Now Board of Regents Must Vote to Make Contract Official
(YPSILANTI)After seven months of Eastern Michigan University faculty working under their old contract, after sometimes contentious negotiations and a 12 day strike in September, the Eastern Michigan University faculty today overwhelmingly voted to approve a contract agreement with EMU administration 326 to 11, or 97% to 3%. Faculty and administration reached the tentative agreement voted on today in a bargaining session April 10th. With union membership now having approved the contract, the last step toward the contract becoming official is for it to be approved by the EMU Board of Regents. The Board is expected to vote on the proposed contract in the near future.
We are extremely pleased that our members have voted to ratify this agreement, said Howard Bunsis, president of the Eastern Michigan University chapter of the American Association of University professors, the union representing emus faculty. We have been working to get our members a fair contract for quite some time and we are happy that we were able to present them an agreement that includes reasonable compensation increases comparable with other universities and that this agreement met our members approval. We hope the Board of Regents will also approve this agreement and we can finally put the negotiation process behind us and work together toward the best interests of the university.
Salary increases and health insurance premiums had been major sticking points in the negotiation process. An independent fact-finder was commissioned to study each sides contract proposal, and issue what he believed to be a fair settlement. In order to serve the university's and students best interests, EMU professors urged the administration to agree with them to accept the fact finders report before it was released, and offered the same agreement after the report was released early last week. Last Friday, the EMU administration finally agreed with faculty that the independent fact finders report was a fair compromise. The faculty union is grateful to the hard work of independent fact finder, Benjamin Kerner.
The fact finding report recommended that the administration should meet professors proposed salary increases of 3.50%, 4.06%, 3.75% and 3.88% over the next four years. Faculty will also receive an additional 1% contribution to their retirement plans, with the 1% increase spread out over the last three years of the contract. The report also recommended that the administrations proposal of implementing a premium for professors on health insurance premiums should be accepted. The premiums would cost professors on average about $1,000, depending on their individual health plan.
Overall, Bunsis said he was glad to be close to a contract settlement. Said Bunsis, I am very proud of the strength and solidarity that our members have demonstrated. Throughout this process, EMU professors bargained in good faith and put EMUs students first, and that is why we were able to reach this agreement.