Faculty Association contract voting figures unlikely to be released after denied FOIA request

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Prospects are dim that voting figures will be released from the Faculty Association’s contract ratification earlier this month.

Any potential emails between Faculty Association President Laura Frey and the Michigan Education Association are sealed, according to Central Michigan University officials.

A Freedom of Information Act requested by Central Michigan Life, seeking any email conversation between Frey and the MEA from Jan. 11 to 20, was rejected by General Counsel Manuel Rupe.

“This is in accordance with Howell Education Association MEA/NEA v. Howell Board of Education, a Michigan Court of Appeals decision from 2010, which concluded that the release of emails involving internal union communications would only reveal information regarding the affairs of a labor organization, which is not a public body,’” Rupe said in an email.

The FOIA request was filed in hopes of determining final vote totals from the recent FA ratification of a contract with CMU on Jan. 12.

Three quarters of the FA voted, but totals and numbers have not been released. Members will receive a 1.25-percent raise and a $830 lump sum in 2012-13 and a 1.5-percent raise with a $835 lump sum for the 2013-14 academic year.

New faculty members for the College of Medicine will not be a part of the union, according to the agreement.

The request follows many FA members asking why the vote totals were not made public following the ratification vote on Jan. 11 and 12. In an email dated Tuesday from Frey to FA members, Frey said the vote totals would not be released.

“The main advantage of releasing this information is transparency with all FA members,” she said. “The main disadvantage is that this information can be misinterpreted and also could be used against the FA in future bargaining.”

Four members of the FA counted the votes, Frey told CM Life.

In the email, she told members that the FA executive board made the final decision to not release the votes, and although the board was “fairly evenly divided,” the motion to release the vote totals failed.

Frey would not give CM Life the total number of members on the executive board, but said there are representatives from each college, an affirmative action representative (unrelated to CMU), the treasurer, secretary, president, president-elect, past president and several MEA elected representatives.

She would not comment on how close the vote total to release the numbers was, and said the MEA does not know the voting totals.

“I’m not confirming any of the details regarding the vote that was taken or the composition of the board at that meeting,” she said.

Director of Public Relations Steve Smith said no university officials have been told the vote totals.