Negotiation Updates: August 29, 2014

Initial proposals regarding economics have been exchanged by both the AAUP team and Western’s team. There is a wide gulf between these proposals. The AAUP’s initial compensation proposal in year 1 of a successor agreement approximates 11.5 percent for wages and supplemental payments (such as across the board increases, pay adjustment pools, salary minimas, promotion increments and overload rates). Western’s initial proposal would provide a 1.5 percent across the board wage increase in year 1 of a successor agreement. We believe our initial proposal is the more reasonable of the two, considering Central Michigan University just settled their contract with a 2 percent across the board increase for 2014-15. Moreover, in examining public university contract settlements nationwide, the average 2014 compensation increase is 2.2 percent; this does not account for regional cost of living differences.

Health insurance and its attendant costs were excluded from the above. We therefore attempted to begin having a conversation about health insurance in order to obtain insight from the WMU-AAUP team that would hopefully assist us in preparing our next health insurance proposal. We were engaged in discussing how to maintain the current health care plan design when the conversation was ended. Much to our surprise, the WMU-AAUP team abruptly terminated the session and stated they had no interest in continuing the conversation. The teams had agreed to be available to meet until 8 p.m., but our discussion ended shortly before 4 p.m.

We are scheduled to meet again on Monday, Labor Day, to continue the conversation. Our team remains committed to the negotiation process and we will continue the conversation on Monday.