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EMU Administration Agrees to Recommendations of Fact Finding Report on Key Issues of Salary Increases and Health Care Insurance Premiums, But One Key Issue Remains Unresolved

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The fact finding report is out. Before we go into details, we believe
that the recommendations are a fair compromise. In general, the AAUP is pleased that a neutral, expert 3rd party examined our contract dispute, and made recommendations. We stand behind our earlier statements to accept the recommendations IF the administration does.

There is a formal negotiating session set with the administration for
Friday, April 6th, when we will find out their intentions.

In addition, please come to a full faculty meeting to discuss the status
of negotiations: Monday, April 9th at 2:30 in the Roosevelt Auditorium. (There will be another meeting later to present the actual contract language before a ratification vote.)

COMPENSATION:
ACROSS THE BOARD:
2006-07: 3.50% fully retroactive to 9/1/2006
2007-08: 3.00% + $750 (equivalent of 4.06%)
2008-09: 3.60% + $100 (equivalent of 3.75%)
2009-10: 3.75% + $100 (equivalent of 3.88%)

TIAA-CREF:
2006-07: 10.00% (no change from current contract)
2007-08: 10.50%
2008-09: 10.75%
2009-10: 11.00%

PROMOTION INCREMENTS:
All four years:
To Assistant $3,000
To Associate $4,500
To Full $6,000

CONTINUING EDUCATION PAY (per credit hour)
2006-07: $1,200
2007-08: $1,400
2008-09: $1,450
2009-10: $1,500

SUBSTITUTION PAY:
$60 per hour starting with the first hour


HEALTH CARE

PPO-1:
Deductibles $250 single, $500 2-person or family
Co-Insurance $500 single, $1,000 2-person or family

PPO-2:
Premiums
2006-07: $0
2007-08 (starting 1/1/08): $650 single; $950 2-person or family
2008-09 (starting 1/1/09): $709 single; $1,036 2-person or family
2009-10 (starting 1/1/10): $779 single; $1,139 2-person or family

TRADITIONAL and HMO Plans
Premiums
2006-07: $0
2007-08 (starting 1/1/08): $1,200 for everyone
2008-09 (starting 1/1/09): $1,308 for everyone
2009-10 (starting 1/1/10): $1,439 for everyone

Quoting from the fact finding report: “I am fully aware that some of the above recommendations will be unpalatable to the other side. However, these recommendations are designed to be taken together, as a package of reasonable proposals, supported by the evidence adduced at hearing, and believed to be, as a package, the basis on which the parties can settle their 2006-10 contract.”

Thanks for all of your tremendous support during this process. If we
stand strong and together, we can achieve the fair contract that we know is fair for the faculty and students of Eastern Michigan University.

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The fact finding hearings have just ended, and I could not be more
pleased with the effort and dedication displayed by our fact finding team.

We had great support from many faculty members coming by to support us.
Again, it was greatly appreciated.

Here is what occurred yesterday at the hearings:

• The AAUP presented our health care proposals and retroactivity
exhibits, which are at
http://emuprofessors.org/files/EMUprofessors_Factfinding_Presentation.pdf
(starting at slide 390. We also presented our rebuttal to health care
and our rebuttal to their presentation on retroactivity, which is at
http://emuprofessors.org/contract2006/factfinding, if you scroll down to
the bottom.

• Our main points on health care were:
o We accept new premiums and new out of pocket faculty health care
costs. However, these should be slowly phased in and/or alleviated by
higher raises, as was done at the comparable institutions.
o Any raise to faculty should be a combination of a flat percentage plus
a dollar amount to help lower paid faculty. In addition, new faculty
should not have any health care premiums imposed on them.
o Choice of health care plans needs to be maintained.
o The comparables have had health care premiums for multiple contracts,
and it is unrealistic for EMU to be comparable in year 1. The question
is how to structure this transitional contract

• We finished with a discussion of retroactivity, where we stressed that
we want 3.5% fully retroactive, as well as the TIAA-CREF contribution
associated with it. The administration now seems to accept that health
care premiums should start in Jan 2008, so they only want to offer us 2%
retroactive for this academic year. The comparable institutions
received an average raise of over 4% in 2006-07, so what we are asking
for is very reasonable.

• Once again, the administration decided to play by its own rules. In
the middle of their last presentation on retroactivity, they handed out
a detailed spreadsheet on cost factors. This should have been presented
to the AAUP on February 1st, as that is when we presented all of our
cost information. At worst, it should have been included as a rebuttal
exhibit to our compensation presentation, where we presented a series of
slides on the cost of a 1% raise. They did not and chose to wait until
the last 15 minutes of three days of hearings to give us this
information, to make sure that it received as little critique and evaluation
as possible. We strongly objected, and the fact finder gave us time to
digest the new information and respond. We did so, and asked him to be
skeptical of key pieces of information that were slid into the hearings
long after the most appropriate time and so there could be as little
scrutiny as possible. We believe the AAUP's approach of giving
everything up front
helped the fact-finder prepare for the hearings, and we continue to be
disappointed in how the administration tried to game the system for
every possible advantage. The basic idea of fact-finding and the
university is open debate, and they set an extremely poor example to
faculty, students and the community.
• Here are some numbers:
o On February 1, the administration submitted 65 pages of
compensation-related exhibits. During the hearings, the
administration’s compensation presentations morphed into 185 pages, many
of which contained new empirical data that was not delivered on the 1st.
o On February 1, the administration submitted 44 pages of health
care-related exhibits. During the hearings, the administration’s health
care presentations morphed into 101 pages, which again contained many
new empirical tables and inferences.

Where do we go from here? Both sides have to present a written report
to the fact finder on March 16th. Neither side gets to rebut these
reports, which are a summary of our positions. Then, the fact finder
indicated that he would have a final report by the first week of April.

What happens at that point will be a main subject of discussion at
today’s chapter meeting, at 2:30 in Halle Auditorium (downstairs).
Please come by and hear more details, and maybe even thank the fact
finding team for their hard work.

To review, our team is:
• Linda Woodland
• Megan Endres
• Diana Wong
• Paul Leighton
• Jim Carroll
• Dave Crary
• Jim VandenBosch
• Howard Bunsis
• And a special thanks to our Office Manager, Julie Berger, who was a
tremendous source of strength and support for our team.

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PRESS RELEASE:

Eastern Michigan University American Association of University Professors (EMU-AAUP)

YPSILANTI - On February 2, 2007, the Michigan Appellate Court issued a decision in National Pride At Work, Inc. v. Granholm, concluding that Michigan public universities cannot provide domestic partnership benefits to the same-sex partners of employees or the partners' children, and directing that its ruling take effect immediately. The plaintiffs were working with the ACLU in this case.

Details: 2007 Salary Calculator

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On Dec 19, the EMU-AAUP and the administration had a hearing as part of the fact-finding process that was devoted entirely to selecting a set of comparable institutions. At an initial hearing in Nov, the sides had been asked to bring a list of comparable institutions that would be the basis for further analysis about salary and health care. When there were no common institution on the lists, the fact-finder scheduled this hearing (aditional background).

Details: Eastern Michigan University President John Fallon’s leadership is getting failing grades from most professors who took part in a poll about his performance. "The survey overwhelmingly demonstrates that our faculty is very disappointed in President Fallon’s leadership,” said Howard Bunsis, president of the EMU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which conducted the survey.

About half of EMU’s 675-member faculty participated in the poll, which asked members to agree or disagree that Fallon is effectively demonstrating 15 different leadership qualities. The full results are attached to this release (see attachment below).

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Below is a message EMU-AAUP President Bunsis sent to the faculty. Since sending it, we have heard that various administrators are claiming that there on ongoing ('secret') negotiations and a settlement is near. This is simply not true. We have met with the administration once about some technical matters related to health care (see agenda below), but neither side put forward new positions. We are currently having talks with the administration about the possibility of having a second session. Given recent administrative positions described below (no retoactive pay, for example), they seem to be moving further away from a settlement rather than closer.

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Dear Regents:

I write as chair of the Ypsilanti-EMU Alliance, a group of local residents and EMU community members, to urge you to table or reject the proposal to close College Place to create a $1.3 million dollar “pedestrian mall”. Given the sharp cuts in support for academic needs and student services on campus, where so many urgent needs go unmet, this money can be better spent elsewhere.