UA faculty accept defeat for entire workforce )
In February, 88% of University of Alaska (UA) faculty voted to accept a slave contract that sells out the entire UA workforce.
It’s true that faculty beat back management’s most vicious attacks. But those were hopeful thrusts, demands management couldn’t really expect to win. They served a different purpose – to divert attention and use up the workers’ energy. So, yes, faculty rejected harsher discipline, a carve-up the bargaining unit, and arbitrary administration-imposed furloughs. That’s the good news. The only good news. The bad news is that these small defensive wins came at the cost of acquiescing to the same old slave wages the University proposes every contract.
Faculty settled for “raises” of only 2.75%, 3.0%, and 3.25%. This 3.0% average is much less than the 2023 Alaska average of 5.2% in 2023. And such raises are certainly less than the (as of August 2024) five most recent Alaska public sector contracts, which resulted in average total raises of 26.5%.
The bottom line is that UA workers have not regained lost spending power. By 2028, UA workers’ purchasing power will still be well below its 2018 level. And this still would have been true even if the union had won its initial demand of 5%, 5%, 5%.
So why is the defeat of the faculty – maybe 1,000 out of 6,000 UA employees – a defeat for the entire workforce? Faculty, as the largest group within UA with any ability to demand higher wages, move the needle. Staff raises are tied to faculty raises. What faculty win is the ceiling for the rest of the workforce.
Tying staff raises to faculty raises serves many purposes.
First, it allows the University to “show” staff that collective action (such as it was) is fruitless – after all, faculty aren’t getting any more than staff. Second, faculty are the group best able to accept meager raises. To make faculty the barometer keeps wages down across the board.
To repeat, in accepting a new slave contract, faculty failed not only themselves, but the wider UA workforce. They abandoned their class duty. This no doubt comes as a delight to the slavers at the top of UA.
But make no mistake: the union bosses don’t mind, either. Pigeonholed into their legal role as representatives of solely the “bargaining unit,” their attitude towards all other workers necessarily becomes “devil take the hindmost!” This is not hyperbole. Attend enough union meetings and you will see your “leaders” telling militant workers not to worry about those workers who fall outside the union. (We have it on authority that this happens in the UNAC monthly meetings.)
As ever, the only way forward is for the militant core of the class to remind their coworkers that the entire class has to fight with one unified iron fist!