By David Farmer,Staff Writer
3 other unions remain at impasse

LEWISTON – One of four unions working without a contract for the University of Maine System has reached a tentative agreement on a new deal.

The proposed contract would give members of the Universities of Maine Professional Staff Association a 7 percent pay raise over the two-year life of the deal, while also holding increases in health insurance premiums to 3 percent over the same period and putting a cap on increases in 2007.

Elements of the deal would be retroactive to 2005, when the last contract expired.

Members of the union and the university’s Board of Trustees must approve the terms, which were drawn up by negotiators on June 12.

The other three university unions that have been without a contract since 2005 – ACSUM (the associated, clerical, office, laboratory and technical staff of the University of Maine System), the Associated Faculties of the University of Maine System and the Part-time Faculty Association – have not agreed to a deal and negotiations have ended, said James Bradley, the president of ACSUM.

Those unions are waiting on the next step, which would be a trip before the Maine Labor Relations Board where the unions and the university system can make their cases. The MLRB can then make a recommendation, but its decision is not binding. Most likely, Bradley said, a final resolution will be determined by arbitration.

“Negotiations have failed,” Bradley said. “Now we’re waiting on fact finding” with the labor board.

The tentative contract for UMPSA includes a retroactive pay increase for fiscal 2005 and a raise for 2006. Eligible employees would receive a 3.5 percent raise for 2005 and a 3.5 percent increase for 2006. They’ll have to cover a 1.5 percent increase in insurance premiums in each of those years.

Also, workers would receive full employer-paid dental coverage and a severance benefit for employees whose positions are funded by grants would continue.

Tracy Bigney, chief human resources officer for the university system, said that a supplemental appropriation of $4.2 million from the Legislature at the end of its session this year made it possible to reconsider some negotiating positions.

She said she would not discuss the specifics of the deal because it has not been approved and because negotiations are ongoing with the other unions.

“Even with the additional $4.2 million the university received from the state, there was no movement,” said Bradley, the ACSUM president. “For our unit, little has changed.”

Kerry Sullivan, UMPSA president, said that it became clear from talking with members that a pay raise was one of their top priorities.

“With so many costs going up, that’s what we heard,” Sullivan said. “We felt we weren’t going to be able to budge them on some of the other issues.”

The university had initially proposed no raise for the second year of the contract, Sullivan said.

The tentative deal is a major victory, she said, citing the pay increases and the protection of the severance package for grant-funded workers as important concessions by the university.

“We gave up part of a pay raise back in, I think, 1999 to get the severance benefits,” Sullivan said. “Thirty-five percent of our people are (grant funded). Every year, the university has tried to get that out of the contract.”

“The negotiations had a lot of give and take,” Sullivan said. “We got a lot more than we anticipated.”

Sullivan said the union hopes to send the proposed contract to members by Thursday. Votes must be returned by July 10. She said she expects it to be ratified.

The university system’s trustees meet July 10 and are expected to vote on the contract then.

If accepted, the contract will expire on July 1, 2007.