Academy for Academic Personnel Administration

Fall 2003

Round Table Report

 

1.  Institution Information

 

Name of Institution/System: University of Massachusetts Amherst                                            

 

Name of Individual Responding:  Susan Pearson

 

Title of Individual Responding: Associate Provost for Faculty Relations and Budget

 

 

2a. Description of Faculty Bargaining Unit(s) – Size and Composition

 

Approximately 2000 faculty members and 300 librarians on two campuses

 

Bargaining Agent: Massachusetts Society of Professors/Faculty Staff Union/MTA/NEA       

 

Date of First Contract:  1976

 

Number of Succeeding Contracts:  8

 

 

3. Activity Report (e.g., status of current agreement or negotiations, details of last contract settlement, etc.):

 

Negotiations concluded in August 2001 on contract for period July 1, 2001-June 30, 2004.  Included 5% increase (3% cost-of-living, 2% merit pool) in each of three years, authorized in advance by Governor’s Office.  Legislature approved contract but failed to provide funding; Governor vetoed legislative approval.  No increases have been paid, and, in the face of severe budget shortfalls, faculty (and other employee groups, all of whom are in the same situation) have become strangely docile.

 

 

4. Special or noteworthy happenings (e.g., relevant arbitration or court decisions, organizing campaigns, labor agency decisions, etc.)

 

None

 

 

5.  Special happenings related to fiscal issues (e.g., salary reductions, health and dental insurance costs, reductions in force, early retirement programs, program consolidation or elimination, etc.):

 

For the third year in a row, state support for the campus declined precipitously.  To accommodate this year’s reduction of approximately $40 million, we reduced allocations to campus units by a total of $21.5 million and raised student fees by $750 a semester.  Some academic programs will be merged, but none have been eliminated.  We laid off more than 100 staff members (as we had last year), but still no faculty.  A retirement incentive program offered to all state employees attracted 55 faculty applicants and several hundred staff, but applicants have until the end of December to withdraw their applications.  Since the salaries of retirement applicants total some $13 million and the budget reduction plan only required $2.7 million of savings from this source, many of these retirees will be replaced (although this process will be complicated by the fact that the state imposed a cap of 20% on such replacements).