Faculty Contract for Tenure Track and Teaching, Clinical Professors and Lecturers

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Brief article descriptions

• Article 1: Purpose: Sets the purpose of the entire contract, i.e., to set the terms and conditions of employment and mechanisms to enforce the contract. 
• Article 2: Recognition: Recognizes that the bargaining unit is legally represented by the Faculty Alliance of Miami, i.e., all tenured, tenure-track, and TCPL faculty. It includes information of who is included and excluded from the bargaining unit. 
• Article 3: Academic Freedom: Goes beyond current Miami policy to assure the full application of the principles of academic freedom as defined by the American Association of University Professors, including recognition that “controversy is at the heart of the free academic inquiry” and that job security is an element of academic freedom. Recognizes that “a faculty member’s expression of opinion as a citizen [i.e., extramural speech] cannot constitute grounds for dismissal unless it clearly demonstrates the faculty member’s unfitness to serve.”
• Article 4: Dues Deduction: Describes the process by which union dues will be deducted. Faculty members must sign a membership card with FAM, which will notify the University to deduct dues from member’s post-tax earnings. If faculty wish to revoke their membership, they must notify FAM in writing, which will in turn notify the University to stop dues deduction.
• Article 5: Labor-Management Meetings: Establishes a Labor-Management Committee, which will discuss the facilitation of the contract and work on mutually beneficial solutions to issues that need to be solved. 
• Article 6: Health, Safety and Security: Commits the University to maintaining a safe working environment for faculty, requiring compliance with safety policies and providing necessary training and protective equipment. Faculty members must report safety concerns, complete assigned safety trainings, and adhere to drug and alcohol policies. Additionally, the University will ensure accessible lactation rooms and gender-neutral restrooms across campus buildings.
• Article 7: Association Rights: Outlines how faculty union representatives (“Delegates”) can conduct union business during work hours without losing pay, provided they give advance notice. It establishes provisions for service credit recognition, workload buyouts for union activities with specific request deadlines, and restrictions on former administrators who return to the bargaining unit regarding confidential information they acquired while in administrative roles.
• Article 8: Management Rights: Delineates the rights and responsibilities reserved to management, and acknowledges the continued role of shared governance bodies in advising management.
• Article 9: Separability: In the event that any section of the contract conflicts with law, that section only will be considered null and void. Further, on request of either party, the parties shall meet and discuss replacement language.
• Article 10: Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment: Holds the university to principles of equal opportunity and freedom from discrimination. Requires the university to provide reasonable accommodation to bargaining unit members with disabilities. Allows the union or the university to resolve DEI issues in labor-management meetings.   
• Article 11: Appointments: Defines the timing and content of the annual Notice of Appointment provided to new and continuing unit members.
• Article 12: Appointment and Promotion of Tenure-Track and Tenured Faculty: Protects the main features of the tenure and promotion processes for tenure-track and tenured faculty, including credit toward and extensions of the probationary period. Limits the ways in which a faculty member’s tenure can be ended, once awarded. See the Grievance and Arbitration article for appealing a denial of tenure and/or promotion.
• Article 13: Appointment, Renewal, and Promotion of TCPL Faculty: Protects and clarifies current TCPL policies, including appointment durations, promotional structures and timelines, notice periods, and PDPs. It also solidifies presumptive renewal for fully-promoted TCPL faculty. These faculty can only be non-renewed (or terminated in some instances) for lack of work, failure to improve documented deficiencies in performance after a year’s notice, financial exigency, or cause. 
• Article 14: Compensation: Outlines faculty compensation, including three 3% annual base salary increases (for July 1, 2023, July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025), and lump sum payments to address the difference between the increases to base salary (understood for the purpose of lump sums to be 2% for July 1, 2023 and 3% for July 1, 2024) and what was paid to bargaining unit members in the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years. The contract also codifies for the first time current promotional increases (5K/7K for TCPLs and 6K/9K for T/TT), and establishes minimum salaries for assistant TCPL and TT faculty (55K and 60K). It also articulates the terms of overload teaching and codifies that summer and winter teaching are compensated at a rate of 3% of salary per credit hour. Lastly, it includes a clause allowing the University to withhold increases during financial exigency.
• Article 15: Benefits: Solidifies faculty benefits, including group insurance plans (medical, dental, vision), retirement options (STRS or ARP), education benefits, and access to the university facilities, e.g., Employee Health Center and Rec Center. The contract requires any changes to insurance plans by the university be “substantially similar” to current offerings. The contract also limits, for the first time, health insurance premium increases, and guarantees that faculty will never pay more than non-bargaining unit employees for benefits.
• Article 16: Faculty Evaluations: Specifies the main features of annual evaluations, evaluation of teaching, TCPL professional development plans, and formative evaluations for promotion. A faculty member’s evaluation may not be based solely on student evaluations of teaching, and low response rates on student evaluations may not harm a faculty member’s evaluation.
• Article 17: Performance Improvement Plans: Protects members by providing clear due process steps to be followed before a faculty member is disciplined for poor performance, specifying that faculty will be notified of areas needing improvement and appropriate performance targets, and will normally be given at least one or two semesters to fix the problem.
• Article 18: Leaves: Codifies that faculty are not required to work during university break periods and have job protections for various types of leave. Notably, it includes a new type of leave: bereavement leave will ensure five days per academic year, in the event of the death of a close relative. Defines non-research or service related leave options, parental leave (six weeks fully paid), family medical leave, including paid sick days with a cap of 150 days and opportunities for unpaid personal leave. (Those with more than 150 sick days in their sick leave bank will keep them.)
• Article 19: Professional Development Leaves and Appointments: Defines Faculty Improvement Leave, which provides a semester of full pay or two semesters at two-thirds pay, along with continued benefits and retirement contributions. Tenure-track faculty are guaranteed an Assigned Research Appointment no later than their fourth year, supporting their professional development and research goals. 
• Article 20: Discipline and Discharge: Specifies standards and procedures for disciplinary action up to and including termination, including just cause and progressive discipline protections, procedures for pre-disciplinary meetings, and procedures for paid suspension pending investigation. See the Grievance and Arbitration article for further due process protections relevant to disciplinary cases.
• Article 21: Grievance and Arbitration: Provides procedures for redressing violations of this collective bargaining agreement, including disciplinary actions lacking just cause. Provides for arbitration by a neutral third party if a grievance is unresolved after meeting with the dean and provost. Defines extent of arbitrator’s authority. Also provides special appeals processes for denial of tenure/promotion and for termination of tenured faculty members. Note: see article for important time limits applicable to the filing of grievances and appeals respectively.
• Article 22: Financial Exigency and Academic Reorganization: This article protects members in the event the administration exercises its pre-existing legal authority to determine the size and make-up of the university workforce. It establishes notice requirements based on years of service, provides severance compensation for tenured faculty, and specifies processes and policies the university must follow should it exercise its recognized rights in this area. 
• Article 23: Outside Employment and Professional Activities: Ensures that bargaining unit faculty members may engage in external activities, including employment, consultation or contracting with other entities, unless such outside activities conflict with established University policies, interfere with a bargaining unit faculty member’s University duties, or if a conflict with the Ohio Ethics Laws is identified.
• Article 24: Intellectual Property: Incorporates current policy on Intellectual Property into the contract. 
• Article 25: Union Access to Information and Facilities: States that the university will provide FAM with office space and necessary information and will allow access to university facilities similarly to other non-student university organizations.
• Article 26: Duration: Sets the duration of the contract, i.e., how long the contract will be valid and in effect. Our contract is set to end on June 30, 2026. 
• Article 27: Facilities and Support: Ensures faculty receive essential resources, including a personal computer, workspace, technology, and library access, with the understanding that these resources remain University property. Importantly, no faculty member can be denied library services or access to materials based on their research or teaching topics, as long as those activities fall within their professional responsibilities.
• Article 28: No Strike/No Lockout: States that during the period of the contract neither FAM nor bargaining unit members may interrupt or interfere with the operations of the university.
• Article 29: Agreement Construction: Clarifies that article or section titles are for convenience and have no bearing on interpretation.
• Appendix A: Memorandum of Understanding – Artificial Intelligence: Requires the university to discuss AI policy with FAM in labor-management meetings. Makes AI a bargainable subject.