Lecturer Bargaining Update: Bargaining Recap for 3/22/2024
Photo from Union Solidarity Rally in Ann Arbor on the Diag on 3/16/2024, by Raya Samet.
This was a week of hard work and hard decisions for the lecturer bargaining team. The bargaining survey closed on Wednesday night with ~525 responses. On Thursday evening, the salary committee met and discussed our next counter in light of those responses. And on Friday, March 22nd at bargaining, we made some tough decisions for how to go forward.
We will meet at the table again this Friday in Ann Arbor at Palmer Commons Great Lakes South/Central Room (4th floor) and on Zoom, with caucus starting at 10am (NOTE THE CHANGE IN TIME). Members: be sure to register to support your bargaining team’s efforts!
In the morning, LEO presented proposals on Leaves Without Pay and Professional Development, packaged with Tuition Support. We offered to drop our Tuition Support proposal in report for a substantial increase in both the size of the Prof. Dev. funds on each campus and also the size of individual awards (increasing to $2500). It is a package because if they say no, Tuition Support is back on the table.
For leaves without pay, we presented several testimonials from lecs who have been denied leaves, for no good reasons, even when requests were timely. Having the ability to request part time leaves/course load reductions was identified as a high priority on the survey, so we are sticking to it! We also agreed to withdraw our strike-out of the Felony Disclosure MoU.
Admin presented six articles in the morning. First up were XI: Appointments, Major Review, and Renewal and Article XII: Layoff, Reduction in Appointment Effort, and Recall, where they continue to insist they cannot predict whether they need us until sometime in May. Next were Article XVIII: Benefit Plans and Article XVII: Benefit Eligibility, where we are getting closer to an agreement that would greatly enhance retirement benefits for LIs who currently have to meet the 50% appointment threshold to be eligible for the 10% match. Then for MOU 8: Teaching Professor, they struck out our entire proposal; they are adamant that teaching professor
Finally, we received a productive counter offer on MOU 11: Support for International Lecturers for our proposed International Assistance Fund with support for international lecturers who need to travel outside the US to renew their visas. This was an issue that admin had initially discouraged – telling us it wouldn’t happen – where we now have some genuine progress and are close to agreement.
After lunch, LEO presented two proposals: Article XVII: Benefit Eligibility (making it easier for intermittents and LIs to access the employer match of 10%) and Article XV: Salary. After much discussion, we made big decisions in a couple of areas: switching from flat to percent raises, and moving away from the same raises on the three campuses. We proposed an 8% raise for Ann Arbor and a 7% raise, with a 1% lump sum payment for Dearborn and Flint, following Admin’s rationale that the two campuses cannot afford the ongoing costs that Ann Arbor can afford. Though there was a diversity of opinions about the new salary proposal expressed during caucus, ultimately a majority of the Bargaining Team voted to pass the restructured salary proposal across the table. Reaching this decision was not easy, and we remain committed to our shared goal of getting the best possible raises for all our members.
The Communications Committee put together a brief explainer document to provide an overview of LEO’s Bargaining Protocols that were adopted this past summer. You can read that description on our blog.
The Bargaining Team and Salary Subcommittee are committed to getting as much money for our Dearborn & Flint Lecturers within UM’s inequitable budget structure. Beyond contract negotiations there are other avenues to explore making fundamental changes to the divisions between our three campuses, namely through our SPACE Committee (Solidarity, Political Action, & Community Engagement) which advocates for electing legislators and UM Regents who support higher ed & organized labor. This past year both the Dearborn and Flint campuses saw an increase to their budgets from state funding because of the Democratic majority in the legislature and governor’s office. However at this time, both the UM-Ann Arbor campus and MSU receive more dollars per student from the state than the remaining 13 state universities.
Be sure to follow our proposals on LEO’s Public Proposal Tracker.
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Dues-paying members have access to our Lecturer Slack Workspace where they can get live bargaining updates as well as participate in a myriad of different group conversations where questions get asked and answered and fun is had. Email your steward or LEO staff to join!
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