SHARE Members’ Priorities
In preparation for these negotiations, SHARE sent our members a survey to complete. We know this took some time and reflection, and we would like to thank those who responded quickly, and thoughtfully. These responses not only help our negotiating team identify what the most important priorities are for our members but also help us understand how our members are feeling about their financial situations and work/life balance.
Below is a cloud of themes which were evident throughout our analysis of the contract survey responses.
From the survey responses we can see that SHARE members’ biggest priorities are:
· Finances- significant raises to afford the rising cost of living, parking costs
· Equity- mainly when comparing benefits to those of salaried employees, or employees working for similar institutions
· Time off/flexibility- Both vacation time, personal time and flexible scheduling
· Many other topics have been expressed which affect smaller groups of people, and those topics will be brought forward in negotiations as well
Health insurance costs- Many of our members brought forward the rising health insurance costs as a priority. We at SHARE understand that these costs hit our members hard. We unfortunately cannot negotiate the cost of health insurance with the Group Insurance Commission but historically have lobbied the state to make changes. This year, SHARE lobbied with other unions representing state employees, and reached out to local legislators, with recent success. Thank you to all our members who took the time to help with that effort!
If you’d like to know more about what has been happening this year with the GIC and increases, please see our blog post from March 18th.
All of these topics are important to a significant number of SHARE members, and they are also important to the SHARE Executive Board; the SHARE members you have elected to represent you at the bargaining table. The survey responses help to shape what your union leaders will advocate for as we move forward with these negotiations. Again, we want to thank you for being a part of this process.
In Solidarity,
SHARE