Sorry, that’s at Ohio State. Here at UO we are losing top science PI’s and our president is refusing to pay out a 3.5% raise that is already funded. At OSU the money will come in part from parking revenue, believe it or not. Here at UO the parking fees subsidize the athletic department – right, Jamie?
Dog says
here is a full financial disclosure report for Ohio State University
http://trustees.osu.edu/assets/files/meeting-materials/06-2012/Finance.pdf
I think that it’s time to give it a rest with the complaints about the 3.5% raise. I am also no economist, but it’s pretty clear that it would be idiotic for the administration to give out raises right before the union negotiation.
Since salary will obviously be a point of contention it makes sense to wait and let our negotiators determine what the raises will look like. This is the whole point of collective bargaining, is it not? We are no longer dependent on the whims of the administration for raises, rather we have “seized control of our destiny”. So let’s stop complaining about the administration and start negotiating with them in good faith to get the raises that we deserve (which are a whole lot more than 3.5%!).
The UO administration are the ones not acting in good faith. They told the faculty that they were unable to give the raises because of the union. The union pointed out this was not true and asked for the 3.5%. Doing it now would rebuild their credibility with the faculty. Most of the heads I’ve talked to understand this. Gottfredson should meet with them to get a sense of how pissed off his faculty are about this and many other things. Instead he is getting his information filtered through Bean and Geller. I don’t think he’s a dumb man, but this is dumb, man.
From uauoregon.org: “Our bargaining team also formally requested that the administration raise faculty salaries by 3.5% for this academic year, while reserving our right to negotiate other components of salary.”
UOM or anyone else, have you actually seen the text of the union’s request to the administration? In its ERB petition and throughout the website, UAUO uses the word “faculty” to refer to all bargaining unit members — including adjuncts, postdocs, research faculty, etc. Those are all groups that were *not* included in the original 3.5% plan as far as I know. So it sounds to me like the union is asking for a larger pool of raises — not saying go ahead with the 3.5% that was planned and funded under Lariviere.
(Maybe the union would be okay with raises going to some bargaining unit members and not others. But that doesn’t strike me as something unions are typically okay with.)
The “while reserving our right to negotiate other components of salary” is the sticking point.
Why would this be a sticking point? Of course they are going to reserve that right. The union will seek equity and merit components as well, this is just an across the board COLA to get the ball rolling and give the administration a chance to get some much needed goodwill. Or if you’re a cynic, they proposed it because they knew Geller and Bean would reject it and start off the bargaining looking like idiotic greedheads. In which case, mission accomplished.