Editor’s note: This story has been updated from its original version.
The University of Michigan administration stands ready at any time to continue contract talks with the union representing non-tenure-track lecturers, even as the union told the university Aug. 9 that it plans to terminate its contract.
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Negotiations began in January and the parties have met 29 times and reached 18 tentative agreements on a range of contractual matters. But the union and the administration remain apart on salary.
The Lecturers’ Employee Organization, which represents nearly 1,700 lecturers across all three U-M campuses, on Aug. 9 gave the university the 30-day notice required to terminate the contract, which expired in May. University officials said they are concerned this decision may indicate LEO plans a strike for early September, just as the fall term is getting under way. The current contract contains a no-strike clause.
LEO said in its notification that, “We are writing to give notice that LEO is terminating the 2018-21 Collective Bargaining Agreement effective today August 9. As you know, this means the CBA will remain in effect for thirty days (unless we agree to extend it). We sincerely hope we can reach agreement before September 8, 2021.” The letter was signed by Kirsten Herold, LEO president.
Sascha Matish, associate vice provost for academic and faculty affairs and senior director of Academic Human Resources, said the university’s latest salary proposal includes increases in minimum salaries, annual increases, a longevity increase and increases in the average salaries of lecturers across all three campuses. Specifically, over the three-year life of the contract the university’s proposal would raise average salaries by 10.9 percent, with the average salaries reaching:
- $87,790 in Ann Arbor.
- $55,380 in Dearborn.
- $58,815 in Flint.
The university’s latest salary proposal increases the minimum salaries in Dearborn and Flint by $3,000 (7 percent) by the end of the agreement and provides annual increases for all lecturers on all three campuses of 2 percent in year one, 2.75 percent in year two and 3.5 percent in year three.
Even before these proposed increases, lecturers’ starting salaries on the Ann Arbor campus are the highest of the state’s four-year public universities.
The LEO team has presented only three salary proposals since June 23 and has canceled several negotiations sessions. LEO’s last formal salary proposal Aug. 9 significantly reconfigured the salary structure and increases the minimum salaries of Lecturers I by 31.7 percent in Flint and Dearborn and by 5.9 percent in Ann Arbor. The overall percentage increase of the LEO proposal is 26.6 percent.
The cost of LEO’s current salary proposal would significantly impact the Flint and Dearborn campuses. Neither the Flint nor the Dearborn campus can manage these types of increases to lecturers’ salaries, particularly after the historically large increases in the 2018 contract, which increased average salaries by more than 20 percent, and increased minimum salaries by 33-50 percent, according to university officials.
The provosts on each of U-M’s three campuses said in an email message to lecturers they are concerned that LEO’s decision to terminate the contract is part of the union’s preparations for a strike that would upend the education of thousands of students at the start of fall semester.
“Students are eager to return to campus after such a tumultuous year. A strike would cause great harm and stress to them, particularly for our undergraduate students, who already have endured significant disruptions to their education during the pandemic,” the Aug. 10 message said. It was signed by Susan M. Collins, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs; Gabriella Scarlatta, interim provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at UM-Dearborn; and Sonja Feist-Price, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at UM-Flint.
Strikes by public employees are prohibited by state law.
The provosts’ message reiterated the university’s position that “we do not believe a strike is appropriate, nor is it necessary in order for LEO to achieve a fair contract that represents significant progress for its members.
“The university’s negotiating team stands ready to bargain at any time and continues to explore every available means to reach an agreement.” The campus academic leaders said the university’s commitment to bargaining in good faith is unwavering.
In April, the university requested that the Michigan Employment Relations Commission provide a neutral, third-party mediator to assist with resolving the remaining issues, but LEO refused to engage. In light of the slow progress in talks over the summer, the university continued to seek assistance from MERC, filing a petition for fact finding July 1. That petition is pending.
Fact finding is a process whereby a state-appointed, neutral third-party factfinder reviews and makes findings of fact and recommendations for resolution of open issues in negotiations. If the parties are unable to come to agreement, the neutral factfinder could issue a non-binding recommendation for settlement of the contractual dispute.
“Lecturers are integral and valuable members of our community and serve an important role in the education of our students,” the message said. “We continue to believe we can reach agreement on a contract that makes significant improvements in the compensation and working conditions of our lecturers and maintains the high quality of instruction without disruption to our students.”
Ryan McCarty
Isn’t it generally the practice in non-hack journalism to get statements from both parties rather than simply reprinting quotes from a press release issued by the administration?
Steven Toth
“We are ready to bargain at any time”. Huh. It seems to me like during bargaining on 8/9 admin did not pass back a single proposal and ended bargaining after 7 minutes. Feel free to spin, but the lies in this piece are disgusting. LEO has canceled several bargaining sessions? False. LEO hasn’t been bargaining since June 23rd? Sure- BOTH sides agreed to take the month of July off. Clearly what was previously a sign of “working together” is now being used as a weapon against us. Rick Fitzgerald, The Provosts of the University, and the admin’s bargaining team should be ashamed of this response. I truly thought that we were working together towards a common solution, but it is now obvious to me that the administration is instead resorting to tricks, lies, and deception. Disgusting.
Steven Toth
In this piece you say that UM has the highest lecturer starting salaries in the state, with Flint and Dearborn being the second highest starting salary.
Flint and Dearborn starting salary is $41,000
four minutes of looking up public university contracts and I find that Sagninaw Valley State Univeristy (a public university in Michigan) has a starting salary of $48,518
My degree is not in math, but $48,518 > $41,000.
What else is the administration lying about?
Ref: https://www.svsu.edu/media/hr/currentdocs/SVSU%20Faculty%20Contract%202020-2023.pdf
Steven Toth
Grand Valley State university starting minimum salary for lectures is $44,900
Ref: https://www.gvsu.edu/hro/faculty-compensation-schedule-1065.htm
Steven Toth
Ferris State starting minimum salary for lecturers is $42908.
Ref: https://www.ferris.edu/administration/president/generalcounsel/pdfs-docs/FNTFOCollectiveBargainingAgreementjune2020fullysignedagreementaccessibilityck.pdf
Steven Toth
Northern Michigan Univeristy miimum starting salary for lecturers is $44,540
Ref: http://nmuaaup.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/AAUP-Agreement-2020-2021.pdf
(starting to get a little embarassed for academic HRs ability to look at numbers)
Steven Toth
Fascinating! I see you have now removed your lie about Flint and Dearborn having the “second highest starting salary in 4-year public universities in Michigan” line after I called you out on it. No mention of the edit anywhere in the article it is just now… gone. The administration continues to maintain its deceptive tactics, even when confronted with their lies.
Happy that The LEO Union bargaining team have approached bargaining with honor and dignity. They have been transparent and upfront with communication, and haven’t had to rely on lies and mudslinging. We can disagree about how to implement things like new salaries, but seeing the administration take this deplorable turn is disheartening.
Sidenote- I have a cached version of the article with the orginal lie if anyone wants a copy.
Eric Charnesky
Full time faculty at Oakland Community College start at $56,554/year – https://www.oaklandcc.edu/employment/human-resources/docs/FacultyMasterAgreement.pdf – A flagship university with a $12 billion endowment should be able to do better than the community college in the next county.
Jennifer Miller
I am extremely disappointed by this piece of one sided propaganda. Perhaps the University should also look at other schools of higher education and their starting salaries, such as local community colleges. Many Lecturers are not on contract from June 1- August 31, but are still working several hours a week, sometimes several hours a day to try to work with administration. I am grateful for my fellow lecturers who are working so hard on their own time, several even working when they are on vacation! The continued treatment of the Flint and Dearborn campuses as lesser schools has got to stop. If the University truly felt that lecturers matter to the education of our students they would treat the lecturers on all campuses equitably and fairly.
Kirsten Herold
Spin is one thing, flat out lies is quite another. IT IS A LIE that we did not engage with the mediator, who kept telling us he did not understand why he had been brought in. The Union has been bargaining in good faith since January. Yes, we took TWO WEEKS off in July, in part due to family needs. That break was known to admin since April, and Admin’s team members took advantage of the break to have their own vacations. As an international faculty member (but perhaps we don’t want any of those anymore?), I make NO APOLOGIES for visiting aging relatives for two weeks for the first time in two years.
In Flint and Dearborn starting salaries sat in the mid 20’s for YEARS until LEO finally mounted a strong enough campaign to move them to 41K — hardly sky-high wages for fulltime faculty members. Management now tries to take the credit for those raises, but let’s not forget they happened after strong resistance from the U who thought nothing could be more reasonable than paying $27.300 a year to people with Masters and Ph.Ds.
Yes, lecturers are “valued members of the community,” but only if we are good little quiet lecturers, who never complain about living on starvation wages that make us eligible for public assistance.
PJ Mcgann
I write in strong support of my colleague’s astute points. Like them, I feel frustration, sadness, & yes, anger, at the “alternative facts” cloaked as actual, empirical, publicly verifiable facts. I note two additional points. First, partway through the piece I stopped reading to double check if I was on the opinion page by mistake, since I thought I was reading a news article. (!) Second, the use of “average” salary is more than a bit misleading. As nearly anyone with basic math knows, averages are subject to distortion by outliers. On this, I strongly suggest one compares, for example, lecturer salaries in the Business School to those in LSA. Even better, check out variation within LSA, such as Humanities compared to Social Science. To wit, I’ve been teaching full time at UM since Fall 2002. I came in with 4+ years experience. I am published and I’ve been elected to VP of a major national organization in sociology. I teach a 3-3 load that includes 6 distinct courses (but have taught 8 different courses in A2 and 2 more in Flint). With over 23 years experience I currently earn about $3k over the reported UM “average” lecturer salary.