Representatives from UNM management and United Staff-UNM will meet Wednesday in an attempt to hammer out a wage-increase agreement for more than 1,000 University staff employees.
Union members voted 30-3 last week to adopt a step-in-grade proposal drafted by US-UNM leaders that would provide employees with an automatic annual salary increase. By accepting the union's proposal, members rejected the University's offer, which included three options - one based on continuous employment and the others on an annual percent increase.
Both parties have contacted the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which specializes in contract and legal disputes, to help facilitate the salary discussions, said Susan Carkeek, UNM vice president for Human Resources and the University's official representative for the negotiations.
Carkeek said it is up to the service whether the mediator will attend Wednesday's meeting, but that negotiations "have officially entered the mediation process."
Harry Norton, a UNM admissions employee and president of the union, said the step-in-grade proposal is "a means for creating equity in the workplace - equity that was not achieved by UNM Pact."
The pact, which took effect in 1997 after several years of extensive research, was used by Human Resources to update job descriptions, re-evaluate salaries to remain competitive in the job market and otherwise update its systems.
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Donald Burge, a general libraries employee and the union's chief negotiator, said UNM Pact was a "miserable failure" because, among other shortcomings, it never addressed salary inequities at UNM.
"What's interesting is that we had a step-in-grade system at UNM before UNM Pact," Carkeek said. "It was, well, dysfunctional. Those kinds of systems are considered old and outdated because they don't work in today's world and economy."
The UNM Hospital nurses union, Sandia National Laboratories and other federal and state employers currently use step-in-grade salary systems.
"This is a system that still exists, even here at UNM," Norton said. "It is by no means antiquated."
The Board of Regents mandated a pay-for-performance system, Carkeek said, and the University's average salaries for each employment grade are based on similar systems.
Step-in-grade "is a lock step based on seniority that awards raises whether you had a good performance year or not," she said. "Employees want to know that if they do a good job, they can get a raise, and if they do a really good job, they can get an even bigger raise."
One major rift between the union and University management is a discrepancy in interpretation of UNM's budget.
Union leaders contend that UNM has more than $180 million in unrestricted reserves, $2.5 million of which would fix the alleged salary inequities.
Carkeek said she did not know "where the union came up with that number" and added that "even if it was that much, reserves are one-time moneys, salaries are annual and ongoing."
Carkeek also said the union is asking for a 6.7 percent increase for its members, while the rest of UNM's employees are only receiving a 3 percent raise.
"It's a question of fairness," she said.
Norton said the union has no objections to the University treating all employees fairly and everyone should receive the 6.7 percent.
Despite the gulf between salary proposals, both sides have indicated they are optimistic mediation will succeed.
"We can look to our history - that's the best indicator of the future," Carkeek said. "Only one time in the seven years I've been here have we not been able to resolve our differences. The mediators are very good at what they do."
