In Person Work Mandates are Coming – Could We be Next?
Many staff members in UM’s Information and Technology Services (ITS) department have been working fully remote since 2020, with many of us new hires promised remote jobs since we started work at UM in the last 4 years. Against the University’s previous promises, members in ITS received an email today from UM’s Chief Information Officer, Ravi Pendse, mandating a 2-day-a-week return to office. The reasoning behind this shift is to “foster team building, allow for faster collaboration and decision-making, and make our colleagues more accessible to each other and the community at large” citing it as a “return to togetherness”. This reasoning implies that we as ITS workers are somehow lacking in these areas, though we have been successfully working remotely since 2020.
Many of us in ITS feel that this shift in policy will have detrimental impacts on our lives – causing chaos for those of us that have long commutes to campus, increasing costs for those of us who now find ourselves responsible for paying for UMs $82/month blue parking pass, and taking away flexibility that remote work has afforded so many of us ITS staff. This is an example of what happens when we don’t have a union – management is free to make decisions without our input and those decisions have a direct impact on our working conditions, home lives, and autonomy.
By forming our union, University Staff United, management will be required to negotiate all working conditions with bargained-for staff. In practice, this means that we will have a say in our remote/hybrid working conditions (among other things like base salary, raises, healthcare, tuition reimbursement, child care subsidies, and retirement) and that these things are guaranteed not to change unless that change is negotiated in a future contract. What’s happening in ITS may be an on-ramp to the end of remote work at UM and indicates the beginning of the end of remote work flexibility for all staff – including each of us.
We are so close to obtaining the majority we need to have a recognized union that will require management to negotiate our working conditions with us – we need 20 more signatures to regain a majority in Student & Instructional Services after staff turnover this summer. Once we have that majority, the university will voluntarily certify the union and we will have voice in determining your working conditions. Act now by signing your card and joining our movement. Don’t let UM take away our autonomy, speak up and find your voice with USU!
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