Dear Colleagues,

I trust that everyone got through this weekend’s snow storm largely unscathed.  It’s the start of a new academic semester and I hope that those who had early classes on Tuesday did not have too many issues getting to campus and getting to your classrooms.  While the facilities crews made a herculean effort to clear the campus of snow, the sheer volume of snow deposited by the storm through Monday evening meant that roadways and walkways still required significant treatment to be safe for foot and vehicle traffic at the time the campus was open on Tuesday morning. Several faculty and staff reported problems getting from their vehicles to the campus buildings before 8 am.  The campus unions forwarded their concerns about the state of the campus to VC Human Resources, Deb Majewski. Her response was “I am on campus and things appear to be quite clear”. If you have concerns or issues related to snow clearance, building access and/or egress concerns, please forwarded them to the attention of VC Facilities, David Gingerella.

Please be aware that should you slip and fall or otherwise be injured on campus this is considered a workplace accident and you should complete a Workers Compensation Notice of Injury (NOI) Package. This form is available through the HR portal. You also need to notify your supervisor as soon as possible about the injury and report to the Health Services Department’s Modular Unit, located in front of Roberts, near Pine Dale and Roberts (right on the traffic circle) where trained staff will assess the injury.  Further details can be found on the HR portal at https://my.umassd.edu/group/human-resources/workplace-safety  Accessing this requires using your UMassD login credentials.

Please find some updates on what will be happening with the Faculty Federation this semester.

Recent Successes

The Federation was active through the Fall semester and  was able to resolve a number of issues to the benefit of members. You may recall that last summer a new hire was offered a starting salary $10,000 below minimum. This was quickly resolved once the Federation brought it to HR’s attention.  In the Fall, the Federation learned that another, long serving, faculty member likewise had a salary that was $10,000 below the contractual minimum and, exacerbating the financial impact, their ad comp payments for overload teaching were delayed; one ad comp payment had been delayed for over a year. The Federation contacted HR about this and the matter was eventually resolved successfully, with the member receiving the pay owed to them before the end of the calendar year. 

Regarding ad comp, in the Fall semester at least 20 members of the Federation and ESU had their payments delayed until mid-October.  The Federation has asked that, this semester, people start to see their ad comp payments no later than the February 12 pay period.  Hopefully, HR will have made the changes needed to improve their performance in this area.

The Federation continues to request information from the Administration about the campus’s fiscal situation and the impacts of the myriad of changes occurring in the higher education landscape because of actions by the Federal Administration. While we have received very little from the campus Administration in responses to these requests, we continue to ask questions as well as seek other avenues to get this information.

Contract Bargaining

The Federation’s bargaining team continued meeting with the Administration through January in order to finalize a successor collective bargaining agreement.  We are now down to just a few issues and hope to complete these negotiations shortly.  Once there is a tentative agreement with the Administration, this will be distributed, in full, to the membership and a special meeting held to answer any questions that members may have. This will be followed by a ratification vote conducted using Qualtrics. Unfortunately, we cannot provide the date for this to happen but we are hopeful that it will be in the near future.

Union Events

As we have been doing for the past few years, the Federation will be hosting the annual Spring Fling, as well as regular Coffee & Donuts/Cookies events for members. These are a great opportunity to talk with those people in leadership roles with the Faculty Federation who are involved with promoting and protecting your interests. It is also a chance to catch up with colleagues from outside of your department as well as to meet new people in a social space. Calendar invitations have been sent so please attend these events if you are able to.

This semester’s events are:

Coffee & Donuts	Thursday, February 26	9:30 – 10:30 am	Federation Conference Room, VIOLETTE 222
Coffee & Donuts	Monday, March 30	9:30 – 10:30 am	Federation Conference Room, VIOLETTE 222
Coffee & Cookies	Thursday, April 30	2:30 – 4:30 pm	Federation Conference Room, VIOLETTE 222
Spring Fling	Monday, March 23	2:00 – 4:00 pm	Library Grand Reading Room

 Health Insurance

GIC is contemplating significant increases to health insurance rates (possibly by 10-15% in 2027) as well as increases to the deductibles paid by members for office co-pays, emergency room co-pays and urgent care co-pays.  There are upcoming public sessions with GIC where members can raise their questions and concerns.  While the January sessions have passed, there are the GIC meetings, also open to the public, on February 12 and February 26 that people can attend to express their concerns about the proposed increases.

The link to sign up for these sessions can also be found at 2026 Annual Public Information Sessions | Mass.gov .These public meetings can be effective ways to have changes made to the GIC offerings; some years back GIC planned to eliminate many insurers from those available but the push back from state employees at these meetings caused GIC to reverse their plans.

In Solidarity!