Angry University of Alaska workers

Fourth negotiation session: University attacks, union retreats (2024-11-04)

2024-10-15, 0900: University’s proposal

The University’s team cancelled the Monday, October 14 negotiation session. They needed time to discuss amongst themselves.

On Tuesday, October 15 they came back to the table with their first actual proposal.¹ Their draconian proposal tells us two things:

• It’s tough times ahead for faculty and other unionized employees.
• It’s even tougher times ahead for everyone else.

UNAC, the faculty union, has already summarized the University’s proposal. But we’ll give an even shorter summary. The University’s changes would:

• introduce potential furloughs for faculty
• stop postdocs and visiting professors from being covered by workload article of CBA
• stop postdocs and visiting professors from being covered by most of compensation article of CBA
• force more of health care costs onto workers (50/50 instead of previous 82/18)
• keep disciplinary records forever (instead of two years)
• stop faculty from doing “union business” on University time
• bar those getting an unsatisfactory post-tenure review from getting next year’s salary increases
• eliminate the possibility of retroactive raises if the contract talks drag on
• omit a “systematic process” for multi-year contracts for non-tenure track faculty (40% of faculty)
• retain short non-retention notices for non-tenure track faculty
• offer paltry across-the-board raises of 2.75%, 2.75%, and 3%
• offer raises to minimum salaries lower than what UNAC had previously sought²
• remove the “me-too clause” which guarantees faculty the raises that other workers get
• provide no market adjustments
• provide no increases to department chair, summer, or overload pay

Apart from the substance of their proposal, we can note a couple of things:

• The session began with talk between about Zoom procedures. UNAC’s team will verify and keep track of everyone who attends the meetings. They will then share that roster with the University’s team. It’s clear the bosses are terrified of public scrutiny.

• The University’s side rambled at length about removing the “me too” clause. This suggests that attacks on me-too clauses will be a priority for all coming negotiations between UA and its unions. As the University’s negotiator said, “because there are across the board salary increases, and because the University is subject to other me-toos, and UNAC has a me-too also, it makes it difficult for the University to address – it just makes it difficult to address – and I’m hesitating because I am in the fishbowl. It makes it difficult for us to address the unique interests, needs, and concerns of UNAC.”

2024-10-15, 1100: UNAC’s response

The UNAC team responded:

We are categorically rejecting this package as it represents a pattern of recycling proposals from our last round of negotiations with UA, infringing on the rights of our bargaining unit members, shifting power and decision-making unilaterally to management and violating principles of shared governance, contradicting already TA’d articles, overwhelming paltry raises with outrageous increases to healthcare costs, proposing furloughs at the unit level and management discretion, and flying in the face of President Pitney’s insistence that all employee groups be treated the same.

The UNAC team then caucused until 1500.

2024-10-15, 1500: UNAC’s proposal

UNAC returned with a proposal that accepted these elements of the University’s proposal:

• no more me-too clause
• smaller minimum salary increases than what the union had previously sought
• no market adjustments
• no increases to department chair overloads or summer compensation
• no increase to faculty development funds
• no language about merit, retention, or equity raises (union states they look forward to a “promised side letter” about how faculty could apply for such³)

In return for these concessions, UNAC asked for annual across-the-board raises of 5%, 5%, and 7%.

Some back-of-the-envelope math suggests that such raises would put faculty purchasing power roughly back to its 2018 levels by 2028. But that’s just treading water on pay – at the terrible cost of surrendering so much else! UNAC’s proposal is thus a massive retreat.

Notes