[The Montana Professor 24.1, Spring 2014 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
Delena Norris-Tull (UM-Western):
I am relatively new in the leadership of the University of Montana Western union, so I don't have the long-range perspective. But I have seen that the Montana University System representative from the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education has been very antagonistic towards faculty in recent years. Intimidation tactics have become almost commonplace. I would hate to see what it would be like around here if we didn't have a union to represent our interests.
I see regular attempts to degrade the role of the union in protecting faculty. At UMW, our faculty have put in thousands of hours to bring about a complete revolution in how our university works. The implementation of block scheduling, which we call Experience One, was a faculty-driven initiative that took years of planning and implementation to bring to fruition.
We have received much notice in the press, and much praise from the BOR and Montana's former governor Brian Schweitzer, for the improvements we have brought about at our university. In addition, our faculty have received numerous teaching awards—seven state and national teaching awards in the past five years. And yet, when we go to the bargaining table, we are treated by the OCHE representative as though we are all expendable.
We have a Memorandum of Understanding, signed by the former Commissioner of Higher Education, Sheila Sterns, that promises that our university will make it a budget priority to improve faculty salaries, which are just about the lowest in the nation. And yet, every year since we obtained that MOU, we have had to fight for salary increases which barely can be considered cost of living increases.
Keith Edgerton (MSU-Billings):
I can't speak for the negotiations that have occurred on other campuses, though I do know that in 2009 after MSU-Bozeman faculty unionized, the MEA/MFT in Helena moved to create a system-wide "Council of Union Faculty" (CUF) which consists of the faculty presidents from all of the units. Part of the goal, I believe, was to coordinate ideas and develop unified negotiation strategies across the system. At least we have a better idea now what is happening on other campuses (we used to fly pretty blindly in the past). I'm not sure that has changed the nature of negotiations locally, however.
Relative to the other units of the Montana University System, we are a mid-range size campus at MSU-Billings (5,000 students, 130 contract faculty). In the seventeen years after the 1994 merger, our local contract negotiations were, to put it charitably, difficult. The administration during that time was captive to a much older, increasingly antiquated model of "collective bargaining," vice the "collaborative bargaining" which we utilize now. Negotiations were usually divisive and often adversarial with a steady dose of an "us versus them" attitude. Rigid, unyielding positions frequently influenced by suspicion or even contempt for faculty motivations, were often de rigueur. The negotiations were usually personality driven and during bargaining each side knew well in advance, based on past experience and personal agendas, what would (or more aptly, wouldn't) happen or would (or wouldn't) be achieved. It was chronically frustrating, and it was virtually impossible for the union to find any leverage to change things for the better. The administration knew we would never choose a nuclear option of striking; the last faculty work stoppage within the university system was in 1991 and even then it was in sympathy to an admin staff strike, and faculty unions across the state were divided in the extent of membership participation. In short, there were few, if any, pressure points the union could find to change things. Often, too, as one of the smaller units we were captive to the bargaining timetable that occurred at the University of Montana and then, by default, whatever salary increases Montana State University-Bozeman faculty received. (Salary negotiations are by far the most important union issue year in and year out). Once U of M settled and MSU-Bozeman had budgeted its own analogous salary increases, then we at MSU-Billings knew our achievable salary parameters—lest we ever receive more than our colleagues at the bigger schools.
However, in the last several years our local negotiations at MSU-Billings have changed dramatically. We have experienced a turnover in administrative leadership and our new administrative cadre has been exceptionally willing to work with our faculty association at addressing our long-standing working condition concerns and to obtain meaningful, data-driven, salary enhancements for our faculty. Our difficulties now in bargaining, such as they are, are with the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education. There is the sense that despite substantial objective evidence that our faculty salaries are among the lowest, not only in the nation, but compared to our regional peers, and despite our current local administration making good faith efforts at locating funding within our overall budget to address our salary disparities, OCHE wants to hold the line and ensure that no unit's local manages to negotiate more than anyone else's. The (unspoken) inference that we've received over the years is "we need to show the legislature we can control our spending (i.e., holding the line on salary increases) otherwise they'll cut our budget next biennium, and then we'll all be really bad off, and even further behind, etc." But the message we receive at the local level is that indeed the university system can make do with persistently less funding, and faculty salaries are always among the lowest priorities. The result—especially after a number of biennia where the legislature budgeted 0/0 state pay plan increases—is that all of the units (and by extension most of the rank and file faculty union members) have had to endure extended salary stagnation and our ability to recruit and retain highly qualified faculty in a national market continues to erode. Our inversion and compression salary disparities, whereby newer junior faculty are making in some cases more than their long-serving senior colleagues, are appalling and contribute to persistent faculty demoralization. Additionally, of the 133 contract faculty on our campus, 124 of us are making less, and many substantially less, than our regional (not merely national) peers in comparable disciplines and ranks. At MSU-Billings alone it will take well over a million new and permanent dollars to bring our salaries simply to the current, comparable levels of our regional peers.
As we have discovered over the years, because the ultimate authority over the Montana University System is the Board of Regents, and all union agreements must run through the Commissioner's office and then be approved by the Board, there is increasingly little incentive to bargain anything meaningful locally with our administration despite their (recently) principled efforts on our behalf. I think all of us in positions of union leadership are aware that currently no matter what we bargain or how enlightened, progressive, or far-sighted our local agreements, if the Commissioner's office in Helena doesn't agree (and then, by extension determines it won't put our agreements before the Board of Regents for discussion and possible approval or disapproval), we have essentially engaged in an exercise in futility and have wasted an exceptional amount of time and energy. Despite that, I know that our union at MSU-Billings is a strong and important voice for our faculty and I dread thinking where we would be without it. We will continue to advocate and lobby on behalf of faculty despite the seemingly uphill battles we must persistently wage.
Gregory Clouse (MSU-Northern):
Faculty unions are committed stakeholders in the future of higher education in Montana, making the level of importance of faculty unions regarding the development of higher education policies in Montana the very highest. For example, on our campus, the union represents a closed shop; all faculty belong to the Federation. This results in a direct or indirect union presence on the Faculty Senate and its various sub-committees.
Any faculty member who has been in this system for any length of time knows how effective—or ineffective—some of the higher education policies are in Montana. Often, changes in policy have been based on very weak data and not much rationale. In many cases, the union acts as brakes for many policies that are so weak they can't stand a test first.
Another important policy issue is differential pay: should two new faculty with the same degree who start teaching at the same time in the same university at the same rank have a salary spread of thousands of dollars because someone thinks one discipline is thought of as a harder disciple to recruit for? The interesting thing is that this happens in one unionized institution in our state; their CBA allows for it.
About five years ago when I was attending a Board of Regents meeting in Billings, a faculty member from MSU-Bozeman asked me if I like being in a union, and I said, "Absolutely!" Then he asked why. I thought about this for a moment and decided to ask him a couple of questions. "How many years have you been a faculty member at MSU?" 21. "What is your faculty rank?" Associate Professor. "Do you think you will ever make Full Professor?" No. I went on to tell him I was a Full Professor and had been for over 10 years—because of our union and the procedures outlined in our Collective Bargaining Agreement. To uphold the integrity and "spirit" of education at an institution, faculty have to be recruited and retained.
I think I know where the development of higher education policy in Montana is headed in the future. Many of our state leaders and administrators would love to see faculty unions disappear; shortcomings on our campus are often blamed on the faculty union and our CBA. Yet it seems to be very difficult to explain to leaders, law makers, and administrators that there are two signatures on every union CBA—one by the administration and one by the federation president. To me, this means there is policy ownership on the part of both entities.
David Shively (UM-Missoula):
I can speak to this question quite well given my experience of having spent a week on the MSU-Bozeman campus in January of 2013 visiting with faculty to understand their concerns about workplace issues, financial compensation, and the faculty role in university governance. One implication of the decertification will be inequitable compensation to the faculty. The decertification of the tenure-track union was inspired and led by a few faculty members who felt they would stand to gain from this. The first (and only!) collective bargaining agreement that was negotiated by the union required that the negotiated pay increase would be allocated across the board to all faculty members, as is appropriate. Thus, higher profile faculty (as measured by high profile research) and/or those more favored by the administration received the same increase (really a cost of living adjustment) as all others.
In the past these faculty had benefited from favoritism and decisions by unit heads and deans to award them larger pay increases than their colleagues, and these beneficiaries undoubtedly felt this was justified because they were more meritorious. However, the negotiated compensation also included a merit pool to fund competitive awards to faculty applicants as well as a market adjustment pool that would address "exceptional salary circumstances" (such as retention, market equity, gender/racial equity considerations, and internal salary compression or inversion). Such market pools are generally used to retain those higher profile faculty members who can present compelling evidence of their marketability. In short, the faculty would essentially have to compete with their colleagues in order to benefit as they had before, and even if the outcomes were relatively predictable, the work and documentation entailed in this process is less palatable than otherwise.
Another important implication is that the faculty role in university governance is now less certain. Faculty participation in governance is much more effective and meaningful when it is authorized and required by a CBA. While the CBA language concerning a faculty senate was rather weak (the senate would exist at the prerogative of the administration), the union would doubtless have worked to strengthen this to a requirement. Without such language, the administration could conceivably disband any sitting senate, especially one that challenges administration actions in the area of academic affairs or elsewhere.
Lastly, if I'm an early career faculty member at MSU who is on the path to promotion and tenure, I would be quite alarmed by my inability to grieve any promotion or tenure decision that is substantively or procedurally flawed. The CBA that AFMSU negotiated worked to protect the faculty from arbitrary and/or capricious decision making by administrators, effectively protecting them from having years of study and training as well as the promise of a career derailed by a bad decision.
These implications of the decertification are quite real. I hope that, with or without them coming to pass, that my colleagues at MSU will take a closer look at them and realize that a university can function much better with a guaranteed faculty role in governance, fair pay provisions for all employees, and clear and enforceable standards for faculty advancement.
[The Montana Professor 24.1, Spring 2014 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]