What was said at the Rally

In Case you missed the rally in the bowl, here is what our executive had to say there.

From Ken Glover:

Hello, I am Ken Glover, a University employee since 1992, 7 year ASPA volunteer, a past ASPA president, and co-lead negotiator for the ASPA bargaining team.

As an ASPA executive member, I had the privilege of sitting with people when they were laid off a few years ago.  From my own experience and those of the other ASPA volunteers, I heard how a number of people were first concerned about the students they work with, their co-workers, and the programs they were being forced to leave behind.  “What will happen to them?” was almost always asked.

Right now, there are a lot of dedicated and passionate people working at the university doing jobs they believe in and take ownership for the outcomes of.  The direction the senior leadership at this institution has been taking is to take advantage of those people by heaping upon them increased workloads, less thanks, and less acknowledgement.

At the bargaining table we are told that our members stay too long in their jobs (like that is a bad thing), that staff turnover is too low (when most companies are striving for a low staff turnover), and then using those as reasons to claw back benefits and offer no wage increases for 2 years of a 4 year agreement.

We were also told that the university has money, but not for ASPA members.  Most employees don’t get to personally experience this kind of truth about how we are thought of by the “leadership” of this institution.  As ASPA President, I got to learn a lot about how senior leadership thinks about the employees, and in bargaining we get a lot more of that kind of abusive relationship building. When the ASPA bargaining team suggested interest based bargaining, where we can talk about the challenges we face together, and come up with some creative ways to address those challenges, the University’s team accused us of using this style of bargaining as a way not change anything and came back with their positional agenda and bullying attitude.

I have heard that our new University President, Peter Stoicheff, is a man who walks the talk.  When he says he wants to build relationships and have an engaged and enthusiastic workforce, he means it.  I would like to invite President Stoicheff to charge his bargaining team to live his vision and come back to the table to negotiate with mutual respect for all the employees on campus.