About the UM Agreement

Richard Barrett
Economics
UM-Missoula

On September 13, Governor Marc Racicot announced, and enthusiastically endorsed, the completion of a year long process of bargaining which had involved his office, the University Teachers' Union, the University of Montana administration, the Commissioner of Higher Education, the Board of Regents, and the Associated Students of the University of Montana. The outcome of this process, which had been labeled "collaborative bargaining" by the participants, was a set of agreements for the 1993-99 period, on faculty salary and instructional workload, initiatives for improving student performance, and a financial plan which provided for significantly increased spending on library acquisitions, equipment, computers, and improved class access. Almost as soon as it was announced, the agreement met strong resistance from a group of faculty members, including some members of the union's Executive Board.

The Process

The process of collaborative bargaining was first proposed to the Governor by representatives of the University Teachers' Union and the Montana Federation of Teachers in the summer of 1993. Negotiations with the Montana University System were near impasse, and the union found itself, as it had in the past, in a struggle over whatever money the Legislature had made available earlier in the year, and with little hope of making any real progress. In the union's view, a solution to the impoverishment of the University rested on long term agreements made before the Legislative session began, and supported by as broad a spectrum of university stakeholders as possible.

The process that emerged from the union's proposal was, in some respects, a significant departure from the traditional pattern of collective bargaining. It involved representation of many more than the usual interests, produced agreements beyond those contained in a formal contract, and addressed issues well beyond the normal or legally required scope of bargaining. Negotiations were facilitated by professional mediators and employed the principles of interest based bargaining suggested by Lawrence Susskind and Jeffrey Cruikshank in Breaking the Impasse.

In other ways, collective bargaining continued intact, most notably in the continuing legal obligation of the University Teachers' Union and the Montana University System to bargain in good faith, albeit in an unusual fashion.

The Product

There are three important documents that constitute the product of these negotiations: the contract, a "Four Plus Two Year" plan, and a letter of intent.

The contract covers the period between July of 1993 and June of 1997. The vast majority of the existing contract provisions were not opened for renegotiation and remain unchanged. Significant changes, however, do occur with respect to compensation and with the addition of a section on faculty instructional workload. The compensation section calls for raises of slightly less than 1% in 1993-94, all in the form of merit and promotion increments and slightly less that 2.5% this year, 1.5% in an across-the-board normal raise and the rest again in merit and promotion increments. For 1995-96 and 1996-97, the average raise each year is 7%, achieved through a 2.5% normal raise, market adjustments which vary by rank, and promotion, merit and inversion increments. In exchange for these raises, faculty must agree to a standard workload of "the equivalent of" 16.5 credit hours per year, where non-class room instructional activity such as advising, thesis supervision, field work, and so forth, have a value equivalent to classroom teaching and count towards the 16.5 credit hour total. The contract requires departments, with administrative approval, to determine the value of these equivalencies. If a faculty member is asked to teach more under the provisions of the contract, his or her department is required to reach an agreement for a commensurate reduction of other duties. Finally, the contract provides a procedure for appealing teaching workload assignments to a faculty committee.

The provisions described above give contractual force to major elements in a "Four Plus Six Year Plan," which is the second important document resulting from the negotiations. This plan establishes targets, for the period July 1993 to June 1999, for salaries and workloads, and for increased expenditures on library acquisitions, computers, equipment, and programs to increase student access to classes. To this end, it contains budget projections for the entire period and identifies the sources of additional revenue (which include significant tuition increases) which will be relied on to meet these targets. For the last two years of the period, the plan calls for salary increases of 7% per year, and a standard instructional workload of "the equivalent of" 18 credit hours. In addition to these financial elements, the plan calls for a number of initiatives to be undertaken in the area of advising, curriculum, class scheduling, and other academic practices. These initiatives, which are the responsibility of both the faculty and the administration, are designed with the intention of improving the academic success of students.

Finally, the letter of intent states the intention of the parties, when the time comes, to negotiate a contract for the last two years (1997-1999) which embodies the salary and workload targets in the plan. The letter also states that the realization of these intentions is dependent on satisfactory progress being made with respect to the initiatives called for in the plan and the availability of revenue equal to that projected in the plan.

Faculty Concerns

Faculty have expressed numerous concerns about the plan since its release. These appear to cluster around a few major issues.

First, some faculty appear to be resentful of and distrust the Governor's participation in negotiations. The fact that the Governor announced the agreement on campus before copies were available for the faculty was particularly bothersome to some individuals. The attitude of the bargaining team, an the other hand, was that the Governor's public commitment to the agreement was essential. It was, in fact, the whole point of collaborative negotiations. The willingness of a Governor to issue an enthusiastic public endorsement of a proposed agreement was unprecedented and indicated the success of the approach.

The timing of Governor's announcement did create difficulties of another sort. The executive summary presented to the press, and press accounts which appeared following the announcement, either oversimplified or seriously misrepresented the provisions of the agreement. For example, the Missoulian reported repeatedly that the agreement called for a raise of 4.85% "over the six year period," rather than making clear that the cumulative raises provided for were the equivalent of a 4.85% per year raise over the period. Faculty, since they did not have the agreement before them, formed their first impressions based on these accounts and were not pleased. Some opponents of the contract continued to base their characterizations of it on press accounts long after correct information was available and the bargaining team had held meetings to clarify such matters.

The third source of concern was the workload language. Faculty felt insulted by any suggestion that they are not working hard enough, and were alarmed by descriptions of the size of the workload increase. This problem stems in part from the fact that reliable base line data on existing faculty workload does not exist. The bargaining team felt that it was a considerable accomplishment to include non-classroom instructional activities in the definition of instructional workload, but an unintended byproduct of this accomplishment was that since nobody knows what workloads so defined currently are, it is impossible to say exactly what making them 16.5 credit hours really entails. The Governor's Budget Director had, early in the process, announced that by his reckoning, faculty currently offer 14.2 credits per year on average. This figure explicitly did not include non-classroom instruction. Nevertheless, by default it became the figure against which "the equivalent of" 16.5 credit hours was measured, which implied substantial workload increases.

The workload language sparked two other concerns. One is that in some departments, faculty workload already meets or exceeds the levels specified in the agreement. For these departments the language suggests a reduction in instructional workload, and faculty are concerned about sufficient offerings being available to students. On the other hand, other departments are concerned that additional instruction will hamper research efforts. The plan does provide additional resources for improving student access to courses and for reassignment from a full instructional load for extraordinary research or service. But the full impact of the instructional load language in practice does remain an open question at this point.

Finally, some faculty are unhappy with the lack of certainty surrounding the final two years of the agreement. To some degree this may reflect a mistaken impression that the faculty is contractually obliged to increase work load in these years while the Regents are not obliged to the corresponding pay raises. This is incorrect. No contract exists for those years, and no party has any contractual obligations. To some, this makes the intentions with respect to the final two years little more than pie in the sky. The bargaining team, however, feels that the commitments made by all the parties for those years, though not contractual, have considerable force, and were taken in good faith and with substantial confidence that they can be realized. It is also the conviction of the bargaining team that the degree of uncertainty regarding conditions in the last two years makes an expectation of certainty in raises unrealistic.

Whether the contract will be approved is, at the point of this writing, unclear. It is the conviction of the UTU bargaining team that collaborative negotiations produced a strong agreement. If the contract is rejected, we believe that it will be extremely difficult to negotiate anything better.

[Editor's Note: On September 27, the members of the University Teachers' Union approved the tentative agreement by approximately three to one. On October 7, it was ratified by the Board of Regents.]


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