If you haven’t already heard, you will be hearing soon that the University is refusing to pay the raises negotiated with the faculty and classified staff unions, whose contracts were executed by Governor Patrick in late December.

After nine fruitless months of negotiating with a President’s Office and campus administrations which have shown themselves to be interested only in exerting as much one-sided control as they can over our jobs, our career advancement, our work loads, our hours, our pay, and our benefits, it is time to make a decision.

Your bargaining team has met with management eight times since late March, and at our last meeting on August 7th we agreed to put no more new proposals on the table. From here on, any proposals will be counter-proposals concerning issues already opened in bargaining. So now that we know what the bargaining universe looks like, this seems like a good time to take stock.

If you read our message from late May entitled “The Soul of a University” (available here: The Soul of a University), you will remember that management had presented an unprecedented series of proposals which are all about increasing management control, wringing savings out of unionized staff, and situating UMass squarely in the national race to the bottom. Those concessionary proposals remain on the table.