Lecturer Bargaining Update: Recap for 1/22/2021
On Friday we wrapped Day 2 of bargaining, with excellent turnout from members and strong presentations from the Bargaining Team members. 114 individual Lecturers in total attended bargaining throughout the day. Management’s Bargaining Zoom can accommodate up to 300 attendees which makes for a great target for our members to try and pack the room to show our interest & commitment to the collective bargaining process!
Not only is it informative to our members to attend bargaining and “see how the sausage gets made,” we also have a good time cheering each other on using our LEO Slack Workspace to discuss the play-by-play of bargaining without interrupting the process. The Bargaining Zoom’s chat is turned off and we ask that any attendees remain muted, so we will use the Slack to ask questions and carry on conversations.
When we’re not in the Bargaining Zoom, we’re huddled together virtually in our LEO Caucus Zoom where a lot of open conversation can happen about best ways to articulate and advocate for our proposals that have been passed to Management. We also had one surprise visitor in the LEO Caucus room!
Bernie Sanders joins the LEO Bargaining Caucus Zoom!
In the morning session our proposals were presented by these lecturers:
Teaching Professor: Drew DeOrio (Computer Science, College of Engineering - Ann Arbor)
Workload: Jimmy Brancho (Sweetland Center for Writing, LSA - Ann Arbor)
Governance: Erik Marshall (Journalism & Screen Studies, CASL - Dearborn)
We broke for lunch at noon and met in the LEO Caucus Zoom for “Lunch with LEO” to better get to know each other, our bargaining platform, and ways that we can build unity and show our strength.
The LEO Caucus room unfortunately was Zoom-bombed—twice!—so we have added a waiting room managed by LEO staff to screen for lecturers only moving forward.
In the afternoon the remainder of our proposals were presented by these lecturers:
International: Ardina Hasanbasri (Economics, LSA - Ann Arbor)
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion: Ian Robinson (Sociology, Residential College, LSA - Ann Arbor)
COVID Impact: R. Bruno (English Language & Literature, LSA - Ann Arbor)
We have finished introducing all of our proposals and the ball is now in management’s court. Management asked some questions about the previous proposals from last week. The only questions we received on Salary pertained to longevity pay. Both sides have until February 26 to introduce any new proposals.
Here’s a link to the presentations.
At the January 29th session we expect to engage in a more substantive discussion of our proposals with management. We will post the precise topics (if we have them) at LEO2021.org
NEXT STEPS
RSVP for upcoming LEO bargaining sessions at bit.ly/LEOREGISTER
Register to attend bargaining at bit.ly/LEOBargaining
Bookmark the LEO Caucus at bit.ly/LEOCaucus
Bargaining starts at 9:00am on Fridays (even though the Zoom registration page says 8:00am, ignore that. It is for Management to prepare)
Lunch with LEO always takes place from 12 noon to 1:00pm in the LEO Caucus room.
Browse the “Bargaining Day” tab on the LEO Bargaining website for Zoom backgrounds, a link to join the LEO Bargaining Slack workspace (for conversations & questions during bargaining), and other ways to help show support and build power.
Fill out this form to get involved and help win a strong contract!
Remember, if we work together, we will win a good contract that includes our proposal on Teaching Professor. Eric “Not A Professor” Charnesky will no longer need to correct his students when they try to show him respect by addressing him as Professor Charnesky!
“When addressed as ‘Professor’ my usual line was, ‘I’m sorry, the administration doesn’t allow me to use that title, I’m a LEO Lecturer.’”
— Eric Charnesky, Lecturer of Computer and Information Science, Dearborn
A gift from some of Eric Charnesky’s lab students!