Lecturer Bargaining Update: Recap for 2/19/2021
SALARY COUNTER IS NEXT
The day started with a response about how difficult it would be for payroll to do the pay advance for international lecs. One reason this proposal was put forward as an automatic enrollment for international lecturers was the huge amounts of paperwork they already need to fill out. There are additional issues with mailing and direct deposit for international lecturers without social security numbers or bank accounts. The international caucus will consider the issue further.
Amy Dittmar, Senior Vice Provost of Academic and Budgetary Affairs, gave a 45-minute presentation on the budget followed by 15 minutes of questions. It was fairly general and focused solely on Ann Arbor, but we plan to have similar presentations on Dearborn and Flint finances in the coming weeks and we’ll submit follow-up questions.
The Lunch with LEO: Community TownHall was well attended with over 130 lecturers and allies (public notes here). Speakers included:
Bob King, LEO Bargaining team member and former UAW president
Kentaro Toyama, Associate Professor of Community Information at UM-Ann Arbor
Heather Laube, Associate Professor of Sociology at UM-Flint
Labiba Qazi, UM-Ann Arbor student and former UM-Dearborn student
Admin’s first counter was on Faculty Support. They struck-out our proposal for the University to provide computers for lecturers that were no more than 4 years old and to replace those university-owned computers if requested by the employee. Our main response was that all faculty who teach courses to University of Michigan students need a working computer .
The second counter-proposal was on job security. Everything was struck from our initial proposal for groups of employees but in the job security small group they are exploring the support for individuals including the potential to flag individuals in the system for positions across all campuses, provide them with “resources,” and other suggestions which could be added into Article 12. The Job Security Committee will get together to look at the counter and draft a response counter.
The final counter-proposal on workload was inadequate and would not meet our needs at all. Admin fundamentally misunderstood our intent. They would have schools and colleges publish workload standards, whereas we want academic units to do it since that is where the need is. Our initial proposal simply asked departments to publish what they consider a full-time load. Tellingly, they struck our language about not increasing workload as a result of the process of simply publishing workload standards. The Workload Subcommittee will take the robust conversation and work on a counter to management's counter.
A small group for Covid Impact met at the end of the day. It mostly focused on technical pieces about where the proposal pieces fit in the contract. There is still tension between student evaluations and the length of the emergency versus admins’ view of the need to evaluate employees.
This Friday will be the last day for new proposals and we want as many lecturers in the room as possible (300) in case Admin tries to drop any last-minute surprises on us. We also expect to get a counter proposal on our Salary demands. Register to attend bargaining at bit.ly/LEOBargaining. Bookmark the LEO Caucus Zoom at bit.ly/LEOCaucus. Check out the “Bargaining Day” tab on the LEO Bargaining website for Zoom backgrounds, a link to join the LEO Bargaining Slack workspace (for conversations & questions during bargaining), and other ways to help show support and build power.
One way to build power is to share your story! Sign up to be interviewed, or send your videos, photos, & words to communications@leounion.org
Finally, make sure you sign the petition for Dignity, Parity, & Respect! By signing you are advocating for yourself, your coworkers, and your students. Your signature will show the UM Administration that our bargaining proposals have broad support, and should be affirmed as part of our next contract.