I came across this this morning, and it seems like something worth posting here as the 2010 faculty contract negotiation process gears up: from Inside Higher Ed, “Pushing Back on Requests for Salary Cuts.”
It’s a short piece:
In this budget year, many faculties (unionized or not) have been asked by administrations to accept salary cuts or freezes or other modifications of their work arrangements. The Collective Bargaining Congress of the American Association of University Professors issued a statement Tuesday urging faculty groups to resist such calls — unless they receive more power in shaping the direction of their institutions.
“The AAUP thereby resolves that faculty should work to turn this situation around, and should not give their pay away in temporary measures that do not structurally readjust higher education’s direction,” says the statement. “Turning the situation around means that faculty should (a) gain access to full information about institutional finances and all other strategically relevant data, ensuring that institutions open their books to shed light on the institution’s overall condition; (b) exercise a fuller voice in analyzing and making recommendations about budgets and strategic directions, opening the boardroom door to take a central role in institutional decision making; & (c) pursue measures that reverse the long standing trends and protect the core academic functions of higher education, opening up educational opportunity by reinvesting in educational expenditures.”
Does this mean we can expect another “strike” around PH and Welch? I don’t know if it was officially a strike or not, but it seems like it was just last summer.
Oh, it was a real strike alright. Back in 2006 though.
It’s way WAY too early to make much of a prediction about the likelihood of a faculty strike next September. I think it would be a lose-lose proposition for all kinds of different reasons, but I also am in hope for the best/prepare for the worse mode right now.
I thought it was illegal for the faculty to strike, so it was a “walkout” instead. Is that true? If they did strike, were there any legal ramifications?
I’ve been at EMU since ’98 and on strike twice. The legality of faculty striking was questioned both times and “worked out” both times. So I can’t really tell you what the law is here, but I can tell you that there were no implications.
To be honest, going on strike sucks and I would much MUCH rather prefer if the EMU-AAUP would agree up front to work without a contract. But this is very much a debatable issue. It will be interesting this next time around since in ’96 we worked without a contract through the school year and we ended up with as good of a contract as we could have gotten by staying out on strike (IMO).