It's been 108 days since our contract expired - a whole frustrating, disappointing semester. While the resolution still looks far off on the horizon, events continue to unfold - two talks witht he administration, a fact-finding hearing and another meeting in early January. So it makes sense to restart this blog to be able to discuss what's going on, especially since the administration and president Fallon chronically misrepresent the situation.

First, some changes: both the Executive Committee and Bargaining Council have approved changes in the Negotiating Team. The new Chief Negotiator is Paul Leighton - I'm writing this blog now - and the team will be Susan Moeller, Dave Crary and Jim Carroll. The changes were made to reflect the situation where we're pursuing two seperate but intertwined paths to a contract: fact-finding and an occasional talk with the administration directly. We feel we're in the best position to advocate for faculty if the EC oversees one group that can engage in both activities, and that group has a strong sense of what's happening on both paths.*

Everyone wants to extend a deep and sincere THANKS to everyone who worked on the previous Negotiating Team: Mike Williams, John Texter and Mike Hommel. It was a great deal of work, time and frustration, but everyone was united in trying to secure the best contract for faculty. As Chief Negotiator, Mike Hommel worked tirelessly. Through the summer, there are many issues to keep track of, and Mike was well organized and never let any issue or contractual language slip through the cracks. He kept putting forward proposals and argued militantly in favor of language to improve our lives at EMU.

Over the next few days, I'll catch up a little - my annoyance with Fallon claiming we're back to negotiaing and a report from the fact-find hearing on Tues. Please look for comments here when something happens, and I also comment frequently over at the EMUtalk blog.

-Paul

* I would like to reiterate that there have only been 2 meetings with the administration - one on some technical details of health care that was not negotiating, and a second where we did talk about their disappointing new proposal. We'll be returning to meet with them in January to discuss the aspects we found most disapointing, but all involved with this process decided their offer was so unimpressive that it didn't merit a counter-offer; and this is what Fallon discribes as a 'return to negotiations.' That's exactly why this blog is necessary - cut through the hype and BS that substitutes for substantive progress on the administration's side.