University of Michigan Lecturers Set Strike for April 9th and 10th
by Rob Stock
Approximately 1,700 Michigan professors demanded a pay raise Wednesday that would nearly double the starting salary for lecturers and threatened to go on strike for two days.
“We’ve been working for months to address the crisis of underpayment among the University of Michigan’s core teaching staff,” said Ian Robinson, a lecturer in the Sociology Department at UM Ann Arbor and the president of LEO. “We’ve got lecturers with children on public assistance, lecturers working two or three jobs, lecturers who are leaving the university because they can’t afford to live on their miserable salaries.”
“This is not sustainable. Low pay and high turnover among classroom instructors is unfair to students who pay top-drawer tuition at a top-ranked school,” said Robinson. “University administrators know the problem and have the financial means to fix it, but so far they’ve chosen not do so. Without major progress in the next few days, there will be a strike on all three campuses on April 9th and 10th.”
Eighty percent of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization, a union representing non-tenure track faculty in the University of Michigan system, voted to strike for two days in April if the school does not reach an amicable arrangement with the union, reported Michigan Radio.
The union reported starting salaries of $27,300, $28,300, and $34,500 at UM Flint, Dearborn, and Ann Arbor campuses, respectively. It asserts that a higher pay scale exists at neighboring public schools and community colleges.
The Lecturers’ Employee Organization asks for a $60,000 starting salary at UM Ann Arbor, with comparable salary hikes at Flint and Dearborn.
“This is happening because so far the administration has offered incredibly insulting counters to our eminently fair demands,” UM Ann Arbor lecturer Shelley Manis said to Michigan Radio.
Manis reported that the strike would occur April 9 and April 10. Nearly a third of the classes at UM Ann Arbor and half of the classes at UM Flint and UM Dearborn would be impacted by the strike.
Another UM Ann Arbor professor, Victor Rodriguez, termed his compensation “not sustainable,” claiming that he works three jobs, one of which is at a coffee shop.
“I could make more money if I worked full-time selling coffee, which is just unacceptable when you consider that I am teaching at one of the leading universities in the United States,” Rodriguez said in the union’s press release.
The University of Michigan recorded a cash surplus of $513 million in 2016 and $542 million in 2017. The University now has an unrestricted cash balance of over $4 billion, separate from its $10.9 billion endowment fund. A LEO analysis of University finances shows that the school can raise pay for lecturers without raising tuition, without a tax increase, without interrupting any major capital spending and without dipping into its endowment fund.
The editorial board of the Michigan Daily, the Ann Arbor campus student newspaper, has strongly endorsed LEO’s campaign for higher pay for lecturers. University of Michigan Regents Mark Bernstein (D-Ann Arbor) and Andrea Fischer Newman (R-Ann Arbor) have also publicly stated their support for lecturers.
The University’s low pay scale for lecturers, said Bernstein during a March 29 Board of Regents meeting, “is an academic excellence issue. It goes to the core of our educational mission. We have trouble with turnover. It’s time to invest in our lecturers with the same enthusiasm we apply to other important priorities.”
In addition to pay raises and job titles, important issues in current contract talks include health benefits, job security, increasing diversity, and the review process for lecturers. The current LEO contract with the University of Michigan expires on April 20th.
“A work stoppage or strike by LEO members has its biggest negative impact on students at a critical time near the end of the academic year,” UM spokesman Rick Fitzgerald told Michigan Radio. “A strike by LEO members violates the terms of the current contract, which remains in effect until April 20. There is a ‘no strike’ clause in the contract to which LEO members agreed.”
The spokesman told AdjunctNaation that the union and the university system are still negotiating.
