The Springtime of Our Discontent:
A UFWW Bargaining Update (printable pdf) (full size graph)
“One of the things that unites everyone in this room is that we all care about this university. It is going
to take all of us to help the university continue to move forward in the direction that we want it to.”
-Western Board of Trustees Chair Kevin Raymond
“Talk is cheap.”
-Dorothy Parker, Johnny Unitas, and Keith Richards, among many others
We’re now down to the Big Three: Grievance, Teaching Load, and Salary. Everything we do as we attempt to finish this contract must continue to refocus on what best advances the educational mission of the university and what is best for our students.
The grievance question is particularly straightforward. Every other collective bargaining agreement in this state and at this university has a grievance procedure that ends in binding arbitration. This is only and obviously fair. Not even King Solomon would have wanted to be the final arbiter of a dispute that involved him.
Teaching Load is almost as obvious. We understand and have tried to work with the administration’s need for some teaching load flexibility to deal with fluctuating enrollments. But we cannot agree to the administration’s insistence that teaching load be determined solely by administrators (both those we have now and the many new ones we will welcome in the next couple of years). Western’s mission and strategic plan both make it clear that our teaching loads should be going down in order to provide the best education possible to our students. The UFWW bargaining team has already compromised significantly by insisting on only modest and minimal assurances that teaching load simply not increase. To settle for anything less would be to compromise the character and integrity of
the university.
The need for meaningful and legitimate salary increases grows more urgent with each passing day. Last week the AAUP released its salary comparisons for 2007-08. Western has fallen even further behind the average salaries of our peer institutions (see trend chart below). Among our twenty five peer institutions, Western’s salaries are now fifth from the bottom. At the same time, Bellingham’s cost of living is now sixth from the top. The real value of Western’s faculty salaries (adjusted for cost of living) is now 24th out of 26 peer institutions. The average salaries for every tenure track rank at Central Washington University are now higher than those at Western (see comparison chart below). At the April 4 Board of Trustees meeting, Board Chair Kevin Raymond erroneously
announced that the administration’s current offer was superior to the recent settlement at Eastern Washington University. Even if he had been right, simply creeping tenths of percentage points past a school that will never be on our peer list would have been nothing to be proud of.
In our last two contract proposals, the UFWW has dramatically reduced our proposed salary increases. We now stand at 6.5% at the signing of the contract and 6.25% in September of 2008. This is a huge concession on our part. We made it very reluctantly, but in the spirit of compromise and resolution. These increases would bring us nowhere near our peer averages, but they would at least be a step in the right direction. We would be lucky if they didn’t leave us falling further behind. We are still waiting for the administration to respond to this proposal. We hope that they take the time and care to understand that the future of the institution calls them to accept our proposal.
Perspective can be elusive in bargaining. Positions can come to be as much about emotional investment as rational evaluation of what’s best for the university. Winning can quickly become more important than what’s right.
It is reasonable to assume that many months ago, as they prepared for these contract negotiations, Western’s Board of Trustees and administration fixed on a number that they thought would be as high as they would go for faculty salary increases. Given their recent statements we can safely guess that they feel that their current offer is pretty close to that number.
For the good of the university, it is now time for them to rethink and revise that number. To do so would show both wisdom and strength. They would not lose, the university would win. We have demonstrated again and again that they have the resources to do this, and it is time to use those resources to back up the rhetoric.
With the extraordinary patience they have shown throughout these negotiations, Western’s faculty members have once again demonstrated their tremendous character and professionalism. That patience has been rewarded with a number of tentative agreements that will be good for the university and it has been tested with an ongoing deadlock over things that should have been settled long ago.
Now it is time for this to end.
It is time to agree to objective outside arbitration for the very few disputes that cannot be settled internally.
It is time to agree to maintain the teaching load that gives our students the faculty time and attention they need and deserve.
It is time for the administration bargaining team to stop trying to figure out what is the least they can pay us and start working on finding as much as they can to invest in the recruitment and retention of the best faculty.
It is time to stop clinging to the bitterness about unionization, time to stop caring about who will get credit for what, who will be blamed, or who will be perceived as winning or losing. It is obvious what is best for the university that we all care about. Talk is cheap, let’s get this done.
The UFWW Bargaining Team remains honored by the resolute support we have received from our colleagues.
We return to the bargaining table on Thursday, April 24th and Friday, April 25th.