On October 4, the 2007-2010 contract between UC and the AAUP – UC Chapter was approved by the voting Chapter membership by a margin of 77% to 20%. The UC Board of Trustees approved the contract on October 12.

All aspects of the new contract are retroactive to September 1, 2007, with the exception of changes to health insurance and base salary increases. While this contract contains many positive aspects and genuine improvements — including good, affordable health insurance, a new grievance procedure, full domestic partner benefits, and numerous protections for faculty in various areas of the contract — there is no question that it does not represent a financial gain. Nor does this contract address UC’s serious salary compression issues. The Chapter leadership recommended approval of this contract and in part, we believe, AAUP members approved it, in recognition of the real and serious debt situation UC faces.

But UC cannot continue to starve salaries and eliminate positions as a means of resolving a debt situation created by past poor decisions made by upper administration and Trustees. To do so will actually endanger UC’s future: increasing student enrollment and the coming baby boomer retirements mean we must begin now to address salary structure problems and unfilled tenure-track lines, lest we face a full-blown crisis in faculty recruitment and retention in the near future.

The Chapter has committed in this contract to working with UC administration over the next 3 years on contract education for administrators, and to study and development of solutions to salary structure problems at Raymond Walters and Clermont colleges (whose salaries are the lowest of all Carnegie III state access colleges in Ohio).

In addition, we were delighted at President Zimpher’s agreement to our request to begin immediate work, through the Joint Committee, on how the University can plan for major adjustments to all faculty salaries (which have fallen dramatically over the past 15 years compared to peer institutions), including solutions to salary compression problems (click here for more on this story).  Stabilizing the faculty body and improving the professional status of non-tenure track faculty will also be an ongoing topic of discussion and planning.

“People maintenance” has been deferred for too long. We must continue the work begun in this contract, starting today, to build for a strong 2010 for all UC.

— Sally Dunn, President
On behalf of the full Executive Council