MARQUETTE — It appears the struggle between Northern Michigan University and faculty might continue longer than what had been indicated.

NMU announced on Saturday that a tentative agreement between the NMU-American Association of University Professors faculty union and administration regarding the faculty contract had been reached.

However, NMU-AAUP issued a lengthy statement on Thursday that said otherwise.

“Statements suggesting that the faculty are finally satisfied with what the administration has offered are grossly inaccurate,” the statement reads. “After months of negotiations followed by Michigan Employment Relations Commission-assisted mediation, the two bargaining teams put forth a tentative agreement that represented movement from both sides and the faculty union members voted it down.”

Part of the problem lies in the fact that throughout the initial months of negotiations, the faculty union made significant movement as financial offers were being traded back and forth, the union said in the statement.

“The administration made very little movement, often just moving money from one part of the contract to another instead of adding money to the offer,” it said. “The faculty team approached what they believed to be less than their membership would accept given the financial health of the university and the sacrifices they had made to facilitate that health.

“The administration, guided by parameters provided to them by the board of trustees, refused to acknowledge those concerns of the faculty. That situation led to the NMU-AAUP team to bring in the mediator. The mediator did a fantastic job creating movement from both sides; however, to get administrative movement on the key issue of base salary raises, sacrifices in other areas of the contract were made, which the vote demonstrates were clearly unacceptable to the greater faculty union membership.”

The union said that following its rejection of a tentative agreement on Sept. 28, NMU-AAUP immediately surveyed its membership to find a path toward an acceptable contract offer. Those survey results facilitated new discussions between the union and the administration.

“The union was pleased in NMU administration’s willingness to move on a couple of important items; however, this movement did not result in a new tentative agreement,” it said. “Again, news reports that it did are untrue.”

The union said that when NMU faculty were surveyed again on Tuesday to determine if this movement would be acceptable, it was “resoundingly clear” that the faculty continue to feel insulted by the “administration’s relentless attempts” to make permanent several of the COVID-related financial sacrifices to which the faculty agreed in the prior one-year contract as a “temporary gift in good faith to the university to get through the financial unknowns of the global pandemic.”

“Further, the outstanding financial status of the university, the large increase in enrollment of our current freshman class and the increased funding that has been announced at the state level have led the faculty to believe that now is the time to focus on delivering a base pay raise package that at a minimum keeps up with inflation and cost-of-living increases, but more importantly moves us away from our status of being seriously underpaid when compared to faculty at our peer institutions in Michigan,” the union said.

“This is something that the previous administration was unwilling to do and it remains to be seen if the new administration will either.”

NMU-AAUP and the administration were unable to come to an agreement before the one-year contract expired at midnight July 1, with mediation beginning that month.

Jon Barch, NMU-AAUP information officer, told The Mining Journal in a phone interview that he believes there might have been a miscommunication between the parties involved before the announcement of the tentative agreement being reached.

“I think maybe that people involved misinterpreted a little bit of ‘happy progress,’ so it might lead to a tentative agreement, which is maybe more the truth than it did lead to a tentative agreement,” Barch said.

He said he just released survey data to faculty NMU officials that, it is hoped, “clearly has the will of the faculty in it and maybe has a path forward in it that we can get a ratified contract.”

Barch said a big question is whether the administration will take the steps necessary to get enough of the faculty to vote for a contract.

“Even more important than that, will they do something that will result in a little bit of easing of the negativity that the faculty are feeling, which is affecting their motivation and their performance,” Barch said.

NMU administration on Thursday released a statement on the matter.

“Late last Friday afternoon the administration and the union did, in fact, reach a verbal tentative agreement,” administration said. “Plans were made to edit and finalize the language for signatures and dissemination to the union for review on Monday and a ratification vote to occur later that week or early the next.

“Additionally, on Saturday morning the union leadership contacted the administration about developing a press release as a joint statement announcing the verbal tentative agreement. However, administration was disappointed to learn late Monday afternoon that the agreed upon language would not be distributed to the union for their review and vote. Again, we are disappointed but will continue to bargain in good faith to reach an agreement.”

Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.