As you’ve likely heard, we’ve just started a short round of contract negotiations with OSU. These negotiations are one result of our victory in the representation election that extended union rights to all OSU graduate employees. Our goal in these negotiations is simply to clean up the contract such that it provides equally for the needs of all graduate employees. Toward that end, we’re looking specifically to improve areas of the contract where the needs of the new bargaining unit (mostly RAs) may not have been well addressed. If you have ideas on how we can do that, we encourage you to fill out the bargaining survey.
This year’s bargaining team will be chaired by Danny Ritter (Applied Economics), VP for Collective Bargaining & Grievances. Sneha Gantla (MPP), Lizz Hardardt (Pharmacy), Daniel Holder (Applied Economics), Joey Hulbert (Wood Science & Engineering), and Forrest Parker (Mathematics) are also serving on the team.
On Thursday, April 25, we had our first meeting with OSU’s team. The meeting wasn’t a traditional bargaining session, but instead a review of Interest Based Bargaining (IBB) methods and a discussion of ground rules for negotiation. We agreed to continue using IBB this round because we felt that it improved the speed, process, and outcome of bargaining in our last round of negotiations. We also agreed to work from the same ground rules, with only minor housekeeping edits. The most meaningful decision we made was on a schedule for bargaining. Both teams are committed to getting through bargaining quickly, with a goal of ratifying a contract before the end of the term. Our teams agreed to the following schedule for bargaining sessions (all times 9-11 AM; all session in Westminster House):
- Monday, May 6
- Thursday, May 9
- Monday, May 13
- Monday, May 20
- Thursday, May 23
- Thursday, May 30
- Monday, June 3
- Monday, June 10
- Thursday, June 13
Observers are welcome to come to bargaining, and we encourage this participation by members! When we caucus, you’ll have an opportunity to give feedback on the process, and having more members in the room always makes bargaining more fruitful.
Over the coming weeks, the bargaining team will update this blog to keep you informed of progress and developments in this important process. We will be doing our best to represent the needs of CGE’s membership, and are always open to your questions and concerns. Please email vp_bargaining@cge6069.org at any time.