by Sarah Olsen vtdigger.org The bargaining team of the part-time faculty unit reached a tentative agreement with the University of Vermont Thursday. Since February, the bargaining team of United Academics has been working with UVM to agree on the terms of its next collective bargaining agreement. Both parties agreed to enter mediation in May in a continuing effort to produce an agreement.This tentative agreement will soon be submitted to the members of the Part-Time Bargaining Unit for a ratification vote.
Under the new contract, the salary pool will be adjusted as follows:A 3.25 percent increase in fiscal year 2016; a 3 percent increase in 2017; and a 2.5 percent increase in 2018, totaling 8.75 percent over three years.
"We are pleased that the mediation process has led to an agreement with our part-time faculty," said Wanda Healing-Grant, UVM Vice President for Human Resources, Diversity, and Multicultural Affairs."We believe that the new contract will provide a good balance between our strategic goals of investing in academic quality and value, and keeping UVM affordable and accessible for students, consistent with our strategic action plan."
The bargaining unit represents 163 part-time faculty members.
Samantha Montgomery, higher education field representative at the Vermont chapter of the American Teacher’s Federation, said that the bargaining team has been gearing up for contract negotiations since their last settlement.
UVM Green by Sally McCay
The tentative agreement would allow lecturers who have taught 24 credit hours as members of the part-time bargaining unit to become eligible for full-year contracts, according to an August 20 press release. They will also become eligible for union representation after their second semester of teaching at UVM, according to the press release.
Along with the 8.75 percenttotal collective raise over a three-year contract,faculty members that teach nine or more credits a semester per year will be eligible to receive University-paid healthcare, according to the press release.
“Long term contracts and job security are huge gains for our members,” Montgomery said.
Another part of the agreement is increased respect for part-time faculty by allowing them to receive notice of and minutes from faculty meetings in their respective departments, according to the press release.
If the part-time faculty votes to ratify this agreement, it will form the basis for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the union and its faculty employees, according to the press release.
“We’re really proud of all of the work that our members did to accomplish this,” Montgomery said.
A date has not yet been set for the part-time faculty unit to vote on the agreement’s ratification, but it will likely be in mid-September after classes begin at UVM for the fall semester August 31, Montgomery said. Once it is ratified, the agreement will retroactively go into effect for the beginning of the 2015 fall semester, she said.
Vermont Business Magazine contributed to this report.