Univ. of Mich. Lecturers Move to Withdraw from Their Contract–And Strike in September

On Monday morning, August 9, the U-M Lecturers’ Union (LEO) which represents 1,800 non-tenured faculty at the University of Michigan, held a rally to formally announce its notice to quit their collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The first day to quit the existing three-year contract was May 20, 2021, and the Union has continued bargaining over the summer. Quitting the contract will official within 30 days of the August 9 announcement. At that point, the lecturers will have the option to strike, a move that would no longer be contractually prohibited.

Lecturers and allies from across the campus community marched around the LSA Building in an informational picket.

In conjunction with the move to withdraw from its contract, tenure-track faculty at the University of Michigan sent a signed, open letter to President Dr. Mark Schlissel and the Regents in which they write, “As one of the great public universities of this country, we need to be a force for the public good, and that surely includes dismantling the institutional racism and classism that we have inherited. We, the undersigned, therefore urge you to dismantle the campus budgetary ‘silos’ and allocate the resources necessary to sustainably fund UM-Dearborn and UM-Flint and pay lecturers a professional wage. If we stay on the path we’re on, the UM-Flint and UM-Dearborn campuses are in danger of downsizing vital programming or even closing altogether, with detrimental effects on their students, employees, the surrounding communities and the state as a whole.”

The letter is signed by approximately 125 of the university’s 5,500 tenure-line and tenured faculty.