More Progress in Bargaining St. Rose Gets Serious About Security and Contract Improvements

3 New Agreements

We’re dedicated to bargaining a strong contract. Today, our Bargaining Team did a great job of telling management about our concerns with the issues we presented. Now we have to hold management accountable to win our priorities— wages, retirement, healthcare, EIB/PTO and better staffing.

Here are three articles we reached a tentative agreement on with management - bringing us closer to a contract. 

*NEW* Discipline and Discharge - A 14 day maximum on investigatory suspension paid or unpaid. Also, we reduced the cleansing period for discipline from 18 to 14 months. 

*NEW* Bereavement Leave: We changed the length from 3 shifts to a standard 40 hours. Note that management confirmed that the current time for Bereavement is 36 hours. If you have had any issues with length of your bereavement, contact Lilly Vallee at
305-495-0789 . 

*NEW* Reduction in Force: We agreed to the current contract language with minimal wording changes. No major changes.

Articles We’ve Already Agreed On

* Recognition: Added Kentucky River protection 
* Subcontracting: No major changes. Prohibits subcontracting with a few exceptions. 
* New Employee Orientation: No major changes. Union orientation now before lunch instead of after lunch. 
* Bulletin Board 
* Contract Extension: Extends contract to August 14, 2008.

Security Update
In bargaining, management committed to improving the security situation at our campuses in three ways:
They have a $300,000 grant to buy new, high-tech security cameras that can zoom in and pan to better patrol campus areas. These cameras will be connected to a single hub that can watch all three campuses at once. They are increasing training for security guards. They are re-assigning security guards to cover different areas more effectively.

We are still fighting for:
Increased numbers of security gaurds
Recordable DVD-R camaeras


For more information contact Lilly Vallee at 305-495-0789 llilly.vallee@seiu.org

The 2008 St. Rose bargaining team hard at work!


Stay tuned!  We'll add more updates and issue specific information as bargaining continues!