Lecturers will stage an informational picket later this month in response to the University’s failure to comply with a deadline the lecturers’ union requested, said Bonnie Halloran, president of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization. The Ann Arbor Campus Council of LEO met Friday and confirmed that they would take action on Feb. 22 by passing out informational fliers to students and passersby outside of University buildings. Most details of the picket have yet to be decided, Halloran said.
She added that she hopes this will further press the University to move forward on the implementation of last year’s contract.
The University and LEO are continuing their squabble over last year’s contract and the University’s alleged failure to comply with certain provisions of the contract regarding performance evaluation of lecturers.
LEO requested that by Feb. 1, the University provide it with the criteria it uses when evaluating lecturers and considering them for hiring and promotional purposes. LEO also requested a list of lecturers that need to be reviewed for performance evaluations this year. The University, however, did not comply with the requested deadline because it was a not an agreed-upon contractual date.
University spokeswoman Julie Peterson said the development of evaluation criteria is a long process and requires work to be done on a department-by-department basis within each of the colleges at the University. Some departments previously had criteria in place, while others are in the process of creating it.
“It’s an incredible amount of work and it is taking longer than we expected,” she said. “We are doing the best we can.”
She said that individuals from these departments were working closely with each college and members from the Academic Human Resources Department to create the criteria.
Some of the colleges, such as Nursing, the College of Engineering and the Residential College, within the University have provided LEO with performance criteria while others, such as LSA, have provided vague information, Halloran said.
“There was been some movement on the part of the University, but they are baby steps,” Halloran said.
A contract settlement was not reached by LEO and the University until last June, when negotiations had failed and one day walkout was staged last April.