We are pleased to report that we have reached agreement and secured several successes in our impact bargaining negotiations, a process that we began in July and continued through mediation over the last several months. At our most recent mediation session we arrived at an agreement that achieves a number of gains for our members which would not have been possible without the months of effort by our impact bargaining team. Read the Memorandum of Agreement here.
Below is a summary of several of the gains secured in this Agreement:
● A pool of $200,000 will be available to compensate 9- and 10-month NTT teaching faculty for off-contract preparation work in summer 2020. We are pleased to make headway in providing additional compensation for many of our lowest paid and most vulnerable faculty members, while recognizing that the amount we won does not match the amount of off-contract work done. 9- and 10-month NTT faculty will soon receive an email survey that will determine the exact distribution of these funds.
● The agreement incorporates a process for TT faculty to request workload adjustments to offset their off-contract summer 2020 course preparation work.
● As previously reported, TT faculty will now have their tenure clocks extended automatically (unless faculty requested otherwise). This removed the burden from TT faculty caregivers to not have to formally request an extension during this critical time for their families.
● For the current academic year (2020-21), faculty may apply to use professional development funds in support of remote work. A new addition to this provision is that PDF may also be used to support the salaries of both student teaching assistants and student research assistants for this year only, upon faculty request.
● There is now a clear process to request a change in teaching modality. Once a request is made, faculty may expect to have a response within a week. United Academics is available to support faculty through the request process.
● Quantitative data from course evaluations in three consecutive semesters (spring 2020, fall 2020, and spring 2021) will not be used as the deciding factor in any negative teaching assessment for RPT decisions, and evaluators will receive a formal reminder to consider COVID’s impact on student feedback.