Latest on Kronos Negotiations
Updated August 22, 2023
In January 2023, the UVM administration announced to UVM Staff United that it planned to implement Kronos, a time-clock system, for all non-exempt staff on campus, including about 700 staff in our union. Since then, we have been listening to members to hear how this change will affect them, and working hard to postpone the implementation so that we could fairly negotiate the impacts of this change on our staff. We successfully delayed the start of implementation from March to July. We are in active negotiations now.
In bargaining sessions on April 19th and 20th, we presented powerful stories from our colleagues about how Kronos would be an obstacle to their being most effective in their jobs, and how it would create a further drag on staff morale, recruitment, and retention. (Members can read these stories on the password-protected information page on our website. Check recent member digests for the password.) We then presented our proposals for mitigating the potential negative impacts of Kronos. You can view our proposals here.
On May 9th, the Administration presented their counterproposals. You can view them here.
On May 30th, we presented our counters to their counters. You can view them here.
On June 8th, we heard back from the Administration on our last round of proposals. You can view 6/8 proposals here. As you can see, we still have a long way to go to reach agreement on key elements of Kronos implementation. Regardless, the Administration has refused to commit to reaching a member-ratified agreement with us before requiring non-exempt staff to start using Kronos.
This is totally unacceptable, as it flies in the face of our efforts to negotiate in good faith. It will also likely cause significant confusion for our members and their supervisors, which could result in improper use, unfair discipline, and inaccurate compensation. As a result, the Administration should not implement Kronos until we reach agreement. Accordingly, we are asking all non-exempt UVMSU members to go here to indicate which of the following actions you pledge to take.
The Kronos Bargaining Team, made up of 30 staff members from departments all over campus, regularly meets to discuss next steps and communicate them with the full Union membership. In the meantime, you may always use our Contact Us form to share thoughts / feedback with the team.