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Thursday, February 27, 2014

CWA


17 comments:

Anonymous said...

So in the latest FS minutes the chief money guy is planning for across the board 2 percent pay increases for everyone. On the other hand at the union meeting they said they wanted to fire everybody and hire them back as contract workers without benefits for a substantially smaller wage.

Anonymous said...

What union meeting?

Anonymous said...

The union sent out a newsletter yesterday, with an update on the contract negotiations. Here's the opening two paragraphs:

"The UT-AAUP made its proposals for compensation and health care in July of 2012. BOT ...counterproposals which raise the member contributions for health insurance premiums from 15% to 22%, one of the highest rates for faculty in Ohio.

BOT counterproposal for compensation for the tenure-track faculty presents a 2% increase effective after ratification of the contract; a 1.2% increase to offset the proposed 22% that members would pay for health premiums; plus a 1% increase to offset the new caps proposed to summer session compensation. Subsequent annual increases of 1% would be limited to those members with a 2.5 merit score, followed by .5% specifically for merit and .5% for the College Faculty Excellence award."

The newsletter concludes the counterproposals will be rejected.

I have not done the math, but it seems to me remaining under the current contract is a better option for all members. Yearly pay would be significantly impacted by the new health care contributions and not offset by the pay increase (which won't be retroactive) and the reduction in summer pay (which for some high end professors would be many thousands of dollars but for even the lowly would be a reduction of one or two thousand at least, per course).

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile administrators make out like bandits. Even though Stansley left "early", he still took a king's ransom with him. And former administrators return to the fold for another round...We can spend $36 million on a foolish SIM center, but we must cut faculty compensation. I wonder if Jacobs pays 22% of his health care premiums...It's time for faculty to push back.

Anonymous said...

The Provost has invited "you and your spouse" to dinner and a lecture.

Anonymous said...

Whether the proposed contract is better then the current really depends on the rank and current base pay of faculty. If you do the math may be surprised to find that the 1.2% offset for health care increases does cover the increase from 15 to 22% for many faculty, same for summer salary offset plus lower summer caps (unless you are high salary and teaching two summer courses then impact is significant, but only 50% of all UT AAUP members teach in the summer). I am not saying that this is a great deal or the best one as there is always room for improvement through further offers from both sides. But for many faculty it is not terrible, yes retroactive pay would be nice but UT would simply take those moneys from future pay raises or cut faculty lines via upcoming retirements for more savings (which is what BSGU has done following their most recent faculty contract). And if you actually think that faculty and UT AAUP have enough power and support by members to "push back" using job action or strikes, you are not aware of Ohio labor laws and role of fact finding and how weak and shallow UT AAUP support is on this campus. But all faculty should do the math and determine for themselves the financial impacts.

Anonymous said...

"how weak and shallow UT AAUP support is on this campus."
Sad, but true. This Faculty has revealed itself as very chickens**t. A&S Council had many opportunities up to the day of its final demise to vote "no confidence" this Administration -- and consistently punked out. Blowhards, weasels and snakes. Will they show backbone and save Faculty Senate? Ha! Haha! Hahahahahahah .........

Anonymous said...

What Anon March 6, 2014 at 6:14 AM is stating, as I understand it, is that the more money you make the more the 1.2% is going to offset the increase in health care contributions. I'm presuming that the university pays a flat rate for health care for each faculty member covered and the health care cost per faculty member is not tied to salary whereas the 1.2% impacts individual faculty based solely on salary and does not factor in the increase in health benefits cost.

Or, in other words, the faculty hurt the most by this formula are the ones making the least money, which, unsurprisingly, must make perfect sense to this administration. And, the idea behind this as far as saving money goes, is to save the university money by shafting the faculty who make the lowest salaries.

Anonymous said...

Yes, if your health insurance increases like they say then even with a 2% pay increase it is still a pay cut if you take into account increased costs for everything else people need to live on.

Anonymous said...

If you make $50,000 per 9 months the 1.2% increase would be $600. If your current health care is $150 per month for 9 months the increase from 15% to 22% would cost you an additional $675 per 9 months.

If you make $40,000 per 9 months the 1.2% increase would be $480. If your current health care is $150 per month for 9 months the increase from 15% to 22% would cost you an additional $675 per 9 months.

Is any of that math wrong?

So yes those at the lowest faculty pay scale and carrying family coverage would see the greatest increase in costs.

Feel free to compare those rates to other providers and what other agencies and companies pay (and UTMC staff already pay at the 22% rate)

Anonymous said...

The venom evident in: "Blowhards, weasels and snakes. Will they show backbone and save Faculty Senate? Ha! Haha! Hahahahahahah " makes me wonder if the writer ever individually opposed the administration? On occasions I have bemoaned the lack of a "No Confidence Vote" but never with such glee. I wonder how the writer lives with those feelings?

Anonymous said...

This is the person that was invited to talk to the Honors College this Monday:
Michael Crow accomplishments:
(from http://www.cfraa.org/Why%20Michael%20Crow%20Should%20Be%20Dismissed/)

The following is a brief statement of the problems with Michael Crow’s administration and reasons that he should be dismissed. It was written by Prof. Emeritus and former Regent’s Professor, Geoffrey Clark, in 2004 and is posted here in edited form.

Governance Problems
Faculty role has diminished to nothing; Academic Senate purely a symbolic body.

ASU being run like dictatorship, on a “need to know” basis; all transparency lost. ASU not CIA, FBI, nor a large, for-profit corporation. It is supposed to be a university.

Crow intimidates, bullies, belittles, threatens, and otherwise expresses his contempt for ASU’s faculty. There is no place for this in any institution of higher learning.

Faculty have no say in their own futures, nor in the futures of the units to which they pertain; there is, in effect, no faculty governance

Abuse of Power & Authority
Credible people who have given their lives to ASU are being destroyed for no apparent reason other than the perception that they are opposed to the President’s plans; and/or that the administration covets their facilities.

There is a distinctly “chilly climate” on free speech at ASU that is all pervasive and that has been actively encouraged by Crow and some of his administrators.

Any perception of opposition to, or even concern about, the New American University by administrative personnel is cause for summary dismissal from their administrative posts.

Crow inflicted upon ASU by ABOR; there has never been an open discussion of anything connected with (i) the hiring of Crow, (ii) ABOR’s role in this, (iii) Crow’s unsavory CIA connections, nor (iv) his activities at Columbia.

Corruption of ASU's Teaching Mission
Teaching largely ignored at ASU.

Targeted hires based solely on the capacity to bring in large amounts of external funding.

Normal hiring practices routinely circumvented.

Targeted hires have no, or few, teaching duties.

Indirect costs generated by these faculty now go directly to the research institutes and centers that generated them; no benefit to students, faculty in general.

A ‘2-tier’ faculty, with a few elite programs and units riding on the backs of an enormous underclass of ‘teaching drudges’, whose career prospects resemble those of part-time, adjunct and contract faculty at the community colleges.

ASU students charged a ‘university tuition’ for a ‘community college’ education.

Corruption of ASU's Research Mission
Resources for research, including the Prop 301 tax revenues, diverted almost entirely to the Biodesign Institute.

Everything connected with the Biodesign Institute cloaked in secrecy, non-transparency, run from the top down, with no accountability whatsoever.

It is incumbent upon the ASU administration to make explicitly, publicly, the purpose of these buildings and the kinds of research to be conducted in them.


Look also at:
http://www.statepress.com/2010/11/03/destroying-education-through-privatization/

Anonymous said...

To celebrate the amount of bullshit thrown at us by our distinguished speaker Michael Crow, look at this article:
Reading this article about Arizona State University…
… gives you a sense of what it must have been like to sit in your communal apartment in Leningrad in 1956 and read about the anticipated glorious fulfillment of the Soviet Union’s Sixth Five-Year Plan.
(http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?p=37066)

Also here:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/08/18/20120818college-sports-subsidies-integral.html

Anonymous said...

"Lucas County now at Level 2. All second shift employees and future shifts resume normal operations and report to work."

Note the commanding tone. They no longer even address us using complete sentences or even the polite subjunctive form.

"Ja wohl! Zum Befehl!"

Also, even though it was illegal to drive this morning under a level 3 alert, employees have been commanded to use their vacation time to cover the time away today.

Anonymous said...

can you provide a link as I am certainly not aware of any command directed to staff that they must use vacation day for the level 3 UT closing yesterday, thanks

Anonymous said...

Well, whether it was posted as a link I do not believe. I was told the command was given orally to three members of one department and via email to one member of one department. Other than that it could have been some form of mass delusion on a small scale....but I also heard today that according to the law the task maskers cannot do that and that they have relented...kind souls that they are.

Anonymous said...

I know many staff in different offices across UT and remain amazed at the range by which middle management treat their staff, so it does not surprise me that some would take it upon themselves to actually tell their staff to use vacation days when the University closes which is not required by any policy.