With pay rates, attendance policies and training among the possible issues up for review, representatives from the University and the largest labor union at Duke began negotiations this week on a new contract.
The current three-year contract for Local 77 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees expires midnight June 30. The Durham union represents about 850 Dining Services employees, groundskeepers, housekeepers and sanitation workers.
The negotiations are largely secretive and neither side, University nor union, wished to offer much comment on the issues involved.
Duke's Director of Staff and Labor Relations Mindy Kornberg did not return multiple phone calls over the last month, but reiterated in an e-mail this week the University's policy of not discussing labor negotiations in public.
"We expect negotiations will be productive and respectful for all," she wrote.
Local 77 business manager Michael Gibson also could not be reached for comment.
Prior meetings between the two parties have included discussion of pay rates, employee attendance policies and employee training and mobility. The last contract, negotiated in June 1999, provided for a 3 percent wage hike in each year of the agreement and set standards for employee attendance.
"Of course, there's always that money thing," said groundskeeper and Local 77 member Michael McCray. "Everybody always wants more than what they negotiate."
Attendance has been a perennial issue among all Duke employees, including those in Local 77, said Executive Vice President Tallman Trask. Trask is not involved in the day-to-day negotiations, but set guidelines for the negotiating team led by Kornberg, and he will review and sign the final agreement.
McCray said in particular that he wishes the University would grant more time off for employees to visit families for funerals.
Another key element of the discussion may also be the one-year-old management of the Great Hall, the Marketplace and several other campus eateries by ARAMARK Corp. Duke Dining Services operated the stations until last summer, when ARAMARK assumed control promising better food and more employee training.
Outsourcing of various other Duke ventures over the past few years has led to some concern among employees, although those changes have not yet led to job losses.
Trask said he did not believe outsourcing would play much of a role in negotiations.
"We did that deal in consultation with the union, which doesn't mean they were all enthusiastic about it, but they all knew about it," he said.
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