April 20 Update

We began today’s session with continued conversations about the External Work and Activities proposal and later in the session came to a tentative agreement on it. We then presented another counter on Grievance Procedures, Mediation, and Arbitration. Both UAOU and the Administration have presented proposals related to grievances and the administration team is reviewing our most recent counter proposal. One of our priorities is to include a clear and strong grievance procedure in our first contract so that bargaining unit faculty will be better protected and have explicit recourse for violations of the contract. To that end, we are arguing for a clear and significant role for a third-party arbitrator to have binding authority in resolving disagreements.

After a long caucus, the administration team presented us with a counter proposal on the Promotion Appeals Process, which we had originally proposed on October 8, 2025.  As it was the end of the session when we received it, we had a brief discussion of this proposal and will look more closely prior to our next session.  We also stayed late to give the administration team a counter proposal on Entire Agreement.

We spent much of the day waiting for the administration team to draft proposals. That is the type of work we usually do between rather than on negotiating days so we do not waste the valuable time we have at the table. Clearly, we value their time more than they value ours. During the extended lunch break, we invited faculty who were at the work-in outside the bargaining room into the room to discuss how the negotiating day was progressing, UAOU strategy, and next steps. Thanks again to the OU faculty who showed up to the “work in” to show support for the Table Team. These are great opportunities for faculty to get an up-close look at what is happening in the bargaining process. 

We have still heard nothing about when they might respond to our Compensation proposal, the one we handed them 173 days ago. We have also heard nothing on Appointments and Renewals which included language that would provide greater job security for instructional faculty and which we handed them 225 days ago. 

Our next scheduled negotiating date is April 29 (1pm-5pm) at the Baker Center.  The Administration team has also agreed to future meeting dates May 13, May 28, June 2, June 23, and June 30.

For more specific information regarding the proposals and tentative agreements, please see the proposal tracker at https://www.uaou.org/bargaining-tracker