UEA President: Michael Pfau
On July 16, I wrote you regarding the compensation timelines for retroactive raises and other compensation that are the results of the 2012-2014 Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Administration had scheduled AY 2012-13 retro-pay to appear in the October 16 paycheck, while AY 2013-14 retro-pay was to appear in the December 24 paycheck and the new AY 2013-14 salaries reflected on subsequent pay dates.
The new AY 2012-13 salaries would be reflected on the four pay dates between October 16 and December 24.
As you will recall, UEA leadership shared your frustration with the lengthy delays. We sought legal advice, and were informed that while there were no available legal remedies, that we may have some success filing a grievance under section 509.00 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
We filed a grievance requesting that the compensation timeline be accelerated, and have just agreed to a settlement of this grievance.
Along the way administration continued to argue that it was virtually impossible to accelerate the timeline. Indeed the terms of the settlements do not affect the 2012-13 timeline at all, and accelerate the compensation timeline for 2013-14 retro-pay by only two weeks, from December 24 to December 11.
The UEA executive committee considered this settlement offer to be inadequate, but eventually accepted it as the lesser of available evils (the alternative to the December 11 date was a return to the original December 24 timeline, and the grievance process itself would easily have extended past the original December 24 date in any event).
We were faced with the difficult choice of either accepting a settlement that was inadequate, or accepting the original timeline.
In the end we determined that our members would prefer to have their money two weeks earlier, than to have UEA continue to pursue a grievance process that could bring at best symbolic victory.
In sum, retro-pay for AY 2012-13 will still appear in the October 16 paycheck, however AY 2013-14 retro-pay will appear instead in your December 11 paycheck (If you wish to avoid significant withholding from these larger-than-your-usual biweekly payments, please take the time to adjust your deductions for these pay dates for these pay dates at hrss.umn.edu W-4).
The new AY 2012-13 salaries will be reflected on the three pay dates between October 16 and December 11.
In Solidarity,
Michael Pfau, President UEA-D