After more than a year at the bargaining table, the University of Vermont and its faculty union inked a new four-year contract Monday.
For months, bargaining had been deadlocked as the university administration pushed for cuts in faculty salaries and benefits, citing financial hardship. But ultimately — with the help of a federal mediator — an agreement was reached, avoiding any pay reductions.
The agreement won support from an “overwhelming” majority of faculty, union leaders said.
“This was the most difficult negotiation we’ve ever had. I think both sides would say that,” said Julie Roberts, president of United Academics, which represents nearly 700 full-time faculty at the university.
University administrators had come to the table with a proposed 10% cut in base salaries — an unprecedented move, Roberts said. “No administration has ever come in with a salary decrease,” she said.
But the new contract secures much of what the faculty had sought, including a 5.5% salary increase by 2024, and preservation of retirement and sabbatical benefits.
In a press release Monday, the university touted the contract as one of “fiscal prudence.”
“UVM continues to face multimillion-dollar revenue shortfalls,” the release said, and “constraining salary increases is necessary in order to restrain the university’s spending.”
The university’s release notes that full professors at UVM are paid an average of $127,380, slightly above the average salary of full professors across New England universities, which was $121,000 in 2018.
That number, however, excludes the 78% of union members who are not full professors. The median salary of UVM’s full-time faculty is $85,012, according to figures provided by the union.
The news of the contract comes days after the university announced that it would offer reappointment to three senior lecturers in the liberal arts, citing unexpectedly high fall enrollment. The three had been laid off in the fall.
For Roberts, the development was just the latest chapter in a challenging year.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the university has pushed a slate of austerity measures, including cuts in programs and salaries. Some of those cuts have also been reversed.
Restoring positions and pay is preferable to leaving cuts in place, Roberts said. “But at the same time, it puts people who are affected by them through hell for months on top of the pandemic,” she said.
Despite projections for record enrollment in the liberal arts this fall, the university still plans to carry out its reorganization of the College of Arts and Sciences, which will terminate or consolidate programs the university has deemed low-enrollment.
The university also faces a union drive among its clerical and technical workers, which became public last month.
The group will formally vote on unionization later this month for the third time in a decade. Ballots will be counted May 19.
