Full-time faculty at the University of Vermont have returned to school without a contract. Negotiations between faculty and the university administration reached an impasse last week. The previous contract, agreed to in 2011, expired June 30.
Salaries and health care premiums are sticking points in the negotiations, which started in January. The two parties recently completed three mediated bargaining sessions, and negotiations now go to a fact-finder. If an agreement is not reached, a decision will be imposed by the Vermont Labor Relations Board.
Enrique Corredera, the communications director for UVM, said in a statement that university trustees are aiming for a level of faculty compensation that would be in the mid-range at comparable schools.
“Our objective is to continue to be competitive in terms of compensation, while at the same time promote affordability and financial access for all our students,” Corredera said.
United Academics, affiliated with American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors, is the union representing full-time faculty in the negotiations. The full-time unit includes faculty working three-quarters time or more. It is the school’s largest bargaining unit with about 800 members.
Denise Youngblood, president of the United Academics unit at UVM, said recent tuition increases are not attributable to faculty compensation.
Youngblood, a history professor at the school, said professors have lost ground financially over the past three years. She declined to disclose the union’s target for salary raises. The union was willing to budge on higher employee contributions to health care premiums, she said, but would not accept a 20 percent increase in overall health care costs. It would constitute a net decrease in pay for faculty earning $60,000 a year or less whose families are covered under the university plans.
Any increase in benefits cost-sharing combined with a decrease in salary would have an impact on the lowest-paid faculty members, Youngblood said.
“We’re particularly sensitive to making sure we have a good deal for everybody, not just those on the higher end of the pay scale,” she said.
UVM faculty salaries are 100.3 percent of salaries at other universities, according to a national survey cited in a written statement from the university. The average UVM tenured and tenure-track faculty salary in FY14 was $94,960. Professors earned on average $117,606, associate professors $87,050, assistant professors $72,325 and lecturers $53,090.
In addition to employer contributions to health care premiums, faculty benefits include retirement contributions and free tuition for employees and their dependents, according UVM.
United Academics wants the university to establish a child care fund and offer severance pay for lecturers who have taught at UVM for 10 years or more. In addition, the union wants faculty employed at three-quarters time to receive the full benefits package.
The university says it has proposed “realistic” salary increases and “moderate” changes to the amount UVM contributes to health care premiums.
According to a budget FAQ from the provost’s office, UVM is carrying a $6.7 million deficit into Fiscal Year 2015. Federal budget cuts, increased employee benefit costs, academic promotions and deferred maintenance exacerbate the school’s budget challenges, according to the document.
“As we have made clear before,” Corredera said in a statement, “UVM cannot and will not solve our budget challenges on the backs of our students and their families by simply raising tuition beyond already approved levels announced in May.”
Youngblood said there’s no historical data showing a connection between faculty salary and tuition increases. The cost of attendance rose in FY 2011, at a time when the faculty agreed to forego a raise as UVM continued to recover from the recession, she said.
“We, too, are concerned about tuition for our students and affordability at UVM. The place to start is central administration,” Youngblood said.
She attributed some of the school’s monetary woes to a decade-long “proliferation” of administrative staff, including vice-provosts, associate provosts, vice-presidents, and assistant and associate vice-presidents.
This is not the first contract negotiation between the two parties to break down. Three of the past four collective bargaining processes reached impasse before the sides agreed on a contract, according to Corredera.
Mixed signals from the administration late last week eroded the union’s trust, Youngblood said. About an hour after the union agreed to the university’s declaration of impasse Thursday afternoon, a UVM lawyer contacted a union negotiator to request time to deliver a new offer, she said. The union chose to stand by the impasse declaration, but gave the university until 5 p.m. Friday to make another offer.
Just minutes before the close of the last business day before the holiday weekend, the lawyer contacted the negotiator to say UVM would not submit another offer. At 5:01 p.m., Youngblood said, the university’s statement went out by email, saying the impasse had been reached at 5 p.m. Friday.
“We actually declared impasse at 3:45 Thursday afternoon,” Youngblood said. “These are tactics that probably don’t mean a great deal to the public, but in terms of undermining trust in the negotiating process … It seems to us this was a ploy to spend their day preparing their press release.”
Corredera disputed that characterization.
“Based on our discussions with UA late Thursday evening, it was agreed that unless the University had a new substantive offer to give the union before 5 pm Friday, then the parties would be formally at impasse and the ban on public comment would be lifted at that time,” he said by email Tuesday.
“What’s important now is to stay focused on the goal of reaching a mutually satisfactory contract, and that is what the University intends to do,” Corredera said.
In his written statement to the campus community, Corredera said the administration is confident “a mutually satisfactory outcome eventually will be achieved.”
UA said in its news release, also issued after 5 p.m. Friday, that it intends to campaign publicly for its demands.
“We welcome the opportunity to work with the wider Burlington labor movement for justice for all workers,” the release said. “Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions!”
UVM recently settled on a contract with the Teamsters Union, and collective bargaining is ongoing with the United Electrical Workers. Also announced recently was a 2 percent FY2015 salary pool for non-unionized employees, a group the Vermont State Employees Association is working to organize.
Annual tuition at UVM is $13,728 for Vermont residents and $34,656 for out-of-state students. In the FY 2010 academic year, tuition cost $11,048 and $27,886, respectively.
