Tenured lines, pensions and healthcare locked in

Across the country, the story is the same: Legislators looking for budget savings have got public pension and healthcare plans in their cross hairs. In New Jersey, however, strong higher education affiliates have been able to change the ending.

This summer, despite a tough economic and political environment in the state, unions representing full-time and part-time/adjunct faculty, staff and graduate employees at the nine N.J. state colleges and at Rutgers University bargained four-year contracts that have significant gains on many fronts. Most notable is a feature of a Rutgers University agreement that creates a pool to fund 100 new tenure-track lines. This is a model approach to addressing the academic staffing crisis that is at the heart of AFT’s national Faculty and College Excellence (FACE) campaign. 

Overall, the innovations have everything to do with the power of collective action, say local leaders. For the two Rutgers unions—the Rutgers Council of AAUP Chapters, AAUP-AFT, and the Part-Time Lecturer Faculty Chapter of the AAUP-AFT—these were the first negotiations they conducted since affiliating with the AFT. Lisa Klein, Rutgers council president, credits that affiliation with getting an innovative settlement months earlier than in the past.

For the Council of New Jersey State College Locals/AFT (CNJSCL), this year celebrating its 35th anniversary, the power of the union meant the negotiating team could secure better raises in each year of the contract for full-time and part-time/adjunct faculty and staff. For the separate unit of adjuncts, which unionized in 1997, the negotiating team was able to build a contract that more closely mirrors that of its older sister union.

The unions had to deal with one immutable fact. The state engages in pattern bargaining with its public employee unions to settle on healthcare costs, and earlier both sides settled on a 1.5 percent employee contribution to health insurance premiums.

At the same time, some state legislators declared war on the "excessive cost" of public employee pension benefits. So, the state’s historic "underfunding of the public employee pension system was the big issue looming over negotiations," says Nick Yovnello, CNJSCL president.

Below is a roundup of highlights from the four contracts:

Council of New Jersey State College Locals

CNJSCL’s unit of adjuncts will see minimum per-credit-hour salaries increase by $250 over four years to $1,200 in 2011. The increase is for adjuncts who have taught more than 16 semesters. Also, the compensation rate for course cancellations goes up from the current $100 to half a credit hour, if the course is cancelled less than two weeks before the class, and a full credit hour, if the cancellation is after the start of the semester. The contract also addresses getting office space for adjuncts to work and meet with students.

The CNJSCL unit of full-time and part-time faculty will have across-the-board raises for the four years of 3 percent, 3 percent, 3.5 percent and 3.5 percent. With the unit’s salary structure, that means raises range from 11.94 percent to 34 percent over four years.

The contract also provides an increase in sabbatical compensation; a unitwide minimum tuition waiver of 40 percent for children, spouses and civil union partners; and a new unitwide policy on transition to retirement.

More on the contracts can be found at www.cnjscl.org.

Rutgers University

The Rutgers Council of AAUP-AFT Chapters, which represents 2,500 tenured, tenure-track and nontenure-track faculty members and 1,700 teaching and graduate assistants, ratified a four-year contract ending June 30, 2011.

Teaching and graduate assistants, whose compensation has lagged behind comparable graduate employees’, will see raises totaling 36 percent over the life of the four-year contract and better language governing workload. Faculty raises average 18 percent overall—significantly higher than state employee averages.

The union went to the mat for the addition of 100 tenure-track jobs, proposing the creation of a Faculty Development Fund that provides no less than $12 million to the salary base of the bargaining unit over four years.

"This is an example of the union and the university coming together to reverse the trend of contingency," notes Scott Bruton, a graduate employee who served on the negotiating team.

In addition, the agreement sets up a task force to look at nontenure-track faculty issues and release a report by December 2008. Nontenure-track faculty number between 600 and 700 advanced degree specialists. "This contract recognizes for the first time the importance of this group,"  says Lisa Klein, Rutgers AAUP-AFT president. 

The agreement has many features in harmony with three bills introduced in the N.J. Legislature this session that are modeled on the AFT’s Faculty and College Excellence (FACE) campaign (http://face.aft.org). They deal with restoring the ranks of full-time faculty, and securing pro-rata pay and partially paid health benefits for part-timers.

The Part-Time Lecturers Chapter (PTL) of the Rutgers Council entered bargaining with the goal of gaining pay parity with the assistant instructors, says Amy Bahruth, PTL president. "It’s frustrating to work alongside people who do comparable work and make lots more." By the third year of the contract, part-time lecturers will be making $33,840, or $1,410 per credit hour, with a load of eight three-credit courses. That’s slightly more than the $33,139 minimum salary of assistant instructors. The wage package represents a 25 percent increase over four years.

The contract also takes steps to address part-timers’ health coverage concerns by setting up a Labor Management Committee to explore buy-in options. It doubles the PTL Professional Development Fund from $5,000 to $10,000 a year, and strengthens language on grievances, non-reappointment and nondiscrimination. For more information on the Rutgers contracts, go to www.rutgersaaup.org.