While the administration was not ready to talk financials or notice of appointment in our latest session, we were told to expect formal responses in contract language on these issues the week of August 12^th. OSU’s bargaining team cannot meet with the Provost before the 12^th, and they aren’t empowered to make a decision without him. So we wait.

In the meantime, here’s what we covered:

Adding CGE Representatives to the Child Care Task Force

The teams tentatively agreed (TAed) to a Letter of Agreement guaranteeing two CGE  representatives on the OSU Child Care Task Force, which is charged with coming up with expanded child care access near campus.

Adding the Medical and Family Leave Policy to the Contract

OSU absolutely refuses to add the policy to the contract. This means CGE has limited power to ensure that the policy is correctly enforced and no ability to positively change the policy. OSU admits that leave-time applications are handled on a case-by-case basis. They pointed out that there are avenues for disputes through both HR and the Office of Equity and Inclusion, which is basically appealing to OSU whether OSU made the right decision. We’re still working on a response to this. All we’ve asked is to add the existing policy to the contract, so we don’t really understand their refusal. If you’re appropriately applying the terms of the policy, why not agree to continue doing so in the contract?  All we really got out of OSU was that their legal team had concerns about doing so (does this answer make you as nervous as it makes us?). OSU maintains that policy language has no place in the contract. However, the Medical and Family Leave Policy dictates whether employees have access to their health care benefits as laid out by the contract. This access is not protected by the Family Medical Leave Act, which only applies to employees working at 0.5 FTE and above.

Health Insurance Administration Changes

CGE proposed language that would:

• Give CGE greater access to meetings between OSU and Pacific Source.
• Allow for hourly summer employees to have summer health insurance premiums charged as a payroll deduction.
• Allow for those without summer employment to have summer health insurance charged to their student account instead of triple deducted from their May paycheck.
• Allow people to enroll in summer health insurance on their original enrollment form so that re-enrollment isn’t required for summer.

OSU didn’t respond in depth, but said that all of these change seemed “doable on the surface”. So we wait.

We’ll let you know as soon as we have sessions scheduled—and keep an eye out for ways to get involved between now and then!