This week we bargained on the Dearborn campus, with a solid number of Dearborn members in attendance. The short version is that we received management's "compensation package," i.e. all their financial proposals. The proposal was even stingier than we expected - especially after hearing provost-to-be Phil Hanlon tell us they were still planning on "a modest salary program for faculty raises, and reading President Coleman saying in the Daily that student tuition will probably go up 5-6 % next year, we expected more. However, given the benefits cuts (which apparently did not get included in total compensation), we are looking at pay cuts for all our members.
Financial Proposal: Modest Gains+/-
We did see a few little gains at the margins: they raised the cap on professional development awards from $500 to $550 with a corresponding increase in the overall amount. They are still willing to include LIs in their third and fourth year in the long-term sick and disability insurance programs - just like all other employees. Currently, LIs only get a course cancellation fee after the first day of classes; they are willing to move that date to two weeks before the start of classes as they apparently believe that's when folks start preparing their classes. And the Senior Lecturer program (with some kind of raise), modified duties for some new parents, and some kind of adjustment for the LIVs who got their 2nd major review late are still on the table.
Financial Proposal: Significant Losses+/-
However, the salary proposal was the big disappointment: First of all, no increases to the minimum starting pays with the argument that in this economy there are plenty of qualified academics willing to work at whatever the pay. However, to the Union, another 3 years at the current minima is unacceptable: in the past six years, for LIs, starting salaries in Ann Arbor and Dearborn have gone up by $1000 for LIs (to $32,000 and $26,000 respectively) and by $2000 in Flint (to $25,000), while the LIII starting salaries have remained constant ($34,000, $30,000, and $29,000 respectively). With cost of living increases, that in effect means that our starting salaries have lost value in the past six years - that cannot continue.
Financial Proposal: Annual Raises +/-
On the annual raises, an equally disappointing proposal, especially for Ann Arbor. In Flint and Dearborn they proposed sticking with the current model of linking the lecturer annual raises to the tenure-track annual raises. Since there have been no shell games in Dearborn or Flint, that approach has worked reasonably well in the past. Of course, this carries a certain risk: in these unhappy times the average raise could be a zero
or even a negative number. So we will be thinking about that point as we make our counter proposal.
Financial Proposal: Related Grievance +/-
In Ann Arbor, management is offering a flat-rate increase of 1.5% a year
over three years. Why this different approach? Because we filed a
salary grievance. They basically said "since you didn't like being tied
to the tenure-track faculty, we think it best to untie that link and just
settle on a number. And we believe that 1.5% is the right number" (that
last part is a direct quote, the rest may be slightly paraphrased). They
seem to willfully miss the point that we filed the grievance because we
were NOT in fact tied to the tenure-track raise, but only to about 40% of
it. We can't help wondering whether this 1.5% offer for Ann Arbor is
retaliation for having won the salary grievance.
Benefits and Devaluing Teaching+/-
Nowhere in their proposal was there any recognition whatsoever of the impact of the benefit cuts - however, they want us to take a first step by presenting a proposal in that area. And they were completely silent on the equity argument -- that given how many undergraduate student credit hours we teach, our degrees, and what comparable work earns (say high school teachers, the teaching component of tenure-track salaries) it is a matter of fairness to raise our pay. They basically said, the market can bear it (thanks in part to their own over production of Ph.Ds), so they are good with continuing to undervalue lecturers on all three campuses.
So what can you do to make sure we get a fair and equitable settlement, rather than this disappointing offer? Get involved!! Sign on to the bandaid campaign. Keep reading the email updates and the issues of LEO Letters, which will be published every other week from here on. Stay posted about the Union's plan for protest actions. And attend the membership meeting at the end of the semester where we will assess where we are and decide how to move forward. Time and place tba, but likely to be late afternoon Monday April 19th.
This Friday, we are off to Flint. Then it is back to the School of Social Work in Ann Arbor for three more dates in April, with possible additional dates to be added.
My apologies for the lateness of this update; too much work and my health finally said STOP.
Solidarity,
Kirsten Herold
LEO VP
No comments:
Post a Comment