Agreement reached on economic and appointment issues

Updated 11:00 AM April 26, 2004

Agreement reached on economic and appointment issues

By Julie Peterson
Office of the Vice President for Communications

After four extended days of bargaining April 15-18, the University and the Lecturers' Employee Organization (LEO) reached tentative agreements on four major issues that had been sticking points in earlier discussions: the appointment process, salaries, benefits and implementation of the contract.

Several small contract articles still need to be resolved, but Jeffery Frumkin, assistant provost and chief negotiator for the University, says the remaining discussions should proceed rapidly. He estimates that a contract could be finalized within a couple of weeks.

"We were able to realize a majority of our goals."
—Bonnie Halloran,
LEO president

The two teams were scheduled to resume bargaining April 23. Discussions still were ongoing at Record press time Friday. Bargaining sessions will continue until the final details of the contract have been worked out. Once a complete contract has been agreed upon, the contract language will go to the full LEO membership for ratification.

Provost Paul N. Courant says he is pleased at the outcome of the negotiations.

"These agreements were reached after very hard work by members of both bargaining teams," he says. "They serve to improve salaries and provide more predictable employment for lecturers on all three campuses, while still giving the University the flexibility it needs to adjust to changing enrollment patterns and budgetary pressures."

"We're very pleased. We were able to realize a majority of our goals," says Bonnie Halloran, LEO president and U-M-Dearborn adjunct lecturer of behavioral sciences. LEO members on the three campuses voted 128-10 in favor of the tentative agreement, she says. Halloran calls the tentative agreement "a good first contract" and says LEO has had a "very good working relationship with the University."

The proposed appointment process sets out four titles, lecturer I-IV. Lecturers I and II are hired to teach a specific course or courses. Lecturers III and IV are able to teach a broader range of courses and also may have administrative or service responsibilities within their departments. Adjunct lecturers or professors, those who have primary employment elsewhere but are hired to teach one or more courses, will be addressed separately through a memorandum of understanding.

Under the agreement, instructors holding the title of lecturer I or II will be hired per term for the first three years, then, after a successful performance review, will be hired on an annual basis. Instructors designated as lecturer I will be considered for promotion to lecturer II after the first review. After six years and two successful reviews, they will receive three-year contracts. These major reviews will supplement the ongoing, regular performance evaluations that all faculty receive.

Those designated lecturer III and IV will receive a series of one-year appointments for the first four years, at which point they will undergo a major review. If successful, they will be appointed for a three-to-five-year contract with another review at the end of that period. Lecturer IIIs will be considered for promotion to lecturer IV after the first review.

Lecturers will have a "presumption of reappointment" after the first review period, provided they have successful performance which meets the standards for excellence as prescribed by their departmental evaluation criteria, and provided the enrollment demand for the course(s) still is strong, and the budget resources are available to support them.

Minimum full-time salaries were set for the three campuses as follows: for lecturers I and II, Ann Arbor: $31,000, Dearborn: $25,000 and Flint: $23,000; lecturers III and IV, Ann Arbor: $34,000, Dearborn: $30,000 and Flint: $29,000. Minimums for lecturers I and II are scheduled to increase in 2006-07 to $25,500 in Dearborn and $23,500 in Flint. Frumkin notes many instructors are paid well above the minimums because of market demand and other factors.

Individual instructors will receive an annual salary increase equal to the average faculty increase in the arts and sciences college of each campus. Lecturers also will be eligible for additional promotional salary increases after their first two successful performance reviews.

Under the agreement, LEO members appointed at half-time or greater will continue to receive University benefits, including medical insurance for instructors and their dependents.

The union agreed to the University's health insurance premium-sharing structure, with the provision that any substantial changes to the proportion of health insurance premiums paid by the University will be negotiated with the union. The University agreed to bridge benefits during the summer for those returning instructors appointed at half-time or greater in both the fall and winter terms.

Once finalized, the contract would cover a three-year period beginning in September 2004, with two exceptions. The benefits bridge would begin in summer 2004. Implementation of the new appointment process and title structure would be delayed until September 2005, to allow time to fold existing instructors into the new structure.

Updates on the progress of negotiations are posted regularly to the University's Web site at http://www.umich.edu/~hraa/leo/.

Agreement reached on economic and appointment issues

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