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Bargaining Session V: Bloated JH admins will reply to faculty raise proposal

03/08/2015

This Thursday March 12, 10AM-2PM, Knight Library Collaboration room.

Session V will open with a presentation from Jamie Moffitt, explaining where she’s been spending all our money, to be followed by the administration’s salary counter-proposal. Moffitt told the UO Board this week that she’d forgot to include faculty and salary raises in the budget, so presumably she’s going to come back with a low-ball offer of a milli-Helfrich* or so, per year. Should be well worth attending.

The full UO Matters post on the UAUO faculty union’s proposal from Session IV, is here. For some reason Tobin Klinger’s take on this meeting never showed up on “Around the 0″.

It’s a 2 year contract. The union proposed ATB raises of 2.5% in 2015 and 2016, plus 2% then 4% for merit, and 2.5% for internal and external equity, both in 2015. In total, 6% in 2015, 7% in 2016. These are for both TTF and NTTF, there are also some salary floor increases for NTTFs, and a few other wrinkles. Full proposal here.

The “Across The Board” raises are pretty close to expected cost of living increases, so this amounts to about a 4% increase in real wages for each year. My estimate is that this will get UO TTF salaries to the AAU public peer averages by July 2016, assuming a moderate forecast of 2.5% increases at those schools:

The 2009 Lariviere/Coltrane/Bean plan would have done this by July 2013 or so, but instead Jamie Moffitt and Brad Shelton added some of that money to reserves, and spend the rest on their other priorities, including a big raise for Shelton, millions for Moffitt’s husband’s law school, and useless administrative and strategic communications bloat like Chuck Triplett and Tobin Klinger.

This delay means a permanent loss of very roughly ~$50K to the average faculty member, but that’s money under the bridge. At least the union proposal will stem further losses.

Footnote:
* A milli-Helfrich is a UO salary measure, defined as 1/1000th of Football Coach Mark Helfrich’s pay, or roughly $4,000.

Some history:

In 2013 the union opened with a proposal for 9% raises for each of the two years of the contract. Basically this was the Lariviere plan, to get UO salaries to the AAU medians. The University countered with, if I remember correctly, an offer of 2%, for one year. Rudnick, Gleason, and Blandy said this was all UO could afford, saying UO had already spent the Lariviere money on other things.

Months of bitter haggling ensued. VPFA Jamie Moffitt refused to give the union the documents showing UO’s budget projections:

The union brought in Howard Bunsis, a forensic accountant, to challenge those few budget numbers that Moffitt would provide. Bunsis showed that Moffitt had been building a large and increasing reserve – so large it broke OUS’s rules. Moffitt then fled the room in tears. Literally. The University then made a take it or leave it offer of, if I remember right, 5.5% spread over 2 years. More was impossible. Rudnick told us “The well is dry”.

The union ignored the threat. Eventually we got ~12% in raises, spread over two years. Plus Tim Gleason’s $350 in Goat Money. What will happen this time? Show up Thursday and find out. Meanwhile, here’s some data on how UO’s senior administrators are taking more and more of the brisket: