Where we stand in the negotiations

August 6, 2008:

Our union negotiators have decided to go into mediation. Mediation, handled by federal mediators, is not binding but it might bring us closer to a contract.

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Union-Management Negotiations, May 28, 2008:

Today's negotiations were hard to follow unless you had a scorecard of previous negotiations sessions. I'll do the best I can and will stand corrected if anyone can write something clearer.

Facing a stalemate, our team (John, Barbara, Lou) worked intensively with UFT negotiator Eric Marshall to pare down our salary demands to a proposal they believe Pace will accept. Here's what they ultimately presented:

Minimum rates per credit hour:

Lecturer/Instructor........$1,000
Assistant Prof...................$1,100
Associate Prof...................$1,200
Full Prof.............................$1,350

"Career increments" based on longevity are for Adjunct Full Professors only.
Adjunct Full Professors with a PhD and 15 years of Pace employment will receive a $50 per credit hour raise. Without a PhD the $50 will kick in after 20 years. For the Full Profs additional $50 per credit hour increments will kick in at 20 years and 25 years.

Across-the-board raises, not based on merit:

2006-7..................2.5 percent
2007-8..................3 percent
2008-9................. 4.5 percent
2009-10................4.5 percent
2010-11.................4.5 percent

Health Care Coverage: Both sides are awaiting a survey to determine the number of adjuncts who need it. Our side withdrew a demand for vision and dental coverage.

Number of courses: Adjuncts may teach three courses per semester.

Professional Development: Adjuncts will have equal access to University grants.

Office Hours, if deemed necessary by adjunct and department chair, will be compensated at 60 percent of a credit hour. Scheduling, possibly in-office, possibly a synchronous hour on BlackBoard, at the discretion of the instructor.

The Pace team looked relieved and happy at the close of the session. The ball is back in their court. I don't doubt that they will present a counterproposal.

Next negotiations session: Monday, June 16, 8 am-noon.

For reports on previous negotiations sessions, see below.

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"Surreal" is a good word for Union-Management negotiations on Tuesday, May 13.

The afternoon session began with Pace's hired labor negotiator announcing that Pace was "trying to avoid going into mediation." He "feels" that "We are on the brink of a settlement."

And then he unrolled: not much.

Pace is prepared to offer Adjunct Professors a $950 per-credit-hour minimum, Adjunct Associate Professors a $900 per-credit-hour minimum, Adjunct Assistant Professors an $850 per-credit-hour minimum, and Adjunct Instructors and Lecturers an $800 per-credit-hour minimum.

By his calculation, this package would affect 200 adjuncts, or less than one-third of the Pace adjunct community. Most Pace adjuncts are in the instructor/lecturer category.

A 2.5 percent raise for 2006-2005 would be granted as a lump-sum payment and not added to our base pay.

Nothing for 2007.

A potential 3 percent raise to go into effect in September 2008 would be a half-half deal:
1.5 percent across the board for everyone, and 1.5 percent allocated on "performance-based merit," which means that maybe you will get the "merit" raise and maybe you won't.

IF ((this is a Big If)) full-time faculty get raises in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012, adjuncts shall receive an "equivalent" percentage increase on the half-half merit deal.

Pace's proposal did not include a cost-of-living increase. Pace's proposal did not include compensation for long-term underpaid service.

As we reach the four-year mark, it's hard to believe that so many good adjuncts have put in so much time on this frustrating negotiations process. And so many earnest union staff people have put in so much of their labor. And so many Administration people have dutifully sat in on the sessions, holding the line....

Get your Strike Authorization Ballot into the UAFP office NOW.

The next negotiations session is scheduled for Wednesday, May 28 from 10 to 3, place TBA.
For reports on previous negotiations sessions, see below.

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Note: Union-Management negotiations scheduled for Tuesday, May 6, were canceled by Management.

Big Note: We have learned from two impeccable sources, a Pace adjunct who also teaches at Fordham, and a Department Chair at Fordham, that Fordham now pays its adjuncts $3,700 per course, with a few adjuncts receiving more than $5,000.

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Union-Management Negotiations on Friday, April 25, were held on the White Plains campus.

Barbara Lerner, adjunct in Communication Studies, the Secretary of our union, and a member of our negotiating team, filed this report:

"Union negotiators met with Pace's team on Friday morning. Eric Marshall [lead negotiator for the UFT] stated that Pace had not responded to our revised proposal [submitted on April 10]. He suggested that either Pace had to deal with our proposal in a substantive way or that we would have to go on to mediation. Pace's team had a long caucus, after which they said that they would offer another proposal when we meet on May 6."

For reports on previous negotiations sessions, see below.

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Union-Management negotiations on Thursday, April 10, 2008 were a big disappointment.

The Administration will give us a two and a half percent merit raise for 06-07, payable in a lump sum. Question: does this mean we get the money but it's not added to our salary base? Anyone know the answer to this? (The answer is that they do not want to add the 06-07 raise to our salary base.)

The Administration is "undecided" and "up in the air" about a raise for 07-08.

The Administration "has a problem" with our Long-Term Service Adjustments (see the proposal link below) because in their view these adjustments "wipe out" their concept of raises as "performance compensation," which they claim is a 30-year tradition at Pace. In other words, if longterm adjuncts are languishing at the bottom of the current pay scale, say at $800 per credit hour, while some of us newer people were brought in at more than $1,000 per credit hour, it's because the performance of the longtermers obviously wasn't worth a merit increase over the years.

We reject this argument totally. It's ugly and humiliating. It's divisive. It is a cheap shot designed to demoralize Pace's most faithful adjuncts.

More demoralizing stuff:

The Administration is still not willing to commit to an annual COLA, a Cost-of-Living Adjustment that matches the Department of Social Security's annual COLA, even though the Administration knows and we know that the cost of living is skyrocketing and our pay is worth less today in buying power than it was last year and the year before that.

Through the hired labor negotiator who speaks for the Administration at these difficult sessions (we wonder what he's getting paid), we are told that it's presumptuous of us to expect our adjunct salaries to approximate those at NYU and the New School. He says that our academic league consists of schools like St. John's and Dowling College on Long Island, basically a little aeronautical-training college on a beach with a couple of hangars and some piper cubs. This is such an insult to Pace, its continued striving for academic excellence, its wonderful population of international students, and its proud home across from City Hall in the heart of lower Manhattan.

For a report on earlier negotiations sessions, see below.

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On Wednesday, March 26, 2008 we had one of our best Management-Union negotiations sessions yet. We introduced our new Pay Proposal, and after a four-hour caucus they came back with an offer of a $50 raise per credit hour for adjuncts below the $3,000 per course minimum. They had previously offered to raise the minimum per-credit hour pay to $750 per and now they're offering a "jump" to $800.

Pathetic, isn't it? But our best nego session yet, believe it or not. More later.

Here is the link to the pay proposal we submitted on Wednesday 3/26/2008. A few alterations were written in hand at the last minute and are not included in this document - Pay Proposal

Action: Wed-Thur, April 2 & 3, '08

Some of us will be "tabling" in front of One Pace Plaza during the day on Wednesday and Thursday, April 2 and 3, weather permitting. In other words, we'll have an outdoor table and a couple of chairs and we'll talk about the union and the status of our negotiations to adjuncts and students who come by. Feel free to join us. No previous experience required.