Central Michigan University and the faculty union representing over 500 professors, agreed on a new contract on July 29 after 11 bargaining sessions. The contract will be effective from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2029.
It secures annual salary raises, increases the university’s contributions to faculty’s medical insurance and makes changes to sabbatical and parental leave, according to a news release from CMU.
Amanda Garrison, the union president, said this contract is not a bad option.
"I feel like this is a contract that's a step in a good direction for 2029,” Garrison said. “I think it gives us a place to start from to build better for us. ... Every contract is a steppingstone to a better one. They're living documents. None of them are ever going to be perfect.”
According to CMU, Dennis Armistead, executive director of faculty personnel services, said CMU and the union worked to come up with a contract that captures “important and complex matters.”
“We are pleased with the newly ratified contract,” Armistead said.
A CMU spokesperson said in an email to WCMU that no one from the administration was willing to comment further on the new contract.
Stephanie Mathson, a faculty member in library research and instruction services and the union's vice president, said she is mostly satisfied with it as well.
“The new contract does not make up for the extent of our financial losses over the past five years, but overall, I’m satisfied with the raises and small additional contributions to our healthcare premiums that we will receive,” Mathson said. “The financial terms are better than current contracts at several comparable institutions.”
How did the past contract affect faculty?
When the negotiations for the contract were happening, Mathson said she was hoping for “good financial terms” and security of the existing health insurance plan.
That is because the previous contract made the faculty suffer financial losses, she said.
For example, each year the salary increase were about 1% with the previous contract. An additional $500 bonus could be given to faculty if they meet a certain number of student credit hours, but Mathson said credit hours is not something that faculty is in control of.
“Of course, nobody anticipated in the summer of 2019, when this contract was reached and ratified, that we were going to be in a worldwide pandemic,” Mathson said. “But that is really where we fell even further behind, not just from small raises, but from the inflation.”
From 2019 to 2024, faculty experienced a 15% pay cut, because their raises were not enough to compare to the 19% inflation rate, according to a press release from the union.
Meanwhile, in the past five years, two new senior administrative positions were added. Administrators also received an 8.5% raise in their salaries, the press release read.
Additionally, Mathson said the COVID-19 pandemic put a lot of stress on faculty because they had to change their plans, teach online while taking care of their families and their health.
“A lot of people didn't feel like the university really helped us enough, ... or was supportive enough,” Mathson said.
Garrison agreed.
“We're still traumatized by (COVID-19 pandemic),” Garrison added. “No one acknowledges it. No one wants to talk about COVID. But we lived through that, we had people who risked their lives to do their jobs.”
Garrison said the faculty submitted a petition to require a vaccine mandate, but CMU didn’t sign the document. She said it was also a long process for faculty who needed to teach from home to apply to do so and give a reason why.
Additionally, during the pandemic, CMU cancelled spring break without agreeing with the union, even though changes to the calendar had to be negotiated with the union, Garrison said.
“If we can't have a healthy faculty ... we can't go into the classroom with the energy students need to feel like learning,” she said. “We have to help them realize their dreams, we have to help them chase those rainbows, and we can't do that if we're burned out, run down, demoralized, broke.”
What are some of the faculty union's future hopes?
Both Garrison and Mathson said it is important to start working on the next contract now to make sure the faculty gets what they need in 2029.
“I don’t want the Faculty Association to become complacent,” Mathson said. “We need to start preparing for our next contract now.”
Garrison said she is excited about future work and engagement with the union membership.
“We can't rely on CMU to take care of us the way that we can take care of us,” Garrison said. “The union is the place where the care for faculty happens. ... This is the body that protects us. And it needs to be strong. It needs to be confident.”
One of the special moments where the union showed its strength was the demonstration at the Bovee University Center during the Board of Trustees meeting this summer, Garrison said.
The negotiations for the contract were still going on, and over 70 faculty members came to say what they want in the contract.
“That was magnificent,” Garrison said. “We showed up. We were there. ... I want them to be proud of our union, I want them to be proud of us and themselves. I'm so proud of this union. And I just want it to be something that everybody feels good in.”
Garrison said the faculty love their students and the work they do. And said that there is a lot of important work that the union will need to do in the future to ensure the faculty has what they need to be there for students.
She said that everyone in the university is connected — faculty, students and staff — and each part of it needs to be treated well in order for the institution to function.
“We all have that drum beating in our chest,” Garrison said. “Faculty are at the heart of CMU, we want to be beating in the chest of our students for the rest of their lives. And we can't do that if we don't have what we need.”
