Bargaining Sessions 12, 13, 14, 15 | October 12, 13, 14, & 17
Cruel and disappointing responses
After months and months of delays, the university finally presented formal responses to the bargaining committee’s proposals on October 12th, 13th, 14th, and 17th. The university’s responses range from the disappointing to downright cruel, though there are a few bright spots. Find a quick summary below and read the rest of the post for a detailed overview.
Quick Summary
Delays: The university’s negotiations team delayed and stalled for months over the summer and fall, claiming they needed more time to review the bargaining committee’s proposals, only to respond “no” to most of the committee’s proposals last week.
Cruel: The university proposes taking away sick leave days, removing some part-time faculty from the health insurance plan, and hiking insurance costs during a pandemic.
Disappointing Compensation: Under the university’s compensation counter-proposal, student teaching assistants would continue to be paid more than many part-time faculty until 2025. That’s right: in many cases, your students currently are and would be paid more than you.
Social Justice Principles? The university rejected two proposals related to social justice principles: one proposal that would strengthen part-time faculty members’ protections against discrimination and harassment; another that asked the university to acknowledge the well-documented fact that student evaluations might contain bias against some faculty such as LGBTQ+ faculty, women faculty, and faculty of color.
Bright spots: The university accepted the bargaining committee’s proposal to provide part-time faculty with paid family leave (parental leave) and indicated willingness to establish a professional development fund.
Strike Authorization Vote: The university’s delays and cruel counter-proposals have left the part-time faculty with no choice but to call a strike authorization vote. The part-time faculty elected to the bargaining committee will be holding town halls on the vote and bargaining next Monday, Friday, and the following Sunday. RSVP at the bottom of this post.
The Cruel
Sick leave. The university proposed taking away paid sick leave days to which part-time faculty are currently entitled and exempting part-time faculty from NY State Law. Yes, you read that right, the university is asking part-time faculty to accept less than the bare minimum required by state and city law.
The New York Sick and Safe Leave Act provides for an hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked and covers nearly all workers in NY State. The university is asking part-time faculty to agree to exempt themselves from this law and agree to only one paid sick leave day per term. This would mean that part-time faculty would be entitled to less paid-sick-leave-per-hour-worked than all other university employees. (Less than your student teaching assistant!)
Healthcare. The university proposes hiking premiums, increasing out-of-pocket costs, kicking part-time faculty and their families off the plan, and preventing part-time faculty from enrolling in the PPO plan in which full-time faculty can enroll.
Premium Hikes. The university proposes 1) increasing the share of the premium that part-time faculty must pay each year and 2) proposes hiking premiums by as much as 10% every year.
Out-of-Pocket Costs. The university proposes the right to hike out-of-pocket costs without limit each year.
Kicking faculty and their families off health insurance. The university proposes eliminating a provision in the current contract that allows Mannes faculty to qualify for health insurance by teaching individual lessons. The university’s proposal would result in Mannes faculty and their families losing health insurance.
No PPO. Full-time faculty currently can select to participate in a PPO plan. The university rejected the bargaining committee’s proposal to allow part-time faculty to opt into this plan, too.
Taken together, the university’s proposals to cut sick leave days, remove faculty and their families from the healthcare plan, and hike healthcare costs during a pandemic run counter to the university’s social justice mission.
Compensation (The Disappointing)
For an overview of the bargaining committee’s compensation proposal, see this page.
Under the university’s compensation counter proposal, student teaching assistants would continue to earn more than many part-time faculty for the next few years.
Currently, a student teaching assistant who holds their own recitation section earns about $5,000 per semester. In contrast, a part-time faculty member teaching a 45 contact-hour studio course earns about $4,300. Under the university’s proposal, this part-time faculty member wouldn’t catch up with their teaching assistant’s salary until Academic Year 2025-2026.
Yes, you read that right. Under the university’s proposal, your students would continue to earn more than you for the same work for at least the next three years.
Rather than continue to editorialize the university’s proposal on compensation, we’ll just show it to you.
In short, the university proposes a 2% raise as soon as a new contract is ratified by part-time faculty. Then, each year thereafter, it proposes a 1.5% annual increase for most course types; a 4% increase for studio courses; and a .75% annual increase for faculty earning over $175 per contact hour. See the chart below.
More Disappointing Proposals
The university outright rejected many of the bargaining committees' proposals without proposing alternatives that could work for the university.
Rejections:
A proposal to provide faculty with greater input into their department’s or program’s curriculum.
A proposal to establish a peer to peer mentorship program in which long-time faculty could be paid to mentor newer faculty.
A proposal which would require the university to provide faculty with equipment necessary to complete mandatory university training. (On several occasions over the past few years, faculty have had to purchase such equipment themselves!)
A proposal on health & safety that would provide faculty who are themselves vulnerable to negative outcomes from an infectious disease (such as COVID-19) or live in a household with someone vulnerable to negative outcomes from an infectious disease with greater flexibility regarding online vs. in-person teaching.
A proposal on health & safety that would allow faculty to cancel class in the event that extreme inclement weather would prevent them or their students from commuting to or from the university.
A childcare and dependent care benefit.
A proposal that would prevent the university from hiring part-time faculty for 9 semesters only to terminate them before they get reappointment rights.
A proposal that would prevent the university from whittling down long-time faculty members’ baseloads over time.
It should be noted that the bargaining committee submitted some of these proposals to the university two months ago in August. The university waited two months to simply say “no.”
Social Justice Principles?
We are proud to teach at The New School because of its social justice mission. In several of its responses, the university failed to apply those same principles to its treatment of part-time faculty.
For example, the bargaining committee made a discrimination and anti-harassment proposal that would provide real recourse against discrimination and harassment. Currently, faculty experiencing discrimination or harassment can file a complaint with the university, and a university employee is the ultimate decision maker regarding the complaint. This presents a conflict of interest. Under the bargaining committee’s proposal, faculty can still pursue their case through the university process if they’d like, but also have the new option of filing a union grievance and having a union rep at their side throughout the process. If necessary, under the proposal, faculty can appeal their case to a neutral, third party arbitrator whose fees the union will cover. Ultimate decision making power is taken away from a university administrator and vested in a neutral, third-party.
As another example, the bargaining committee proposed that the university acknowledge that student evaluations can contain bias against those who are already marginalized, including but not limited to LGBTQA+ faculty, faculty of color, women faculty, and faculty whose first language is not English. The university rejected the proposal and asked for proof. Racial and gender bias in student evaluations is well documented.
Bright Spots
Not all is bad in the university’s set of counter proposals.
The university agreed to provide faculty with paid family leave: 12-weeks of paid leave at 67% pay to bond with a newly born, adopted or fostered child; care for a family member with a serious health condition; or assist loved ones when a spouse, domestic partner, child or parent is deployed abroad on active military service.
The university also expressed openness to establishing a professional development fund for part-time faculty, with the amount of money available in the fund TBD.
What’s Next? Strike Authorization Vote Town Halls.
As a result of the university’s repeated delays and, frankly, insulting counter-proposals, the part-time faculty are taking a strike authorization vote.
This is a vote that authorizes the part-time faculty elected to the bargaining committee to call a strike if they deem one is necessary.
It is critical that you vote. The bargaining committee urges you to vote ‘YES’.
Online ballots will be emailed on October 31st and you will have until Nov. 13th to cast your digital ballot.
The bargaining committee is hosting three town halls next week on the Strike Authorization Vote.
Monday, October 24th, 7pm - 8:30pm EST
Friday, October 28th, 10am - 11:30pm EST
Sunday, October 30th, 5:00pm - 6:30pm EST
All town halls will cover the same material: bargaining updates and the strike authorization vote. Please come to whichever works best for your schedule.
If you’d like to attend one, but none of the times above work for you, please let us know by email organizer@actuaw.org.
Open Bargaining
Finally, bargaining sessions with the university are open to all members and occur over zoom. If you’re interested in attending, you MUST RSVP HERE to receive a zoom link and time info.