To: Board of Regents

From: Sue I. Hill, Director, Labor Relations and Personnel

RE: Approval of Tentative Agreement with Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters

Date: November 20-21, 2003

Attached is a summary of the tentative agreement reached with the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters. The tentative agreement only includes the changes to the prior agreement. The entire agreement can be accessed electronically at: https://mus.edu/hr/cba/collbarg.html. This bargaining unit includes approximately 24 employees working at The University of Montana-Missoula, Montana State University-Bozeman, Montana Tech, and Montana State University-Billings.

The tentative agreement essentially rolls the 2001-03 collective bargaining agreement over for an additional two-year period. The only language changes were to adopt the increase in the state contribution towards health insurance and to modify the seniority provision to make it consistent with federal law. Employees in this bargaining unit will receive a 25 cent per hour increase effective January 1, 2005. Since this bargaining unit was the first to settle, a memorandum of understanding was included requiring the employer to go back to the bargaining table if any other craft bargaining unit receives a greater salary increase. The tentative agreement also provides for a dependent tuition waiver benefit effective in FY 2005 that will be administered in accordance with Regent policy.

The bargaining unit did not ratify the first tentative agreement but another ratification vote will be completed before the November 20th Regent meeting. I hope that with the inclusion of the dependent fee waiver benefit, the bargaining unit will ratify the tentative agreement its second time out. If the bargaining unit does not ratify the tentative agreement, the agenda item will be withdrawn. On the condition that the bargaining unit ratifies the tentative agreement, I recommend its approval to the Board of Regents.

 

XC: Commissioner Stearns

Rod Sundsted