Five days of negotiations were originally scheduled between the MGEC team and the State team at the MnDOT Training Center in Shoreview, MN. We met on each of those days and have now scheduled two additional days for meetings on October 31 and November 1.
The negotiation process has been productive and proceeding well overall. On the State side, Paula Graff took over for Austin Neese as the lead negotiator for the State. Derrick Dasenbrock, MGEC President, continues serving as MGEC lead. Each side has now made several complete proposal “passes” to the other side. There have been several Tentative Agreements on language proposals and work continues on remaining language proposals (several on each side) as well as nearly all of the economic proposals. On Tuesday, October 1st, after doing a significant amount of research and organization as compared to previous bargaining cycles, MGEC provided the State six position letters and 288 electronic files in support of our positions on several negotiating issues- especially those on wages. The State requested additional time to review this information and MGEC appreciates their interest in reviewing the content.
MGEC’s continuing economic proposals include meaningful increases to several different types of compensation (Across-the-Board (ATB) wages, range adjustments for some job classifications, deferred compensation contributions, meal reimbursements, and professional society reimbursements). MGEC’s current positions are based on both current and historic information from several sources.
Volunteer participants on your 2019 Negotiation Team are: Derrick Dasenbrock, Mohammad Dehdashti, Forrest Hasty, Jason Hedeen, Steve Kordosky, Blake Nelson, John Siekmeier, and Victor Vasas. They are joined by our staff, Kari Torkelson and Dana Wheeler.