Our contract has been extended to July 31. All contract articles in Tentative Agreement (TA) can be found here. Last week, the Bargaining Team sent out Bargaining Update #9, describing the status of negotiations up to that point. In summary, we have been exchanging proposals with packages that include across-the-board raises, healthcare deductibles, FWA, and other financial components. The last proposal from the administration included average raises of around 3% per year and high deductible increases (from $100/$200 up to $500/$1000 for individuals/families). On July 11, WAU sent a counter-proposal, summarized below:

• WAU sent a counter on July 11 that included a proposal for distributing across-the-board increases based on a system with five salary bands. By this method, lower wage earners would see a greater percentage increase in their raises compared to raises for our high wage earners, even though higher wage earners would still receive substantial and higher dollar amounts for their raises.

• Promotional raises for faculty

  • From Assistant to Associate: $6,000 (instead of $5,000)

  • From Associate to Full: $10,000 (instead of $8,500)

• Promotional raises for academic staff 6% to 7% (instead of 5%)

• Bonus of $1,000/year of contract

• Flexible Work Arrangements

• No change in copays, no additional coinsurance, a small increase to deductibles (from $100/$200 to $150/$300 for individual/family)

• Childcare subsidy pool increase to $200k (instead of $160k)