Dear APA members,

Greetings to all. I want to share this important update about the status of our ongoing contract negotiations.

Our contract is due to expire on December 31, 2011. You will recall that in July, 2010, after lengthy negotiations and vote of the membership, the APA agreed to accept concessions in the financial terms of our contract by delaying the 1.5%, 3.5% and 3.5% raises by 364 days, because the legislature would not agree to fund the raises as originally negotiated. We are scheduled to receive the final salary raise amounting to 3.5% on the final day of the contract. That is guaranteed.

Also in that same concession agreement, the administration proposed “revenue accelerators” that described MA state tax revenue targets that, if met, would reduce the delay time to less than 364 days. The good news is that in FY11 those revenue accelerators were exceeded, requiring that our raise delays be reduced to only 6 months, so we are due 6 months of back pay for both the December 2010 and December 2011 raises. Should the FY12 revenue accelerators be met, there could be a further acceleration by 3 or 6 months.

Other statewide unions with similar accelerator language in their contracts have received, and agreed to, a contract modification from the governor’s office in which they traded their 6 months of back pay (which is one-time money) to receive a new contract with raises of 1.75% at six-month intervals for two additional years. The Governor’s office has authorized the BHE to extend a similar offer to all unionized employees in the state universities and community colleges.

We are very interested in receiving this contract offer. On August 26, the APA, together with the MSCA/MTA (state university faculty and librarians union) and MCCC/MTA (community college faculty and professionals union), wrote a joint letter to the BHE requesting that the offer be given by BHE. At this time, no such offer has yet come from the BHE. A&F has stated that the executive branch will not seek funding for these new contracts through supplemental budget requests, meaning that the agreements would need to be funded out of the state universities’ operating budgets. BHE apparently remains concerned about receiving adequate state budget funding for FY13. MTA President, Paul Toner, now serves as a member of the BHE, and will continue to be a strong voice there, as well as to Governor Patrick, to get this new contract offer to all the BHE unions represented by MTA.

On October 12th representatives of the state university and community college Councils of Presidents met with Jay Gonzalez, Secretary of A&F, to discuss the funding of the current collective bargaining agreements (for the accelerator backpay) as well as the two-year contract offer that OER has authorized but BHE has not made.

Meanwhile the APA bargaining team, with our assigned MTA representative, has been negotiating with the BHE team for a new contract since July. Many proposals have been presented to date, and more may be presented. These include longevity pay, professional development money, Maritime Academy stipends, job security after one year, dental trust fund contribution increases, an anti-bullying policy, clarity about normal workweek and flexible scheduling, pay equity for campus security, and other issues. There will be more to report in the weeks to come.

Thank you for your support as APA members. We will continue to work hard on your behalf.

Rick McDermott
APA President