The University of Vermont’s faculty union has filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the university, charging that administrators have left the union out of fall planning discussions.
United Academics wrote in a press release that university President Suresh Garimella and Provost Patricia Prelock have refused to engage in bargaining as the school has made “sweeping, unilateral” workplace changes affecting the collective bargaining agreement.
“It is all the decisions that they’ve made since the pandemic started, really, that they haven’t involved the union in at all, even though most of those decisions change our working conditions and therefore they should have been bargained,” faculty union President Julie Roberts said in an interview.
The unfair labor practice complaint — filed Tuesday night — is the first the union has filed in its 19-year history.
“It’s not like we necessarily disagree with every decision they made — and we do disagree with a lot of them — but it’s more that they made them without any kind of consultation,” Roberts said.
UVM spokesperson Enrique Corredera did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.
The union pointed to potential changes to teaching modality and UVM’s workplace health standards amid the coronavirus as issues that the school should engage in bargaining over to remedy the complaint.
The complaint comes after numerous UVM professors told VTDigger they thought the faculty’s representation on the UVM Strong committees planning the fall reopening is inadequate. Several faculty members — including UVM Faculty Senate President Thomas Chittenden — said they hope to see a policy that allows instructors to choose whether they teach in-person classes.
In a letter sent to Garimella and Prelock on Friday, Chittenden — who is running for state Senate — called on administrators to open a “direct dialogue” with union leadership over the “workload implications” of the plan for the fall. Chittenden also called for more faculty representation on the UVM Strong committees.
United Academics also recently filed two separate grievances charging the university with violating the collective bargaining agreement by reducing some non-tenure-track faculty to 75% of full-time employment and by deferring some previously approved sabbaticals.
The union said it asked the Vermont Labor Relations Board for an expedited ruling on the complaint with the first day of classes just nine weeks away.
“This is a new president, so we don’t really know what his reaction is going to be,” Roberts said of Garimella, who became president of the school exactly one year ago. “But it’s a serious step and I hope that they will recognize it as such.”
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