I was reading carefully through the full page ad that ran yesterday in the DE and Southern Illusion. Personally, I have been very impressed that the administration and faculty union haven't been firing on each other in the press like the last time. I was surprised to see these ads yesterday. The administration villainization of the professors during the last negotiation surely helped achieve the current decrease in students. The marketing story that SIUC has is the professors, the students don't come here to learn from Uncle Walt and his gang.
The ad is all about the money. 4.5% raises in FY2007 and 3% raises for the following 4 years. Acting Chairmen are getting 10%, up from 7%. After that it is hard to figure out what is really being offered. For example, there is a section about Salary parity and compression money, but that doesn't say if it is a part of the listed 4.5% and 3% pay raises. The administration is asking to reward half the raise pool to who ever they like, but if the administration isn't trustworthy are they going to play favorites and buy people.
I noted recently that the federal government is giving 3.3% increase to social security, so that is the absolute bottom rate of inflation. As anyone who follows these things knows that the feds aren't counting energy or housing in their inflation numbers, so it is certainly higher. I think the SIUC professors are going to lose 1% to inflation each year of this contact and maybe much more. Might be time to look for work elsewhere if you are able?
I guess if the administration is claiming to be cash poor and this is the best they can do, it would be only fair to limit all the administrators to 3% pay raises for 5 years too? Has anyone run the numbers on the percent raises of the administrators against faculty for the last few years? I'm thinking if acting chairs are getting 10% per year, how much are the rest of the SIUC big shots getting? I hear certain highly placed administrators who had their picture in the DE yesterday received a 24% pay raise last year. Without knowing any more details, the over/under on administration big shot raises is 16% at my bookie. I'm wondering how you get over a 10% raise when you are leading an organization that is headed in the wrong direction? Just the way it is in America today I guess.
To quote a famous and now dead celebrity, "Let them eat cake."
As always, your comments are welcome. I'm looking forward to someone explaining what is being offered.
2 comments:
First, having a union like a bunch of dock workers hasn't got the Faculty a penny more than they would have gotten without it. With no union they would have gotten a 3% raise just like everybody else back on July 1.
Second, how many due paying members do they actually have? Only they know. I think if the truth were known, there are fewer actual dues paying members than people suspect. That's why they push for "fair share" so hard.
Granted WW is a dick but the faculty would have been better off if they would have worked through the Faculty Senate and made Walter fulfill the goal of So@150 to increase the competitiveness of faculty salaries. They would probably be ahead of where the antagonistic labor vs. management unioin approach has led them.
I'm kind of surprised that you don't know that labor unions are a reaction by workers to poor management. SIU has been poorly managed long enough that even the professors managed to unionize.
I think you are a dreamer about SIU administration working with the Faculty Senate (unless they are planning to use lots of lube). This administration has broken the rules every way possible. They claim a 2% reduction from the state and never mention the 15% increase from tuition. They are going to build a football stadium with the money needed for basic academic improvements. Are you paying attention?
When I worked as a consultant for DEC and sat at Microsoft, I used to have a saying. DEC and Microsoft are perfect partners, Microsoft likes to screw over their partners and DEC likes to be screwed. Now if DEC is equal to faculty and Microsoft is equal to Wendler/SIUC administration what do you get? The current situations right?
Maybe you should grow a backbone and start sticking up for yourselves, instead of hiding in your office? It isn't magic, the management is bad and only by lots of people calling it bad and getting involved will anything change.
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