The good news is that SHARE and UMass Memorial have finished, or mostly finished, the vast majority of issues that we have been discussing. Now we are talking about raises and a couple other tough issues.

As we described here, most of the side tables in our Interest Based Bargaining negotiations have reported out how they propose to resolve their issue to the main negotiating table. Many of the tables were able to come up with proposals that both union and management are satisfied with. In some cases, they were able to propose something that both sides are excited about -- such as the side table talking about unit-based teams.

Raises, plus any other issue that costs money, are usually the last topic that gets resolved in negotiations. Right now, from SHARE's point of view, the numbers that management is thinking about are too low, so we have to keep working on it. From management's point of view, there are big financial challenges coming in 2017:

Possible Medicaid cuts of $20-25 million
Medicare cuts of $16 million for UMass Memorial, for taking care of the same number of patients

SHARE and UMass Memorial are meeting to negotiate next week. We are hopeful that we can find agreement about raises soon.

Of course, when we do come to an agreement, you will be the first to know!