Faculty union reaches tentative agreement on first contract

After more than 500 days of negotiations, Miami University and its first faculty union, the Faculty Alliance of Miami (FAM), have reached a tentative first contract agreement.

The journey to a first contract has been years in the making, with faculty members first announcing plans to unionize in early 2022. At the time, many cited inequity between tenured and non-tenured faculty, a lack of influence in decision making and the university’s decision not to renew contracts for more than 200 visiting assistant professors (VAPs) at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic as key motivators.

After more than a year of organizing, two thirds of faculty members voted in favor of unionization in May 2023. The state had ruled just months before that the union could not include VAPs or librarians in the same bargaining unit, however. Librarians have since formed their own unit as FAM-L.

Last December, roughly 100 faculty and librarians attended a Miami Board of Trustees meeting to protest what they called slow progress on negotiations. Faculty members and librarians haven’t received raises since 2022 while negotiations have continued.

Under the tentative agreement, which was reached after a full day of negotiations Feb. 24, FAM members will now receive a 9.27% raise, equivalent to 3% each year going back to 2023, the first year of the contract. Faculty will receive lump sum payments equivalent to the raises they would have received in 2023 and 2024 within 90 days of the agreement’s ratification, lead negotiator Theresa Kulbaga said in an interview with the Oxford Free Press.

“The union went into negotiations yesterday determined to close our contract,” Kulbaga said. “We’ve been negotiating for 544 days, and with the political landscape, we really just wanted to get a first contract.”

Negotiators spent all day Monday locked in conversation to determine final contract details, Kulbaga said. It wasn’t until 5 p.m. that it became clear that both sides would reach a tentative agreement.

In a press release, FAM described the agreement as one of the first in higher education to make artificial intelligence a bargainable subject. The agreement also “introduces new mechanisms for resolving workplace disputes and provides greater stability for faculty members,” according to the press release.

Kulbaga said she’s most excited about increased job security and academic freedom under the tentative agreement, both of which she said will benefit students.

A bargaining update from the university states that the next step is for FAM and the Miami Board of Trustees to vote to ratify the agreement. The Board of Trustees is set to meet on Feb. 27 and 28, but the current agendas do not include voting on a contract. A spokesperson for the university said he was unsure whether the board would vote on the contract this week.

The FAM Librarians union is at the negotiating table today. Kulbaga said the goal is to reach a final agreement for them, as well.

According to FAM’s bargaining status tracker, the final agreements reached on Feb. 24 included compensation, benefits, promotion of TCPL faculty, faculty evaluation and performance improvement plans. The university and the union also reached agreements on association and management rights, as well as academic reorganization and intellectual property, copyright and online course content.

The agreement comes at a time of uncertainty for Miami. The university has eliminated dozens of programs in the past two years and recently introduced a new workload policy and announced intentions not to renew the contracts of many VAPs across departments. While the contract is a win for tenure-line and TCPL faculty, Kulbaga said, there is more work to be done.

“We are seeing it as a bright spot in a year where we’ve gotten a lot of bad news from the University and a lot of top-down decision making,” Kulbaga said. “... We’re still working with partners at the university, in University Senate and students to get clarity on the workload increases, but closing this contract gives us a solid path forward.”