At Jan. 31 faculty contract negotiations, while management continued to try to limit our contract as much as possible, FAM kept up the fight to strengthen our working conditions and protections.
Academic Freedom and Grievance & Arbitration
We passed counter-proposals on Academic Freedom and Grievance and Arbitration—both articles are extremely important to higher education.
At a past session, management proposed giving themselves the ability to change the academic freedom policy at any point. We have countered with a new Academic Freedom proposal that ensures freedom of research whether it is done by the faculty member directly or by a non-bargaining unit member (such as a student or employee) on their behalf. Protecting faculty research associates and mentees ensures our ability to provide high-quality education.
The Grievance and Arbitration article is crucial, perhaps the most important article in the contract, because it ensures we can uphold contract provisions. Our proposal protects member rights and holds the university accountable to contract language.
Management passed across counter-proposals on parking, faculty evaluations, and facilities and support. They have rejected our proposal on financial exigency and retrenchment (we will revisit those issues). They continue to try to limit our contract as much as possible, while we continue to fight to make things better at Miami.
Benefits, Part Two
Today we also passed the second installment of our benefits package, including provisions on professional development, sick leave, paid parental leave, spousal or partner hires, and tuition remission.
Currently, there are drastic inequities in access to professional development funding between departments. Our proposal aims to address this while preserving freedom for individual departments to set the internal policies that work best for them with direct input from their faculty.
In addition, our proposal allocates increased professional development funds for every faculty member. The funds would not expire, so faculty can plan year-to-year development.
Here are summaries of our other benefits proposals:
- Retirement Plan Contributions – Our proposal removes inequities in current practice and strengthens member’s retirement benefits.
- Sick Leave – 12 weeks instead of 6 weeks; pays out for remaining days upon retirement.
- Academic Leaves – Creates a new assigned service leave parallel to research leave; maintains and extends leaves for TCPLs.
- Paid Parental Leave — Extending PPL from 6-weeks to 12 and adding a semester of relief from teaching duties.
- Dual Career Hires – Makes Miami more attractive to faculty; makes us a national university.
- Tuition Remission Tuition Remission maintains and extends current policy, includes an alternative school benefit, includes general fees in addition to tuition, and maintains eligibility for laid off or retired members.
Next Bargaining Session
FAM-L will be bargaining on Friday, February 9. Afterward, walk over to State of Bargaining with your negotiating team! FAM-T’s next date is Wednesday, February 21. RSVP for more information at tinyurl.com/FAMbargaining.
Meanwhile, good news for faculty and librarians: Theresa Kulbaga, tenured professor from the Regionals, has been voted on to the Negotiating Team. Theresa believes the team’s work is incredibly important, particularly for colleagues who are underpaid and overworked.
State of FAM Bargaining!
Come to State of Bargaining next week! February 8th at 6:00 and February 9th at 3:00, in person (food and drink) or Zoom. Check your Miami calendar for details. Wear your FAM button!
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