Star-Gazette (Elmira, NY), March 27, 2005, Sunday

Copyright 2005 Star-Gazette (Elmira, NY)
All Rights Reserved
Star-Gazette

March 27, 2005 Sunday

SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 1C

HEADLINE: CCC faculty OK labor pact

BYLINE: Larry Wilson, lwilson@stargazette.com

BODY:
" Deal is first negotiated between school, teachers union.
By LARRY WILSON
Star-Gazette Corning Bureau
CORNING - Corning Community College faculty members have ratified their first labor contract by a vote of 50 to 34.
Ernie Danforth, the union president, said Friday's vote was a relief.
"We've been nine months at it," Danforth said.
The proposal, details of which were not announced, goes to the college's board of trustees for approval April 20. It is the first labor agreement between the institution and the Professional Educators of Corning Community College, a union formed following a faculty vote in the fall of 2003.
Danforth said both sides employed a "mutual gains process" in the negotiations.
"Our hope is that we have come to a process whereby both sides can work together to benefit everyone," he said.
The union president said he was pleased that 93 of the 99 eligible faculty members voted on the pact. Only 84 votes counted because one was invalidated, and absentee votes were not tallied because they could not have affected the outcome, Danforth said.
"In many ways, the contract looks a lot like the rules we worked under before," Danforth said. "Hopefully we can maintain things pretty much as they were."
Negotiations on the agreement began in June. Danforth declined to specify the length of the tentative contract.
The college president, Floyd Amann, said he's pleased with the faculty vote. He said both sides took a risk in deciding against adversarial bargaining.
"We brought a person down from the Cornell IRL (Industrial and Labor Relations) school to train both teams how you can in a much more friendly way get to the resolution of issues," Amann said.
Amann said he will recommend to the college trustees that they accept the agreement April 20.
"There's a certain trust factor because we didn't set out everything precisely," he said. "It's a good beginning, and I think it will lead to better labor relations between the faculty and the administration."
Amann said he also is pleased with the pace of the negotiations.
"Actually it took less time than most of them do," he said. "These things usually take a lot longer than that."
AMANN