CSN administration, faculty reach bargaining impasse
Contract talks between College of Southern Nevada faculty and the administration reached an impasse on Friday after nearly two years at the bargaining table.
“I’m really disappointed,” said Patty Charlton, the chief negotiator on the administration team. “I had hoped we could come to a resolution today. We have put a lot of time and a lot of energy into the process.”
The two sides are deadlocked on salary items — particularly across-the-board raises for faculty — and the process is now moving to a fact finder upon request of the administration.
“We’re very happy with that,” said Robert Manis, Nevada Faculty Alliance president. “We were going to pull the trigger if they didn’t.”
The two sides saw some progress last month when the administration proposed raising overload pay, which a faculty member earns when teaching more than 15 instructional units a semester, from $825 to $925 per unit by the second year of the contract. The administration put forward six proposals at last month’s meeting.
But Friday, the NFA brought forward items that the administration thought had already been settled, CSN Acting President Margo Martin said.
“We find ourselves in a repetitive cycle,” Martin said.
At issue is a 1.25 percent increase to new base salary adjustments for faculty. Martin said that the two sides are coming at it from different benchmarks.
“With the current budget that’s allocated, if we were to make that kind of move, we would be cutting positions,” Martin said. “There’s not enough dollars in the budget to continue business as usual and have across-the-board salary raises.”
In addition, Martin said the college will not be able to respond to an across-the-board salary adjustment until the budget planning process for the 2019 legislative session is completed.
Manis said he believes the administration has been misrepresenting the numbers.
“The numbers will speak for themselves when they go to the fact finder — that’s why we’re looking forward to the process,” he said. “We don’t know why they’re making numbers up out of thin air.”
Contact Natalie Bruzda at nbruzda@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3897. Follow @NatalieBruzda on Twitter.
