The Ferris Faculty Association held their “Critical Updates on Negotiations” meet­ing to dis­cuss issues asso­ci­ated with achiev­ing a new contract.

The FFA is an affil­i­ated unit of the Michigan and National Education Associations that con­sists of both fac­ulty and staff mem­bers, includ­ing the university’s administration.

Professor in man­u­fac­tur­ing & engi­neer­ing tech­nol­ogy and pres­i­dent of the Ferris Faculty Association James Rumpf said the meet­ing was “pri­mar­ily an update.” He said the goal of the FFA and the admin­is­tra­tion is to have a con­tract in place by the end of the spring 2010 semester.

Three years ago, the FFA was fac­ing a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion that nearly resulted in a strike among fac­ulty. In order to avoid a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion, mem­bers are “try­ing not to wait too long” to pro­pose a con­tract at the very last minute, said Rumpf.

According to Rumpf, a strike is the last resort. The FFA Negotiating Team and other faculty/staff mem­bers are try­ing to avoid a sit­u­a­tion sim­i­lar to what hap­pened three years ago. In the last con­tract renewal sit­u­a­tion, a new con­tract was voted on at a late dead­line, just prior to the start of classes in the fall of 2006.

Rumpf said the impact [of a new con­tract] on the stu­dents should be min­i­mal, if even noticed at all.

Marc Sheehan, com­mu­ni­ca­tions offi­cer, said most stu­dents are prob­a­bly aware that the university’s admin­is­tra­tion and FFA are nego­ti­at­ing a new con­tract that will take effect after the cur­rent agree­ment expires on June 30.

“I believe that the ses­sions to this point have been pro­duc­tive and business-like, which should be to the ben­e­fit of every­one involved,” said Sheehan of the meetings.

“If you’re run­ning a class, really the only thing that would be impacted would be the classes at the start of fall,” said Rumpf. He added the over­all con­cern of the FFA is to get a good con­tract made for the faculty.

“A good con­tract for fac­ulty is good for the stu­dents, too,” said Rumpf.

Sheehan said build­ing on the tenor of the nego­ti­a­tions thus far should help bring the talks to a con­clu­sion that is suc­cess­ful, timely and seam­less as it effects Ferris students.

The Negotiating Team is made up of mem­bers in the FFA. Some mem­bers of the team are more opti­mistic than oth­ers about hav­ing every­thing done before the dead­line, said Rumpf.

The bud­get meet­ing by Ferris State President David Eisler was a topic of dis­cus­sion as well.

Committee meet­ings have been held to dis­cuss con­cerns and prob­lems. Some of the top­ics include health care, human resources and well­ness pro­grams. Rumpf said vary­ing degrees of progress have been made in those areas. Promotions, merit increases, sum­mer sched­ul­ing and com­pen­sa­tion are areas of con­cern as well.

Sheehan said the talks started well before the begin­ning of this semes­ter to help facil­i­tate a suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion before the end of the cur­rent contract.

“As with most bar­gain­ing agree­ments, there are many dif­fer­ent con­cerns that are being addressed – among them wages and health­care,” said Sheehan

Sheehan also said, “Together, the two nego­ti­at­ing teams are work­ing to find areas in agree­ment on both major and sec­ondary issues.”

Data gath­er­ing is the cur­rent stage in the process. Rumpf said he and other mem­bers are try­ing to take care of things one issue at a time.

“Perhaps the most impor­tant thing to keep in mind at this point is that the two nego­ti­at­ing teams have com­mit­ted in advance to con­duct­ing the nego­ti­a­tions in an atmos­phere of mutual respect,” said Sheehan. “I believe that this is indeed what has hap­pened to this point.”

Rumpf antic­i­pates at least one or two more gen­eral mem­ber­ship meet­ings this semes­ter, includ­ing “a few” in March and “a lot” in April. However, they are try­ing to find ear­lier dates to hold the meet­ings as the goal is to reach an agree­ment by the end of April, “even by spring break if pos­si­ble,” said Rumpf.

Tentative dates have not yet been made for those meetings.

General mem­ber­ship meet­ings are open to any­one who wishes to attend, includ­ing stu­dents who are more than wel­come if they have com­ments or con­cerns. Any kind of forum is publicized.

“The uni­ver­sity admin­is­tra­tion is com­mit­ted to doing the hard work nec­es­sary to reach an agree­ment by the end of the semes­ter, and I believe that same com­mit­ment exists on the part of the FFA Negotiating Team,” said Sheehan.

“Eventually, an agree­ment will be reached,” said Rumpf, adding, “When? We really can’t say.”

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