The University of Maine System board of trustees approved collective bargaining agreements Monday for the Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine (AFUM), which represents the full-time faculty of the system’s seven universities, and the Police Unit of Teamsters Local 340, which represents the system’s public safety and police officers.

Jim McClymer, UMaine’s AFUM representative and chair of AFUM’s negotiating team, said a “very reluctant, tentative agreement” had been reached by the system and the union’s negotiation team on Dec. 23.

AFUM’s members must still vote to adopt the contract, which will likely happen in early February. McClymer said he was unsure whether AFUM’s members would accept the agreement. The Police Unit of the Teamsters voted to accept their contract earlier this month.

The new contracts do not include any across-the-board pay increases; a major concession for AFUM that McClymer said was not reciprocated by the system. The public safety unit’s contract includes increases based on performance, and the AFUM contract includes supplemental pay increases for faculty teaching extra classes.

“We’re very pleased to have an agreement,” said Tracy Bigney, chief human resources officer for the system. “It’s very important to us that our employee groups are under contract and agreement with terms so that we aren’t continuing to disagree about things.”

“We’re very pleased to have them and appreciate that the unions really were understanding about the financial situation,” Bigney said. “It’s unusual to have a contract without any increase.”

The faculty union extended its contract from June through Dec. 31 and has been working without a contract since then, although almost all the provisions of the contract remain.

McClymer said a recent report on the system’s budget commissioned by the faculty union carried weight in negotiations.

The report concluded the system was overstating the severity of its financial situation. This position was echoed in December by a report commissioned by the student government of the University of Southern Maine, which said, “Any suggestion that the University of Maine System is broke or out of money is preposterous.”

“I think often they [the system] see the glass as half empty and not half full,” McClymer said.

Contract negotiations occur every two years to allow for state appropriations to the university system to be accounted for in the drafting process.

The other bargaining unit of Teamsters Local 340, representing service and maintenance workers in the system, approved their contract in November.

McClymer said the last time faculty did not receive a pay increase was in the ’90s — during another recession. McClymer says that back then, the system made more money than anticipated, which left union members feeling as though the system had not met its obligations. Bigney said the conflict in the ’90s was a matter of “differing interpretations,” and that the situation was unlikely to repeat itself.

The system is still in negotiations with the union representing part-time faculty.

Representatives of the the Teamsters Local 340’s police unit were unavailable for comment by press time Wednesday.

CORRECTION:
In an earlier version of this article, it was written that the contract agreed upon by the Police Unit of Teamsters Local 340 represented only workers at the University of Maine. The contract covers security and police officers at all seven system campuses.

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• Unions end battle – for now (May 6, 2002)
• UMS, unions reach agreement to close budget gap without layoffs (February 16, 2009)
• BOT increases tuition (May 18, 2009)
• Civil unions or marriage? (February 9, 2004)
• Augusta reacts to BOT (April 18, 2005)

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