actually be back on strike tomorrow. The news that started trickling out of the union office in the afternoon was not encouraging. Now remember, these messages came in the afternoon, and there’s plenty of time between then (and now) and tomorrow morning. But I would have felt a lot better had the updates from the union been something like “oh, we’re so close!”

You know, Bunsis said in a couple of different forums (the newspaper, radio, in meetings, etc.) that if we could get back to the bargaining table, we could have a deal in 24 hours. I have no doubt that the administration’s team (especially their attorney) is doing what they can to make that impossible. But I think the union needs to continue to take the high-ground, be the grown-up, and make a deal.

And you know what? I think that the folks at the table for the union need to keep the bigger picture in mind. Faculty and students alike need to get on with the school year (not to mention our lives), and I think we need to get on to the conversation about the future of this institution. And of where we want/need to take the union.

This blog– well, at least the stuff I’ve had about the strike– has gotten a little too popular for me to just spout off at this delicate moment of twenty-four hours of talks. So I’ll save some of that for my “after the strike” post, which will hopefully be later today. Or at least I hope we’ll be settled by the end of today.

I will say this though: I applaud both the union and the administration for getting back to the table. I am very proud and happy that the union took the high ground here, and I’m hopeful that Fallon was right when he said in his WEMU interview yesterday that there was “plenty left to negotiate” with the administration’s “last and final offer.” And I am also cautiously optimistic that the union has been telling us all the truth since this stand-off began last week, that if we get back together, we can work this out in a day.

Fingers crossed. In the meantime, I’ll be in the office for a full day today. I don’t actually teach today, but I have LOTS to catch up on. And hey, who knows? I might not be able to be there tomorrow….

In the news about all this:

• The Detroit FreeP has a story, “Professors, EMU call 24 hour halt.” For me, it paints a pretty optimistic picture that both sides are ready to make a deal.
• The Detroit News has similar piece, “EMU professors ‘put students first,’ suspend strike.” The “put students first” part comes from a quote from Bunsis in the article.

Howard Bunsis sent around an email that said that the strike is suspended for 24 hours for talks starting Tuesday morning– see the press release here.

For right now, I don’t want to type/say anything to fuck this up. So I will sit on my hands until I hear otherwise. I’m just happy to see that there might be a resolution coming.

See this press release from EMU. Boy, talk about wanting to be a fly on the wall to work out this deal….

BTW, I think this means that, at least for tomorrow, I’ll be in for office hours….