Tag: job security

May 8, 2019

NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE, May 7, 2019

TAUP and the administration met to work toward an early settlement of the contract on Friday, 5/3 and Monday, 5/6.

Thanks to our decision to engage in open bargaining, we were again supported at both sessions by a group of 20 members, in addition to our table team, from a range of colleges and schools, ranks, and tracks. Their presence strengthened our resolve in representing the 2500+ faculty, librarians and academic professionals in our bargaining unit, and their observations and suggestions when we went into caucus were very insightful and helpful. Those who have attended have found negotiations exciting and informative, and we invite you to join us at our next sessions on May 16th, May 21st, and May 23rd–RSVP here.

Over the course of these two sessions, we addressed proposals that speak individually to all of the tracks of faculty in our bargaining unit—tenured and tenure-track, full-time non-tenure track, and adjunct. We have also put proposals on the table for librarians and academic professionals and proposals that benefit all of our members. This is who we are as a union; we reject the narrow and divisive proposition that one group can benefit only at the expense of the other. Temple has the resources and should have the vision to be better than that. Our university must be better than that.

At Friday’s session, we put the following proposals on the table:

Job Security for Full-Time Non-Tenure Track Faculty:

○ Two major reviews, the first normally occurring in the third year of service and the second normally occurring in the sixth year

○ A successful first review normally results in a contract of three years or longer; a successful second review normally results in a renewable contract of three years or longer

○ NTTs can appeal a non-renewal under certain conditions

Adjunct Health Care:

○ All adjuncts in the bargaining unit would receive a 50% subsidy (those teaching 4 credits or less currently receive a 25% subsidy)

○ The prescription plan in the full-time plan would be added

○ Adjuncts who have previously received health insurance as grad students would be eligible for health insurance their first semester as adjuncts. Currently, adjuncts are not members of TAUP until their second semester; this has resulted in many grad students being ineligible for any health care subsidy during their first term as adjuncts.

NTT Sabbaticals: NTTs can apply for sabbaticals every 7 years rather than every 10 years
Hardship Withdrawals from Retirement Accounts: Members can withdraw money in case of hardship, the terms as defined by the IRS, rather than being allowed only to borrow against their accounts.

We also emailed a proposal on Vision Care, which would add a subsidy for those who have special needs prescriptions (such as a heavy correction).

We have now made almost all of our proposals for early settlement; the only ones left have to do with Academic Professionals, a subset of members including academic advisors in CLA, among others. We are holding off until we receive a clarification on their salary data.

For a summary of our other proposals to date, see here.

We have not yet received any counter-proposals from the administrative team or proposals on other issues. But on Friday and Monday, their representatives did ask some questions and made some remarks that members should know about.

NTT Job Security
In introducing our NTT Job Security proposal, we noted that it has been almost 20 years since the removal of the six-year cap on NTT service at Temple. This means that we have many hundreds of NTTs spending their careers at Temple. It is past time for Temple to follow universities like Rutgers, CUNY, Michigan and many others in offering stronger job security to these valuable faculty members.

The administrative team responded that Temple doesn’t compare itself to other schools. We replied that the administration does this all the time– for instance, when it emphasizes its status as an R1 Research University or when in recent negotiations where the administration’s arguments relied on comparisons with peer universities. But we also maintained that regardless of whether the university compares itself to other schools, there is a compelling case for Temple to provide job security for NTTs.

The administrative team then asked some useful questions about the details of the NTT proposal.

Adjunct Healthcare

Currently, only 6% of eligible adjuncts have elected to use the benefit negotiated in the first contract. While there may be many reasons for this, our bargaining survey indicated that a major cause for low enrollment is the expense, which informs our proposal that all adjuncts be given a 50% subsidy. By comparison, full-time members receive a 77% or 80% subsidy depending on their income. Another reason for low enrollment is that the plan does not provide sufficient coverage, which is why we are proposing that a prescription plan be included. This led to some discussion of the possible cost of adding such a plan, and the administrative team agreed to provide data on how this might affect premiums.

Our proposal on behalf of grad students who are first-time adjuncts was rejected by the administrative team on the grounds that we do not represent them; they also objected to the presence of Evan Kassof, the President-Elect of TUGSA, whom we had invited to join us at the table. The urgency of addressing the loss of health care that grads face moved us to take this step; without a subsidy, many cannot afford the insurance that is available. The administrative team agreed to meet with graduate students in this difficult situation to see if a solution could be found. Both TAUP and TUGSA will continue to watch as this moves forward.

Adjunct Job Security

On Monday, the administrative team asked questions about our adjunct job security proposal, which provides a way for adjuncts to be evaluated to gain priority in hiring and longer-term contracts as well as to be informed of full-time job opportunities. We reviewed the proposal with them to clarify questions and to include their input where appropriate. It was encouraging to be in discussion about how a proposal like this could be workable, and we appreciated the administration’s questions and suggestions.

Tenure Track Percentages and Hiring

This proposal aims to make concrete the declaration in the contract that “TAUP and Temple shall express their joint commitment to tenure and the need to have a sizable complement of tenured and tenure-track faculty in a high-quality research university.”

To counter the damaging erosion of tenure-track faculty, we have proposed that by the end of the new contract there be a net gain of 70 tenured and tenure-track faculty or a gain of 1% per year of tenured and tenure-track faculty as a percentage of the faculty as a whole, whichever is higher. To support our claim that the decline of tenured-track faculty is a crisis, we distributed the chart below, which records the headcount of tenured and tenure-track and full-time nontenure-track faculty in the bargaining unit over the last 20 years.

(The administration has been obliged to provide us with data on adjuncts in the bargaining unit only since the ratification of the first adjunct contract in 2017. The chart includes chairs because even though they are not in the bargaining unit when serving as chairs, they are before and after their service. Note that it also assumes that all chairs are tenure-track faculty although there are some NTTs currently serving as chairs.)

The administrative team asked why we were privileging tenure/tenure track jobs over others, and argued that an increase in tenured and tenure-track hiring would necessarily lead to a decrease in NTTs and adjuncts. We rejected this latter claim; indeed, the graph above shows increases in TTs and NTTs in 2006-2009, 2014, and 2017. We are concerned that these questions are designed to pit us against each other as we seek more job security for those without it as well as a larger base of tenured faculty.

The administrative team rejected the proposal for 70 new hires, saying they would not agree to a “quota”. When asked how the problem of diminishing tenured numbers should be solved, they responded by saying that they weren’t sure if there is a problem or not.

The administrative team then argued that TAUP’s positions were contradictory, and that equity and parity for contingent faculty cannot be argued for as we push for the importance and value of tenured and tenure-track faculty. But we believe that the ongoing erosion of the tenured and tenure-track faculty threatens our status as “a high-quality research university,” as the contract phrases it. Moreover, we have tied parity to specific proposals–for instance, NTTs spending their careers at Temple should receive the same pension match as tenured/tenure track faculty, or that our aim for adjuncts is that they ultimately receive per credit hour the minimum that full-time faculty receive (and there are very few full-time faculty who receive the minimum). We believe there is no contradiction in pursuing these things simultaneously. Again, we believe that in addition to seeking information about our positions in making these claims, the administration may be trying to pit us against each other in order to weaken our power at the table, which comes from TAUP members acting in solidarity. This strategy, if attempted, will fail.

The key values informing the negotiations were stated at our May 1st rally: respect, equity, and job security. And, as we said at the table Monday, our proposals are designed to make it possible for all our members to do the best job they can in research, teaching, and service so we can advance knowledge and so students can benefit from the full potential that each person has to offer.

We look forward to working with the administration in coming to an agreement on these goals. Again, our next bargaining sessions are on May 16th, 21st, and 23rd; please let us know if you can attend!

April 20, 2019

From the Table: April 18th, 2019 Negotiation Session

On Thursday, TAUP sat down with the University’s administration for the first day of open negotiations for a new contract. In addition to the table team, over 20 people from TAUP’s Collective Bargaining Unit showed up to observe the discussion, a great success for our first time using Open Bargaining, in which all members of the CBU are invited to attend. Our next confirmed sessions are May 3rd, 9:00 a.m.-noon and May 6, 1-5 p.m. at Temple University Center City. Let TAUP know if you’d like to attend.

Early Settlement

We are pleased by the cooperative spirit that the administration has shown in our complex discussions setting forth the process for these negotiations. As we described in previous bulletins, we have agreed to pursue an early settlement on wages, benefits, and job stability/security, with parallel processes on other important issues, including rules defining who in the library is in the Union; grievances; resources for adjuncts to meet 1:1 with students and for other needs; workload concerns; and diversity.

We put a wide range of proposals on the table yesterday, all informed by our union’s central value–that our members should be treated as the professionals as they are and fully and equitably rewarded for their accomplishments. These are the proposals we put out this week; more are forthcoming.

Proposal: Compensation

Significant Across-the-Board raises
Increases in merit
New salary minima, that should increase every year of the contract
Increases in overload pay
Increases in summer pay
A research fund for FT faculty who conduct independent studies
Pay for adjuncts conducting independent studies
Pay for required adjunct service

Temple Can Afford these Increases

Since signing the full-time contract in 2014 and an adjunct agreement in 2017, the University has been doing very well financially, with large increases in unrestricted net assets, a very large net positive in revenues over expenses, and a decrease in debt load. Even with challenges on the horizon, we believe that Temple will continue to do well, thanks in significant part to the excellent work done by our faculty, librarians, and academic professionals. However, the percentage of Temple’s budget devoted to instruction has remained flat. Many of our members struggle to pay their bills, to afford health care, and to balance their work lives with their lives outside of work. This must change.

Proposal: Increased Tenure-Track Hiring; Adjunct and Full-Time Non-Tenure Track Job Stability

A mandated increase in tenure-track hiring.
Priority in hiring and long-term contracts for adjuncts with significant length of service and who receive satisfactory evaluations

We believe that the lack of job stability for all of our faculty must be addressed. There is a side-letter in the contract that already commits Temple to tenure-track hiring, and although Temple has continued to hire some tenure-track professors, the statistics for at least two decades are clear–in total numbers and as a percentage of the faculty as a whole, tenure-track faculty numbers have declined at an alarming rate. The percentage of tenure-track faculty within the bargaining unit as a whole be increased by a total of 1% for every year of the contract.

Those who are not eligible for the protections of tenure–approximately 75% of our bargaining unit–deserve more job stability. Building on the good work done by the labor-management committees emerging out of the adjunct contract, we have proposed an avenue for adjunct faculty to gain priority in hiring and longer-term appointments. This increased stability is tied to an evaluation processes that goes beyond SFFs, and ensures that our members have been given the guidance they need to excel in their department.

At our next session on May 3rd, we will be putting forth a job security proposal for full-time non-tenure track faculty.

Proposal: Maternity and Parental Leave; Sick Leave

12 weeks of paid maternity leave, replacing the inadequate benefit for librarians and increasing the 8 weeks full-time members get, eliminating the classification of pregnancy as a sickness.
A modification that clarifies the benefit that gives full-time faculty who are new parents a semester free from teaching, to be used within 12 months of the child’s arrival.
Librarians’ sick leave no longer subject to a University rule not appropriate to professionals.

Proposal: Parity in NTT Pensions

The idea of parity extends beyond minimum pay. One of our biggest gains in the 2014 contract was that the pension match for NTTs was brought close to parity with tenure-track faculty. It is time to close that gap for these colleagues, and we have made a proposal to do just that.

Proposal: Merit Pay: More Transparency and Equity for Research NTTs

TAUP often gets complaints from members who believe that the merit system is opaque and unfair, and there are never enough merit units to adequately reward the amazing work our members do. In addition to proposing a bump in merit, we have proposed that departments specify the range of units members can expect for specific accomplishments. Some departments already do this, many do not, which leads to an unsettling unpredictability for our members.

We have also been informed that NTTs whose salaries come entirely from grants are not guaranteed the merit they are due; at best, they can build this into the salary requested in their grant applications. We have proposed a solution to this.

Proposal: Childcare and Tuition Benefits at Other Schools

We reminded the administration that the joint Faculty Senate-TAUP Committees conveyed proposals on these two important issues last May and that the contract requires a formal administrative response that is long overdue.

How You Can Help: Rally on May and Upcoming Negotiation Sessions

Support TAUP in its fight to realize a vision of Temple where our members are properly rewarded and our teaching, research, and service are better-supported.

Join us for a rally at the Bell Tower on May 1st from 12-1

If you would like to support the Table Team by attending the May 3rd, 9-noon and/or May 6th, 1-5.p.m. bargaining sessions, RSVP to let TAUP know.

TAUP’s Table Team

Member	Constituency	School	TAUP role
Steve Newman	Tenured/Tenure Track	CLA	President
Jennie Shanker	Adjunct	Tyler	Vice President
Norma Corrales-Martin	Non-Tenure Track	CLA	Treasurer
Fred Rowland	Librarian		Exec. Committee Chair Library Constituency Council
Don Wargo	Non-Tenure Track	CLA	Exec. Committee Member-at-Large NTT Constituency Council
Paul LaFollette	Tenured/Tenure Track	CST	TAUP Member
Zoe Cohen	Adjunct	Tyler	Exec. Committee Chair Adjunct Constituency Council
ALTERNATES
Jeff Solow	Tenured/Tenure Track	Boyer	Exec. Committee Member-at-Large TT Constituency Council
Sam Allingham	Adjunct	CLA	Member-at-Large, Adjunct Constituency Council
Debbi Casey	Non-Tenure Track	Fox	TAUP Member
Nia Jackson	Academic Professional	CLA	TAUP Member

Keep up to date with TAUP by following our social media:

Twitter: @TAUP

Facebook: @TAUPAFT

Instagram: @taup4531

August 28, 2018

Welcome Back Day 2: Update on Projects and Committee Work

eBulletin 20180827

Here’s an update on some of the work that union members and elected representatives have been working on throughout the summer.

Labor/Management Committees: As a result of the negotiations for adjuncts, representatives from Temple’s administration, faculty and TAUP representatives have been meeting.

One committee has been looking at adjunct office space and other resources (secure storages space, office supplies, software licenses, etc.). A survey has been developed that should be sent to all adjunct faculty this semester. The results should help in gaining an understanding of where there are needs to be addressed.
The Job Security Committee has met multiple times and has engaged in productive and sometimes difficult discussions on possible ways to increase job security at Temple and universities where this has been done. We have not come to any agreements, but we have discussed the key role assessment would likely play in any job security proposal, whether longer-term contracts for adjuncts, preference in course assignments, or paths to full-time employment. Fair assessment, we believe, would require more than Student Feedback Forms, which have been proven repeatedly to be of limited value; but we also acknowledge that peer mentorship and evaluation require significant investments if they are to be done well. Wherever these discussions may lead, we believe greater job security is essential for adjuncts (and NTTs!), about half of whom have been teaching at Temple for over five years. They need and deserve a more substantial commitment than one semester at a time. Temple’s current policies do, in fact, allow for adjuncts to receive one-year appointments, though to the best of our knowledge it is rarely done. This committee work has given the administration and TAUP a better understanding of what is possible and what we need to work towards together.

Grievances and Faculty Safety: To protect the rights of our members and to defend the contract, TAUP has filed grievances on behalf of tenured, full-time non-tenure track and adjunct faculty over the course of the year and has filed for arbitration in a couple of cases. We have also been working with the administration to try and solve disputes informally. Having been informed of many cases where faculty have been assaulted or mistreated by students and have not felt sufficiently supported by the administration, we have asked you to tell us of your experiences. One important element in the contract that members need to keep in mind: If you believe your rights under the contract have been violated, you need to file a grievance 20 working days after the action you are grieving if you are full-time, 10 days if you are part-time.

Child Care and Tuition Benefits at Other Schools: We have contacted the administration about the proposals we submitted jointly with the Faculty Senate on these two issues and hope to be hearing back this Fall. We are also planning a Child Care Symposium on October 24th; details to be announced soon!

Data Committee: We have been looking into the shift over the past few decades from tenure-track to full-time non-tenure track and adjunct work as well as the role of race and gender in hiring, retention, and promotion. Once we feel confident in our data and analysis, we will be communicating with you about it.

Organizing Committee: Much of the work of this committee was reported on in yesterday’s eBulletin

Bargaining Committee and Negotiating Team Planning: In Spring 2019 we’ll be back at the table negotiating with the University. The Executive Council has agreed to a process for selecting members of the Negotiating Team (the faculty, librarian and academic professional representatives who are at the negotiation table). Constituency Councils will take the lead in finding and selecting constituent representatives for this role. The Bargaining Committee engages in research and support work related to what is occurring at the table. If you are interested in supporting this work, please let us know.

Academic Freedom and Faculty Governance: Concerned by many reports of the erosion of faculty governance–exemplified by the scandal at Fox– and academic freedom, we have convened a working group to address these issues and hope to work closely with the Faculty Senate. We will be sending out a survey shortly as a first step toward gathering faculty, librarians, and academic professionals for discussions and to writing a report on the state of these issues, with recommendations and demands.

Look for our eBulletin tomorrow on the Fast Fund and Art Hochner Travel Fund.