The College's associate general counsel Kevin O'Leary, however, said Dartmouth administrators have kept the SEIU informed about their intentions and have been willing to discuss contracts.
"The College works very hard to keep open lines of communication with the leadership of the SEIU," O'Leary wrote in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. "The College has been open with the SEIU about the challenges at the Inn and our desire to explore options. If the College decides to make changes at the Inn, a process which has not been completed, that will be communicated to all of the employees at the Inn, including the employees represented by the union."
As a result of the recent budget cuts, the College has considered working with a third party to operate the Inn but does not plan to sell it, O'Leary wrote in a statement to The Dartmouth.
"In the fall, the College told the employees at the Inn that the College was going to explore options related to the operation of Inn," O'Leary said in the e-mail to the Dartmouth. "The College has no intention of selling the Inn and told the employees and [union President] Sweet that in the fall. If a decision is made to involve a third party in the operation of the Inn, the decision will be shared with the community, including the union."
Sweet, however, contended that the College has not been transparent in discussions about the Hanover Inn, saying that College officials do not want to discuss the issue.
"Transparency is something that you can see, and certainly with the Hanover Inn, we cannot see what their intentions are," Sweet said. "We've got tons of people sitting over there wondering if next month they're going to have a job or not."
Current employee contracts expire on June 1. The College has agreed to reinstitute the contracts from the previous year for Safety and Security and other employees on campus if negotiations have not been made between the College and the union by this date, but has not yet agreed to do the same for Hanover Inn employees, according to Sweet.
The union has requested an opportunity to meet with the College to negotiate the contracts for Inn employees prior to June 1, Sweet said.
In his statement, O'Leary said the union's claims that the College has not been open to negotiations are "absolutely false."
Representatives of various departments at the College have been meeting with union representatives weekly to negotiate new collective bargaining agreements since January, according to O'Leary.
Sweet said he does not believe these meetings have been "substantive" and that agreements have not been reached.
"We just sit there and go back and forth over language," Sweet said.
The SEIU has backed out of two of these meetings, according to O'Leary's statement.
"We think it is unfair for the union to criticize the College for not being at the bargaining table when the union has cancelled two of the scheduled meetings," O'Leary said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. "We have been at the table meeting when the union seemed ready to meet."
According to Sweet, the union canceled once on a meeting because representatives of the International union body wanted to meet with the College before negotiations began with the local chapter of the SEIU, which had not happened by the first scheduled meeting in January. Additionally, the union had to reschedule another meeting because the attorney representing the SEIU was called into court and was unable to attend, Sweet said. Because the College had agreed to reschedule the meeting, Sweet said the College's accusations that the union has been unavailable to meet are "stretching it."
"They sound like Mother Theresa and they have not been Mother Theresa," Sweet said.
The union has not taken into consideration the College's financial situation in their proposals, O'Leary said in the statement.
"While the union says it understands that the College faces significant financial challenges because of the recession,' none of the union's proposals to date reflect that understanding," O'Leary said in the statement.
Sweet said that the College's response to the financial situation has been too drastic.
"I think the budget crisis is real, but I think they are overreacting to it," Sweet said. "I think they may be using it to do some things they wouldn't normally do. And of course we had no say in how they spent their money."
