Management gave us their first proposal. They are requesting that lecturers disclose felony charges (as opposed to convictions) in accordance with SPG 601.38, introduced in 2019 for everyone except bargained-for employees. LEO members in attendance received it poorly, to put it mildly. We raised a number of objections at the table, including the racially disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system. We now have a working group that will work on addressing the proposal.

There will be a Lunch with LEO: Community Town Hall, February 19, 12 noon to 1:00pm. You can come to learn about how the LEO contract proposals support investment in the UM campuses. Speakers include LEO, tenure-track faculty, and students.

On Friday we wrapped Day 2 of bargaining, with excellent turnout from members and strong presentations from the Bargaining Team members. 114 individual Lecturers in total attended bargaining throughout the day.

We have finished introducing all of our proposals and the ball is now in management’s court. Both sides have until February 26 to introduce any new proposals. At the January 29th session we expect to engage in a more substantive discussion of our proposals with management.

We had a great opening day with super turnout from our members!

At the Virtual Bargaining Kickoff Rally in the morning, 135 members and staff, undergraduate, and tenure-track allies on all three campuses heard speeches and cheered on the Bargaining Team before they headed to the table. 136 LEO members attended bargaining throughout the day, setting an excellent precedent for future bargaining sessions. The Bargaining Zoom can accommodate 300 people total making this our target for member turn out going forward. In addition, the morning session was attended by Regent Denise Ilitch as a LEO ally!

We presented our proposals on Salary, Benefits & Professional Development, and Job Security.

At Lunch with LEO, held every Friday from 12 noon to 1:00 pm, the Contract Action Team led a group discussion of the morning’s session, and then we broke into small groups to chat with each other or discuss technical issues we were having over Zoom.

Next week we will be presenting on Teaching Professor, Workload, Governance, Covid Impact, International Lecs, and DEI.

We had a great turnout at the pre-bargaining LEO kickoff with over 120 LEO members, undergraduate students, union, and tenure-track allies. Several LEO and ally speakers shared their powerful stories.