October 2, 2024

Hello APA Members,

I hope everyone’s semester is going well. I wanted to provide you with an update on contract negotiations.

This past Thursday, September 26th, the APA team met with Management representatives from the Council of Presidents, the universities, and the Board of Higher Education. It was a productive meeting where both sides presented responses to proposals. This is the first negotiations since 2017 where we have been negotiating language changes, so we are working to balance the desire to finish negotiations soon AND get desperately needed language updates
that members need.

The APA presented counter proposals to management’s response to our request for an updated evaluation process. We seem to be on track to reduce the self evaluation as well as the supervisor’s evaluation process to once a year. APA has been trying to make this process easier and with a schedule that works for as many members as possible. The APA also presented counter proposals for management’s proposal for updating the job posting process as well as managing personnel files, and management has accepted this proposal.

The APA Team accepted proposals updating the leave benefits. We also accepted a proposal regarding Appendix K, Position Characteristics. We also accepted a counter proposal regarding Massachusetts Maritime Academy cruise stipend increase.

We worked hard to push management to respond to some proposals that we had received no answer on, notably the Remote Work Policy, Compensatory Time, and Job Descriptions updating. Their initial response was to reject them outright and were unwilling to discuss them at all, but thanks to some heated discussion on why we brought them to the table, we were able to reverse their stance and we are hopeful to get responses on Remote Work and Job Description changes. Other proposals they had not responded to were promised to have something by our October 24th session.

It has been confirmed that the APA, like other unions without step increases, will be receiving larger percentage increases in our contract than unions that have step increases. We are continuing to push management to understand that APA professionals and managers do not deserve less than other unions. Getting changes in our raises to reflect our lack of steps is progress and continued pressure at the negotiation table and from the MTA leadership’s talks with the Governor are big steps in the right direction; in previous negotiations up to this year’s negotiations we have always received the same increase as other unions.

We have presented many more dates for negotiations to management and they have responded with 3, possibly 4, dates for more negotiations in November and December. We made it clear we want to do everything we can do to have these negotiations finished and ratified by the New Year so we can get our members the raises they need.

On behalf of your APA Executive Board and Negotiating Team, thank you for your continued support.

In solidarity,
-Seth Bean, APA State-wide President