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The unions of the Associated COLT – Clerical, Office, Laboratory and Technical – Staff of the University of Maine and the University of Maine Professional Staff Association recently came to contract agreements with the UMaine System after much negotiation.
The contracts, which were ratified on March 28 and April 2, respectively, were executed April 9, after many negotiating sessions and mediation. However, as Ross Ferrell of the Maine Education Association office explained, both contracts will expire again on July 1, of this year. The contracts are only for one year and the unions will be “back at the bargaining table soon,” Ferrell said. The previous contracts for both unions had expired more than a year ago on June 30, 2001. Each union represents its own category of university employees for the entire UMS.
The major issues of discussion for both groups in negotiating new contracts were those of raises and increased health insurance costs. Thomas Tripp, the UMPSA campus president for UMaine, the UMPSA state vice president and negotiator and chief machinist for the Physics Department, explained there were issues with the raise structure. In previous negotiations, what Tripp described as “compression” occurred. In some cases, new hires are receiving higher wages than existing employees and there are wage discrepancies within the same job.
Suzanne Moulton of the History Department at UMaine and Chief COLT negotiator since 1995 agreed with Tripp.
“The most difficult aspect of this negotiating round was reaching an accord in regard to wage increases for COLT employees,” Moulton said. “The negotiating team for COLT was primarily concerned with trying to bring longer-term employees up in the wage scale to get them closer to the max rate for their job band.”
David Lane of the UMS office in Bangor said the language of both contracts reads that the terms of the prior contract remain in effect until a new agreement is negotiated and executed. When a new agreement is reached, it is retroactive to the date on which the previous contract expired in most cases. He said although contracts are usually negotiated for two years both parties agreed on one year contracts in this case due to legislative budget cuts for the second year.
Tripp gave another reason for the one year contract agreement – there was still one year remaining in the contract UMS has with Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the faculty and staff health insurance providers. With an anticipated increase of about 46 percent in insurance premiums, UMS felt they should get a simple contract out of the way.
Tripp recognized there is not as much controversy in his unit as there is with COLT.
“Our contract passed relatively easily,” he said.
Moulton said she would not be negotiating in the next round.
“Unfortunately, this was my last time to negotiate,” she said.
She explained that COLT is currently undergoing a great deal of upheaval and her dissatisfaction with the current leadership is causing her to resign her position as chief negotiator, as a state executive board member and most likely as a union member.
“There are many other current union members who have told me they plan to withdraw their membership as well,” Moulton said.
Most of these problems are not new to either group but have escalated recently. Tripp explained there has been a long history of perhaps 12 to 14 years where negotiators have tried to use consultants and set up a salary study. The catch has been the wide variety of job descriptions within the system.
“The university is very careful not to identify any one job as being the same as the next,” Tripp said.
The amount of money for negotiations from UMS and the legislature has been quite low for both groups over the past decade. According to Moulton and Tripp, many long-term employees are not receiving the wages they deserve. Tripp said that in the UMPSA unit, well over half have less than 10 years seniority. There is a large amount of turnover, which means we are constantly in a training mode, he explained.
“The state has to recognize this as a serious problem,” Tripp said. “We need more support from the legislature. We can’t keep passing the burden onto the students.”
Bangor Daily News