September 2003 aaUPBEAT

UD Faculty Members & the Union

The AAUP

The AAUP became the UD faculty's bargaining agent in 1972 when the faculty selected the AAUP over other unions to represent them. Although in the decades since the union's inception its relationship with the Administration has varied depending on the issues being negotiated, over recent years the two parties have bargained on more equal footing. Sometimes this has resulted in greater ease of communications, sometimes not. The Administration seems most comfortable when dealing with important, but technical, issues like a health plan's details or a merit pay formula. The Administration displays greater unease when considering more nuanced faculty-related issues like the relationship of UD's educational philosophy to Delaware business interests or the educational implications of adopting a corporate model for higher-education development strategies.

These differences spring from the fact that the Administration's main role is to manage the University's infrastructure, whereas the faculty's main role is to insure our institution's academic integrity. Faculty work entails professors exploring the relationship of what they teach to the world around them. Whether one teaches biophysics or sub-Saharan poetry, the very act of instruction is imbued with the complexity of a piece of knowledge's relationship to the world that piece of knowledge inhabits. In contrast to this, the Administration is more managerial: their expertise is not education per se, but rather making sure that the University's accounting, supervisory, public relations and other administrative tasks are properly carried out. It is not surprising, therefore, that as universities have altered their operations in pursuit of a more corporate-oriented method of operation, expenditures on administrative growth have often outpaced expenditures on faculty expansion.

In spite of different job functions, both faculty and Administration are important. The Administration performs the technical tasks of running UD whereas faculty members create what higher education exists to create: a community of knowledge.

As a faculty union, the AAUP exists to protect and promote faculty members' interests. These interests include salary levels, health care and other benefits, fair workloads, and workplace rights like freedom of expression and the liberty to perform one's job without being hindered by religious, racial, gender or other biases.

Such AAUP functions are similar to the services provided by other unions to their members. But the AAUP also possesses objectives unique to itself. One of the most obvious examples of this is our commitment to developing strategies that promote educational excellence. Pursuing such excellence is not an abstraction in the AAUP's view. Quite the contrary, the AAUP envisions its role as conceptualizing pragmatic ways in which the University can improve upon the education it provides for its students.

Although the Administration and AAUP have much in common, we often, as hinted at above, bring different perspectives to issues of importance. As an example, the AAUP has regularly advised the Administration to use a higher percentage of its ample financial resources for broadening the University's teaching and research options, and also for improving pay scales, so the University becomes more attractive to both students and faculty.

Such issues must be examined regularly. After all, over the last twelve years the Administration spent well over $400 million on campus construction projects, renovations and beautification undertakings. One of the construction projects is a $13 million parking garage, the planning of which assumed the inevitability of continued (and worsening) car congestion on campus and in Newark. Given this assumption, it is reasonable to ask, "Should the garage investment have been thought out more carefully? For instance, would it have been better to raise funds for the development of a plan for decreasing campus and Newark car traffic while increasing public transportation, or creating new tenure-track positions in some departments, or setting up a targeted hiring program designed to rectify the University's low number of minority professors?"

These are reasonable questions. The Administration arrives at its decisions under the influence of many interests, some of which contradict faculty goals.

This reality highlights the AAUP's value. Without the union, no campus organization would be devoted exclusively to bringing a faculty perspective to all University matters.

Faculty members, whether or not they belong to the union, benefit from the AAUP's existence. Salary increases, workload limits, campus development, diversity issues, all represent areas of ongoing AAUP activity.

Union with a Long-Term Vision

Although the union never takes its eyes off the bread and butter economic issues important to faculty, our work is also guided by Article X of our collective bargaining agreement. This article mandates that all faculty be treated equally regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

This commitment to fairness has played a pivotal role in the AAUP's activities over recent years. Our involvement in support of non-tenure track faculty is an example of this.

In 1993, in our first monthly newsletter, we stated our interest in dealing "with nagging problems like the situation of University instructors and lecturers." By 1995, the AAUP had laid the basis for the formation of a joint AAUP-Administration committee which was to review the terms and conditions under which non-tenure track faculty are appointed and renewed. By 1996, a new AAUP-driven University policy was in place. The new policy improved renewal procedures, job security, salary adjustments and the peer review policy for all full-time, continuing, non-tenure track faculty.

A more recent example of the AAUP' role in protecting faculty concerns the administered workload issue.

As indicated in the April 2003 newsletter, well into last year's spring semester the AAUP continued to meet with the Administration in an effort to make sure that administered workload policies and their implementation were not tied to (a) the allocation of faculty lines to academic units and (b) the resolution of budgetary problems faced by the University.

As a result of these ongoing negotiations, on Friday, April 18, AAUP President Linda Bucher and David Colton had a successful meeting with Maxine Colm, UD's Vice President for Administration. At the meeting particular aspects of the workload policy issue and a letter sent by the AAUP on April 18, 2003 to the Administration requesting workload clarification were discussed. Following this discussion an understanding between the union and the Administration was formalized in a letter sent by Vice President Colm on April 21 to the AAUP.

Vice President Colm wrote:

"In your recent letter, you asked 'for clarification on how they (the Administration) view the relationship between the administered workload policy, the budget, and new faculty hires.'

"A department chair's administration of individual faculty workloads must be in accordance with the Collective Bargaining Agreement, The Handbook for Faculty and the approved workload policies of the department. Moreover, the administration of the individual faculty workloads is not dependent on overall university budgetary considerations or the allocation of faculty lines to departments. As stated in the Handbook, administered workloads are not automatic, but must be in accordance with the actual contributions of the faculty member, the needs of the department and the individual's opportunities for continued professional development"

The AAUP will continue to review unit workload policies to make sure they are consistent with the Collective Bargaining Agreement and University policies. For example, since most continuing non-tenure track faculty with non-administered workloads already have a 100% workload according to the Collective Bargaining Agreement, research or service cannot be added to their workload unless they are compensated either financially or with an administered workload. In every unit having such faculty members, the workload agreement should contain a statement detailing how these protections for continuing non-tenure track faculty will be implemented.

AAUP involvement in such matters is indispensable to the protection, articulation and strengthening of faculty rights. In a number of areas, the work is frustrating and continues for years. One of those areas is the domestic partners benefits issue. Another area is the Administration's lack of a targeted hiring policy for rectifying UD's embarrassing lack of minority faculty.

As the problems mentioned above show, the AAUP's commitment to faculty includes a wide range of issues other than salaries and benefits. Still, salaries and benefits remain one of the basic reasons we exist as a union. Almost invariably, when we sit down at the bargaining table with the Administration, the union and Administration begin with distinct views of what faculty members are worth in terms of both their financial compensation and how their benefits packages should be structured. Typically, it is only after months of negotiations - and sometimes the solution to a particular problem can take years - that the two sides arrive at an agreement. When such an agreement is reached, the faculty's gains don't just appear "out of nowhere;" they have been extracted from the Administration through analysis, argument and negotiating skill. The Administration, which sees itself as the guardian of the University's purse strings and the school's huge endowment, gives the faculty no gifts; whatever we get, we earn through bargaining.

Bargaining for salaries is always connected to the cost of the benefits package. Since the Administration's aim is to diminish salary gains if benefits improve and vice versa, the AAUP's objective is to prevent this from happening by achieving both salary and benefits increases without either being lessened or allowed to stagnate because of gains in the other. Given the complexity of such negotiations, faculty input prior to negotiations plays an important role in helping the AAUP identify issues of special importance that must be targeted during collective bargaining. In fact, sometimes our negotiations with the Administration even last beyond the conclusion of collective bargaining, which means that our need for faculty input and support also continues. This is because there are times when a bargained benefit turns out to be different than expected. An example is the retiree dental plan that was agreed upon not during last spring's contract negotiations but during the previous negotiations. Unfortunately, long after the contract apparently was settled, the provider decided its profit ratio wasn't high enough and so the cost to retirees went up. As a result, the AAUP was forced to find an alternative dental plan for retirees.

The University of Delaware is one of the richest state-supported universities of its size in the United States. Consequently, the AAUP stands on principled ground when it reminds the Administration that it should spend as much for faculty salaries and compensation, and invest as much in solving equity and diversity questions, as it does on numerous other issues in which it is involved. The Administration can certainly do so if it is sufficiently motivated. Just a few years ago, DuPont decided to shift into biotechnology, and soon afterwards the University was advertising its desire to play a major role in helping DuPont and the state become a national biotechnology center. Interestingly, it does not take the Administration or Board of Trustees long to move quickly on such projects.

Unfortunately, the Administration and UD's trustees don't always act as urgently when it comes to matters pertaining to faculty interests. Issues of salary, benefits and equity will all be on the bargaining table next year. For us to be successful, we must all work together.

If you're not an AAUP member, you should be; join!

Facts about AAUP Structure

Below is a summary of some key items pertaining to the AAUP's purpose and structure. A full copy of our chapter's "Constitution and Bylaws" can be obtained from the AAUP website (www.udel.edu/AAUP/index1.htm).

The AAUP and Collective Bargaining. The AAUP is certified by the Department of Labor as the exclusive collective bargaining representative for UD faculty (known as the "bargaining unit") in all issues concerning conditions of employment. Contract gains won by the AAUP go to all bargaining unit members, whether or not they are members of the University's AAUP chapter.

The UD Bargaining Unit. The bargaining unit includes all UD's full-time voting faculty, as specified by the Trustee Bylaws. The bargaining unit does not include administrative officers, department heads, part-time and adjunct faculty members.

The bargaining unit has final voting power over all contracts negotiated by the AAUP with the Administration. For a proposed contract to be ratified, bargaining unit members must pass it by a majority vote during a secret ballot. Before a vote can be held, bargaining unit members must either (1) be given, in written form, the full terms of the agreement or (2) be invited to a bargaining unit meeting at which the contract's terms will be discussed.

AAUP Executive Council. The AAUP's executive council consists of the union's president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer and two members-at-large. The immediate past president is always one of the members-at-large. No member of the executive council is allowed to serve in the same capacity for more than four consecutive negotiating periods, with the exception of the president who may serve no more than two consecutive terms. No one may serve on the executive council in any capacity for more than four consecutive terms. The contract maintenance officer and the aaUPBEAT editor are ex-officio members. The executive council is authorized to act on behalf of the union when it judges such actions to be necessary.

AAUP Steering Committee. The AAUP's steering committee consists of 21 members. Those members include the AAUP executive council, the president of the University/Faculty Senate, and representatives from each of the University's Colleges. One of the steering committee's primary tasks is to review the work of the union's bargaining team. Union representative vacancies currently exist in various colleges. AAUP members who are interested in such service should contact the AAUP office.

AAUP Bargaining Team. The AAUP's bargaining team consists of the union's chief negotiator and at least three other people selected by the AAUP steering committee. The bargaining team possesses the "sole and exclusive power" to negotiate a contract with Administration representatives. During contract negotiations, the bargaining team must regularly report back to the steering committee regarding the negotiations' status. The bargaining team must follow any written recommendations made by the steering committee. Before a proposed contract (that has been negotiated by the AAUP's bargaining team) can be submitted to UD faculty for ratification, the steering committee must first approve the proposed contract by a formal vote.

Departmental Representatives. In order to make communication between the bargaining unit and the steering committee as fluid as possible, each department is authorized to have, and should have, an AAUP departmental representative. We urge departments to confirm their current representative at their next departmental meeting or to select a representative if there currently is none. The representative must be an AAUP member.

New Faculty & Faculty Who Are Not AAUP Members, Take Note:

Newly hired faculty will receive free national and local dues for one year. Contact the AAUP office for further details.

Faculty hired before Sept. 2003 can join the AAUP and receive a local due exemption for one year.