Pace Paw Print

The Pace Transportation Union (PTU)'s final proposal will be ready this week, according to Ron Posmentier, Vice President of the Drivers and Mechanics Union. When completed, the proposal will be sent to members of the Pace administration and will set the groundwork for negotiations between the two groups.

Although, he could not mention specific goals the union was pushing for prior to the negotiations, he did say during his interview with the Paw Print, that the union's goals did mirror those expressed by faculty and staff at past meetings: to get increased communication from the administration.

The PTU, a sub-division of the New York Student Teacher's Union (NYSTU), was recently recognized by Pace last month. The NYSTU has already had negotiations with the university, according to Posmentier. However, Posmentier stated that the NYSTU has "very different needs than we do," therefore the PTU needs to have their own meetings in order to address their specific needs "in terms of daily work."

Posmentier did state however, that PTU would use NYSTU's proposal to help shape their own.

Prior to the university's recognition, the union has held two elections; the first in October 2005, and the second in January 2006. However, Pace did not consider them to be valid, according to a Pace Press article dated November 29, 2006.

The article stated that the university claimed that the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) and union representatives failed to fairly and impartially conduct the election in 2005. PTU was then given an option to either investigate the election or hold a new one. The union chose to hold a new one in January 2006, but it still failed to meet university expectations.

"They didn't fairly involve us in setting side the [first] result and we had no option for a hearing," Director of Human Resources Yvonne Ramirez told the Pace Press in the article. "It wasn't fair for the transportation union to have all the facts." The current Human Resources Department was unavailable for comment due to changes within the staff.

Although until a month ago, Pace didn't recognize PTU, the union was still recognized by NLRB since it met all of their requirements. However, without the University's recognition, the union could not develop a contract.

Posmentier said the union will be negotiating their contract at the future meetings.

"Respectfully, we don't know who is going to be in front of us," he said. However, Posmentier did say that he expected the administrators they will meet with would be familiar with the law, the department, and university management.

Posmentier said that PTU will include a possible date and time which they would be available to meet with the administrators along with their final proposal in order to jump start negotiations.

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