September 13, 2011 -- Here's the letter sent to faculty with a negotiations update:

Dear Colleagues,

We write to update you on the status of AFUM contract negotiations. Faculty have been working without a contract since the last agreement expired on June 30, 2011. Negotiating is nearly at a standstill.

Although several issues remain unresolved, the greatest differences are financial. The administration has offered across-the-board salary increases of 0.5% (½ of 1%) per year for two years, and has indicated no interest in improving that figure. We find this proposal to be insulting in view of the developments of recent years:

• UMS Tuition has increased every year. In-state undergraduate tuition has gone up an average of 7.8% each year for the last seven years.
• Faculty salaries continue to increase at Maine Maritime Academy, the only other public baccalaureate institution in the State. Those increases have been at least 3% per year for the last six years.
• UMS Faculty salaries have not kept pace with those at peer institutions or reasonable cost-of-living measures. Our salaries have been stagnant for the last two years.
• UMS compensation and benefits expenses actually declined by $1 million last year.
• UMS has posted surpluses totaling $152 million over the last five years. Profit was a record $55 million last year, and is projected to be over $24 million this year.
• AFUM has cooperated in UMS cost-reduction efforts, including the Employee Health Plan Task Force (EHPTF), three incarnations of the Retirement Health Plan Task Force (RHPTF), and selection of the UMS health plan administrator.
• The full-time faculty ranks have shrunk. The size of the AFUM unit has dropped by 80 since 2007. This number is determined in October each year. We anticipate a proportional decrease in the 2011 figure to be provided next month.

The UMS administration has asked us to accept and implement EHPTF recommendations while leaving the remainder of AFUM contract negotiations unresolved. While we believe in the principles of those recommendations, primarily focused on wellness, we insist on achieving a comprehensive, fair contract for the faculty rather than “cherry-picking” selected items.

Recently, faculty support helped to convince the administration to process wrongfully withheld post-tenure increases. Thank you. We needed your help, we appreciate it, and we will continue to need it as we go forward. We, together, are AFUM. It is by acting in concert that we can affect our working conditions and, by extension, our students’ learning conditions.

We will meet with the administration again on Friday, September 16th, after which we will provide another update. Meanwhile, please continue to tell administrators that the UMS needs a sustainable faculty.

In Solidarity,

Ron Mosley
AFUM President

Jim McClymer
AFUM V.P. and Chair, Negotiating Team

August 18, 2011

We are without a contract. We have met regularly with the administration since last spring to negotiate a successor to the contract that expired on June 30, 2011.

We continue our efforts to improve circumstances that have stagnated in recent years. We have made numerous contract proposals, financial and otherwise, with responses ranging from disinterest to outright rejection. The most important issues, which the administration seems reluctant to address, are financial.

UMS has posted record surpluses in recent years -- $55 million last year and over $20 million projected this year. A business would call these profits. Tuition increases significantly every year, but UMS compensation and benefits actually declined last year. What’s wrong with this picture? Please tell every administrator that faculty deserve a fair contract now.

August 16, 2011

We learned recently that the administration has instructed the universities to withhold Post Tenure Compensation increases resulting from quadrennial faculty evaluations during the past academic year until a new AFUM contract is implemented. This is an egregious breach of faith. Tenured faculty earned these increases over a four-year period spanning the last two AFUM contracts, and the administration is holding them hostage as bargaining leverage.

This breach is a huge impediment to negotiations, which are not progressing well. The administration has yet to present a financial proposal. There is no indication that we will have a new agreement in the near future.

Most recently, the administration offered an interim ½ of 1% across-the-board increase if we would agree to reinstate the lapsed contract for six months, implement the recommendations of the Employee Health Plan Task Force (EHPTF), and refrain from concerted activity to achieve a new, fair contract. Although that would release the Post Tenure hostages, we rejected it as an attempt to avoid the broader issues while cherry-picking a few items that the administration wants now.

Several of you have asked what AFUM is doing about this situation. We are pressuring System administrators to honor their commitments to long-term, full-time faculty members. We have filed a grievance on behalf of those affected. Please help by contacting campus and System administrators; tell them to fulfill their obligations. With your support, we can right this wrong in much less time than would be possible through grievance/legal proceedings.