Miami is a top-ranked undergraduate teaching university for a reason: our faculty are excellent teacher-scholars. We pressed that point at faculty bargaining yesterday while holding to solid annual increases of 3.75% per year to keep up with inflation. (Management is only offering 2.5% in 2027 and 2.25% in 2028, which our members will not accept.) We’ve also agreed on higher minimum salaries and are approaching agreement on other details of the Compensation article.
Perhaps most importantly, we reached agreement on two additional articles yesterday (in the context of a package of all remaining outstanding articles): Faculty Evaluations and Financial Exigency & Academic Reorganization, where we successfully fought to preserve our rights to the extent possible under SB1.
Together with our eight tentative agreements from last time, this means that we are currently down to just three top-priority articles: Compensation (specifically annual increases), Benefits (specifically the cap on our health insurance costs), and Grievance & Arbitration (specifically our right to protect our members and enforce the contract).
For their part, management made movement toward our position in summer/winter pay, increasing the cap on the amount a regional faculty member can earn per summer course and giving bargaining unit faculty priority in summer and winter teaching.
We’re not agreeing to annual wage increases that don’t keep up with inflation when Miami has:
- $281+ million to spend on a new sports arena
- $7.9 million (and counting) to spend on external consultants
- $3+ million (estimated based on the $1.5 million they spent in 2023 alone) to spend on union-busting law firms
- tens of millions of dollars to spend on land deals, buildings, and real estate.
Management’s low annual wage increase offers are the result of the above misguided priorities and show that Miami leadership does not care about the central educational mission.
Show your support for fair pay for Miami’s extraordinary faculty and help us close this contract! We bargain again this Friday, October 9th and next Wednesday, October 14th, and your presence at bargaining helps lead to management concessions. Can’t make bargaining? Join us this Wednesday, October 7th for our Meet Miami at the M Takeover and next Thursday, October 15th for a free screening of “First They Came for My College” (details at the links)!
Member pressure is our path to strong raises. Not yet a member? Join the FAM (faculty / librarian) today! Questions? Want more details? Reach out to us at info@famiami.org.
