Contract negotiations between the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation and the University began to move toward a conclusion after Monday’s bargaining session.
After the three previous bargaining sessions where the two parties made little progress toward coming to an agreement, the GTFF approached Monday’s meeting as a final attempt to meet halfway. The GTFF determined that if the University did not make what it considered to be a significant movement to meet some of the its demands, then the federation would look into taking street action, said David Cecil, GTFF lead negotiator.
“We are willing to compromise but not capitulate,” Cecil said before Monday’s meeting. “It is up to the University and whether they remain inflexible.”
In the most recent session, however, the University stepped up to compromise on the key issue of health care, offering to give the GTFF an additional $250,000 to use toward GTFs’ health care cap.
“We saw a light at the end of the tunnel today,” Cecil said.
At the end of the meeting Monday, the GTFF told the University’s bargaining team that it would most likely be able to come back to its next session with a response to all of the University’s latest proposals, said Linda King, the University’s lead negotiator.
“(The University) made a significant movement, so now it is our turn,” Cecil told the GTFs who attended the bargaining session.
King said that she feels very positive about where the bargaining is at right now.
“Dave said that the GTFF appreciates the University’s move to meet the annual benefit increase,” King said.
One of the most important areas of the contract the GTFF was not willing to give up was an update to its current health care plan, which included an increase in the per-person cap on annual total benefits from the plan.
Currently the cap is $100,000 per person annually. The GTFF began this year’s contract negotiation by asking the University to provide enough money to raise the cap to $500,000 per person the next year and $1 million the year after, which was initially refused, said Cecil.
At the bargaining session Monday, the University made a new health care proposal, which promises to give the GTFF trust an additional $250,000 each year for the next two years for GTFs to use to increase the cap as much as they can, said King.
During the bargaining session, King told the GTFF that the University hoped its new health care proposal showed that it is not indifferent to the GTFs who face serious medical expenses.
Cecil was happy with this concession from the University.
“The $250,000 for cap increase is great. It pays for the increase in cap we want,” Cecil said to the GTFs at the meeting.
King explained that the University arrived at the $250,000 per year increase after trying to determine the amount of money the GTFF would need to pay for the increase in the cap it asked for.
Cecil said the GTFF’s motivation for demanding an increase in the health care cap was that the current cap of $100,000, which was set around 10 years ago, is far too low to support current health care costs.
There have been several cases in the last few years of GTFs or their families having severe medical issues that well exceeded the $100,000 cap.
“We have two to four members a year reach the $100,000 cap,” Cecil said.
The two parties have tentatively planned to meet again next week to begin wrapping up this year’s bargaining. The remaining issues include GTFs’ fees and salaries.
“The University made significant movement on health care, so we can make movement on salaries and fees,” said Cecil.
The University has also proposed that the contract be re-negotiated again in June 2009. The Collective Bargaining Agreement, GTFs’ contract with the University, is re-negotiated every two years.
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