Lecturer Bargaining Update: Bargaining Recap for 5/21/21
Central Admin Says No to Supporting Flint and Dearborn
In the morning we passed to Admin our counters on MoU 12: Increased Diversity in Hiring, Teaching Professor packaged with a new MoU for the College of Engineering in Ann Arbor, Professional Development, and MoU COVID Impact.
The afternoon began with us passing to Admin our counter on Workload, and some positive movement happened on MoU: Title IX and MoU: COVID Impact, where we reached tentative agreements (TAs).
Then negotiations turned sour when Admin struck completely our MoUs on Retiree Benefits and Governance. The MoU: Retiree Benefits helps the few long-serving Lecturers who just barely fell out of retirement eligibility due to reasons like breaks in their employment for longer than one year or their appointment level dipping below 50% before they retired. On MoU:Governance, Admin says the decision to extend governance rights to lecturers “belongs in the colleges” and it is not for central Academic HR to decide. Both of these MoUs have been sitting in Admin’s court for 4 solid months and over that time the best they could come up with was nothing?!
Things went from bad to worse when Admin passed a new package of proposals that contained MoU: Felony Disclosure, Professional Development, and Salary:
Felony Disclosure - Admin returned fully to their previous offer.
Professional Development - They increased the funds to$33,000 in AA, $18,000 in FL & Dbn; they increased the amount an individual can apply for to $1250; they struck the proposal for automatic approval of requests less than $100; they returned to their offer to meet no less than 3 times for committees
Salary - No increase to the minimums over three years in Ann Arbor. In Dearborn and Flint, the LI mins change as follows: Year 1, no increase; Year 2, $42,000 (or +1K); Year 3, $44,000(+2K) .
Annual raises: in AA, $1500 flat sum in Year 1, $2000 in Year 2, and $2500 for Year 3; in Flint & Dearborn, $1000 in Year 1, $1500 in Year 2, and $2000 in Year 3.
On longevity raises they returned to their previous proposal of $1500 in the 19th year.
They struck our language to correct the wage theft occurring for LII’s who’ve elected to get paid on a 12-month schedule.
And they’re still refusing the $90 million over three years for the long-term viability of Dearborn and Flint.
Packages of proposals means that if one side wants to accept one of the proposals within the package they would need to accept all of them within the package. However, no one in attendance expressed a desire to accept any of the proposals within this new package! Packages are used to incentivize the acceptance of a proposal that you don’t like because it comes with another proposal that you do like. Though Admin has made some positive movement in the area of Professional Development, it is insignificant when compared to their insulting salary offer and refusal to hear our position on felony charge disclosure!