Before I rant, I will say that I have mixed feelings about unions in general but feel they are overwhelmingly a force for good. That being said, I am in a faculty union and it is often painful. My specific gripe is just the complete lack of performance based incentives.
In our collective agreement, our raises (we do get them, so +1 for the union?) are exclusively based on seniority as a percent of your salary. Our performance has exactly zero impact on our raises. I was recently promoted to full (yay!), which came with a very small bump in salary, but for the rest of my career there is almost nothing I can do that would impact my salary trajectory. The only exception is if I get an external offer at another university, then my institute can decide if they want to match it. We do get occasional performance based lump sum bonuses, but they are small and as far as I can tell everyone wins and we get the same.
So, from a completely selfish perspective there is really no reason for me to write another grant or take on another grad student. Maybe I would eventually have to, but I could basically go on autopilot and it would have absolutely no impact on my salary. Meanwhile, this all encourages me to consult and do other work that will pay extra.
I think the saving grace is that most people who make it here are internally motivated, and honestly I dont see myself putting my feet up. However, what kind of system is this?
My state does not permit unions (or at least doesnt really deal with them).
In fact, the recent bills before the legislature are clearly anti faculty.
The current bill, (likely to be passed and signed by the republican administration) will require that 1/2 of the faculty senate be appointed by the university president.
It creates an additional level of board approval for core courses and will limit or reduce classes that do not have or foster employment related skills.
For raises, our enrollment is flat or falling, and the state has not approved tuition increases for several years. The result is that At Best, with no way to get more money via new students or higher tuition we are 'lucky' to keep salaries flat!
Union or not, where there is no money, there are no raises, merit or otherwise!
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When I was first on the job market as a potential new hire, I applied at a union school. Everything was controlled by a salary scale. They would give me credit for all prior teaching, but the salary offered was still 1/3rd lower than the job I took!
While unions may pay higher scale for some disciplines, my discipline is already a higher paying one, so the union scale was a detriment to business based faculty.
So that is both a good and an ugly, depending on your circumstances.
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The bottom line here, is that they are not particularly beneficial or helpful at my current employer.
We never got any kind of raise worth thinking about until we finally got a union. That said, my university does have a system of merit raises, so there's incentive to be productive.
I think the union is not really the part of the university to go to about this: the administration is where the merit and productivity incentives (in the form of money) should come from. But you could certainly raise the matter with the union in preparation for the next go-round of bargaining.
Quote from: Hegemony on May 27, 2025, 02:36:55 PMWe never got any kind of raise worth thinking about until we finally got a union. That said, my university does have a system of merit raises, so there's incentive to be productive.
I think the union is not really the part of the university to go to about this: the administration is where the merit and productivity incentives (in the form of money) should come from. But you could certainly raise the matter with the union in preparation for the next go-round of bargaining.
Yeah, but it is all pretty established. I doubt it will change. I recognize tatt merit based raises are challenging too, it is pretty subjective in many ways. I don't mean to complain, I am in a good place, but it is frustrating that effort is not rewarded. I am not the type to put my feet up, but I can't say that for everyone.
If I want to earn more money, there are plenty of options so this is mostly just a rant.
Our faculty union is driving me batty because they keep pushing for "part-timer equity" by paying PT faculty for committees and other service work that should be done by FTs.
Faculty voice is going out the window because committees have PTs sitting there getting paid, not wanting to say anything.
JUST ADVOCATE FOR MORE FT FACULTY FFS!
My main gripe is that the seniority rules mean that when a course is cancelled (which happens a lot, because they start cancelling when enrollment is below 27--and it's capped at 35), the faculty member must scoop one from somebody lower down the ladder. Which means that with certain rather unpopular faculty members, they may go through several rounds of cancellation and scooping, thereby draining the pool for the rest of us.
(We don't get nice thinks like merit pay, raises, and the like, and we're among the lowest-paid faculty in the country despite being in the highest COL area. But our admin is totally psychopathic, so the union has its hands full ensuring that they catch and rectify all the wage theft, lies, etc. So, you know. Priorities, I guess.)
Quote from: Kron3007 on May 27, 2025, 01:31:14 PMBefore I rant, I will say that I have mixed feelings about unions in general but feel they are overwhelmingly a force for good. That being said, I am in a faculty union and it is often painful. My specific gripe is just the complete lack of performance based incentives.
In my view, unions are only beneficial if there is a need to be protected from management. In situations where you have an ethical, responsible, and responsive management, unions are unnecessary. We have optional membership in our union with dues being a percentage of your salary, which disincentivizes higher paid employees to have a full membership to influence priorities and policies of the union. So as a consequence, what I've seen is that unions tend to change merit-based salary increases into uniform salary increases for everyone, they create unnecessary work for those in supervisory roles (without additional compensation for that work), and also leak information to the public media sources that serves only one purpose --- to benefit the employees in the union --- without regard to the negative blow-back on academic programs for things like recruiting students.
Quote from: AJ_Katz on May 28, 2025, 11:37:21 AMQuote from: Kron3007 on May 27, 2025, 01:31:14 PMBefore I rant, I will say that I have mixed feelings about unions in general but feel they are overwhelmingly a force for good. That being said, I am in a faculty union and it is often painful. My specific gripe is just the complete lack of performance based incentives.
In my view, unions are only beneficial if there is a need to be protected from management. In situations where you have an ethical, responsible, and responsive management, unions are unnecessary. We have optional membership in our union with dues being a percentage of your salary, which disincentivizes higher paid employees to have a full membership to influence priorities and policies of the union. So as a consequence, what I've seen is that unions tend to change merit-based salary increases into uniform salary increases for everyone, they create unnecessary work for those in supervisory roles (without additional compensation for that work), and also leak information to the public media sources that serves only one purpose --- to benefit the employees in the union --- without regard to the negative blow-back on academic programs for things like recruiting students.
Many months ago, I explained on the Fora that the behavior of unions for good or ill varies widely according to the institutional constraints [laws], and hence incentives, they face. In each case, the union will appeal to the median member, except that union leadership can be self-perpetuating. There are too many different structures to go into, so let me illustrate with just the extremes.
The most hilarious, except for the consequences, was pre-Thatcher Britain. Unions were essentially outside civil law, so they did what they pleased when they pleased. A famously studied example was a tire factory. Good to study because there's one man to one machine. Workers are of different quality and the machines are in different states of repair. If you were the shop manager and wanted to maximize output, you'd allocate the best men to the best machines. Well, in Britain, every morning, a massive fist fight would break out for gaining access to the best machines. So, the best fighters got the best machines! Not in this factory, but in other places, elections to union leadership were held in parking lots after dark. If you didn't vote the right way, you got beat up. Pre-Thatcher British unions had the worst incentives in recorded history.
The most efficient laws are extant in Japan. The country stumbled into these institutions post WW II. Japanese unions are company unions. Thus they do nothing to endanger the existence of the company, while providing local public goods to the workers. They ensure governance that is seen as equitable, and hence legitimate. It's best to see their beneficial effect in an extreme case -- underground mining. The old [male] workers want safety, the young [male] workers want excitement! You can't send an HR in suit and tie down there to adjudicate -- he'd get beaten up by both sides! The union guys do it.
The US is somewhat of an anomaly, since the Clayton Act [1914] it hasn't been as bad as pre-Thatcher Britain, and since Taft-Hartley [1947] unions have had an uphill battle, leaving them essentially only in the public sector.
There are many more details, also for other countries, but you get the picture from the extremes.
For purposes of this thread, and if there's no violence in union elections, it's probably sufficient to understand that the union reflects the interests of the median member.
Quote from: dismalist on May 28, 2025, 12:24:30 PMQuote from: AJ_Katz on May 28, 2025, 11:37:21 AMQuote from: Kron3007 on May 27, 2025, 01:31:14 PMBefore I rant, I will say that I have mixed feelings about unions in general but feel they are overwhelmingly a force for good. That being said, I am in a faculty union and it is often painful. My specific gripe is just the complete lack of performance based incentives.
In my view, unions are only beneficial if there is a need to be protected from management. In situations where you have an ethical, responsible, and responsive management, unions are unnecessary. We have optional membership in our union with dues being a percentage of your salary, which disincentivizes higher paid employees to have a full membership to influence priorities and policies of the union. So as a consequence, what I've seen is that unions tend to change merit-based salary increases into uniform salary increases for everyone, they create unnecessary work for those in supervisory roles (without additional compensation for that work), and also leak information to the public media sources that serves only one purpose --- to benefit the employees in the union --- without regard to the negative blow-back on academic programs for things like recruiting students.
Many months ago, I explained on the Fora that the behavior of unions for good or ill varies widely according to the institutional constraints [laws], and hence incentives, they face. In each case, the union will appeal to the median member, except that union leadership can be self-perpetuating. There are too many different structures to go into, so let me illustrate with just the extremes.
The most hilarious, except for the consequences, was pre-Thatcher Britain. Unions were essentially outside civil law, so they did what they pleased when they pleased. A famously studied example was a tire factory. Good to study because there's one man to one machine. Workers are of different quality and the machines are in different states of repair. If you were the shop manager and wanted to maximize output, you'd allocate the best men to the best machines. Well, in Britain, every morning, a massive fist fight would break out for gaining access to the best machines. So, the best fighters got the best machines! Not in this factory, but in other places, elections to union leadership were held in parking lots after dark. If you didn't vote the right way, you got beat up. Pre-Thatcher British unions had the worst incentives in recorded history.
The most efficient laws are extant in Japan. The country stumbled into these institutions post WW II. Japanese unions are company unions. Thus they do nothing to endanger the existence of the company, while providing local public goods to the workers. They ensure governance that is seen as equitable, and hence legitimate. It's best to see their beneficial effect in an extreme case -- underground mining. The old [male] workers want safety, the young [male] workers want excitement! You can't send an HR in suit and tie down there to adjudicate -- he'd get beaten up by both sides! The union guys do it.
The US is somewhat of an anomaly, since the Clayton Act [1914] it hasn't been as bad as pre-Thatcher Britain, and since Taft-Hartley [1947] unions have had an uphill battle, leaving them essentially only in the public sector.
There are many more details, also for other countries, but you get the picture from the extremes.
For purposes of this thread, and if there's no violence in union elections, it's probably sufficient to understand that the union reflects the interests of the median member.
Yes, quite hilarious.
Where does AAUP fall within this? I would have imagined that since AAUP is a national organization that we would have more similarities in how they behave in our US academic institutions.
Quote from: AJ_Katz on May 28, 2025, 01:06:53 PMQuote from: dismalist on May 28, 2025, 12:24:30 PMQuote from: AJ_Katz on May 28, 2025, 11:37:21 AMQuote from: Kron3007 on May 27, 2025, 01:31:14 PMBefore I rant, I will say that I have mixed feelings about unions in general but feel they are overwhelmingly a force for good. That being said, I am in a faculty union and it is often painful. My specific gripe is just the complete lack of performance based incentives.
In my view, unions are only beneficial if there is a need to be protected from management. In situations where you have an ethical, responsible, and responsive management, unions are unnecessary. We have optional membership in our union with dues being a percentage of your salary, which disincentivizes higher paid employees to have a full membership to influence priorities and policies of the union. So as a consequence, what I've seen is that unions tend to change merit-based salary increases into uniform salary increases for everyone, they create unnecessary work for those in supervisory roles (without additional compensation for that work), and also leak information to the public media sources that serves only one purpose --- to benefit the employees in the union --- without regard to the negative blow-back on academic programs for things like recruiting students.
Many months ago, I explained on the Fora that the behavior of unions for good or ill varies widely according to the institutional constraints [laws], and hence incentives, they face. In each case, the union will appeal to the median member, except that union leadership can be self-perpetuating. There are too many different structures to go into, so let me illustrate with just the extremes.
The most hilarious, except for the consequences, was pre-Thatcher Britain. Unions were essentially outside civil law, so they did what they pleased when they pleased. A famously studied example was a tire factory. Good to study because there's one man to one machine. Workers are of different quality and the machines are in different states of repair. If you were the shop manager and wanted to maximize output, you'd allocate the best men to the best machines. Well, in Britain, every morning, a massive fist fight would break out for gaining access to the best machines. So, the best fighters got the best machines! Not in this factory, but in other places, elections to union leadership were held in parking lots after dark. If you didn't vote the right way, you got beat up. Pre-Thatcher British unions had the worst incentives in recorded history.
The most efficient laws are extant in Japan. The country stumbled into these institutions post WW II. Japanese unions are company unions. Thus they do nothing to endanger the existence of the company, while providing local public goods to the workers. They ensure governance that is seen as equitable, and hence legitimate. It's best to see their beneficial effect in an extreme case -- underground mining. The old [male] workers want safety, the young [male] workers want excitement! You can't send an HR in suit and tie down there to adjudicate -- he'd get beaten up by both sides! The union guys do it.
The US is somewhat of an anomaly, since the Clayton Act [1914] it hasn't been as bad as pre-Thatcher Britain, and since Taft-Hartley [1947] unions have had an uphill battle, leaving them essentially only in the public sector.
There are many more details, also for other countries, but you get the picture from the extremes.
For purposes of this thread, and if there's no violence in union elections, it's probably sufficient to understand that the union reflects the interests of the median member.
Yes, quite hilarious.
Where does AAUP fall within this? I would have imagined that since AAUP is a national organization that we would have more similarities in how they behave in our US academic institutions.
An interesting and relevant question. AAUP is best viewed as an entity that is an interest group that overlaps with a union. It's not strictly a union because it doesn't directly negotiate wages. It does have an effect on professors'
total income in that they advocate academic freedom, which we can safely assume is in the median professor's interest. It could mean a right to "do as I please", constrained by the employer, of course, but only to the degree allowed by AAUP.
Perhaps a good historical analogy is the guild. You can't employ or be employed unless you meet our standards, but we can't dictate the minutiae of your wages. [The standards can be good or bad, but they will certainly be in the interests of the standards setters!]
A good question to ask oneself about something like the AAUP, or other institution on the labor market for that matter, is how would the members, here professors, behave differently if there were no AAUP and they were all in the same union with all the other employees of a single university.
The union should be responsive to the needs and desires of the bargaining unit. Perhaps the dynamics result in it reflecting the median member.
While unions are gung ho about pay equity, there is noting that requires pay to be equal. That distiction is commonly misunderstood.
The question for Kron's school is whether the median member wants a performance-based component of their pay. That varies quite a bit among schools, so it is hard to know.
It could be that the median member does want a performance component, but the union mostly hears from those who don't. The others grump about the union at coffee breaks and internet fora. The only solution is to have enough members make that a goal that it becomes the desire of the perceived median member.
Any time you have a group banding together for a larger cause - union, political party, coalition, there will always have to be an individual trade-off for some "larger" cause.
Unions chose job security and reasonable wages and benefits.
Within our faculty union we started a subgroup to focus on our concerns. We started off working hard NOT to be divisive but one of our members took it upon herself to make a lot of outrageous statements while reminding everyone she was a member of our subgroup.
People started obviously thinking she was speaking for us as a whole. NOT GOOD.
I ended up changing jobs and later the whole thing fell apart.
I'm very happy in the UK we have UCU. If we wouldn't have, our pensions would have been devalued across the board based on the crashes during COVID in the markets. A concerted UCU effort stopped that nonsense.
Quote from: AJ_Katz on May 28, 2025, 11:37:21 AMQuote from: Kron3007 on May 27, 2025, 01:31:14 PMBefore I rant, I will say that I have mixed feelings about unions in general but feel they are overwhelmingly a force for good. That being said, I am in a faculty union and it is often painful. My specific gripe is just the complete lack of performance based incentives.
In my view, unions are only beneficial if there is a need to be protected from management. In situations where you have an ethical, responsible, and responsive management, unions are unnecessary. We have optional membership in our union with dues being a percentage of your salary, which disincentivizes higher paid employees to have a full membership to influence priorities and policies of the union. So as a consequence, what I've seen is that unions tend to change merit-based salary increases into uniform salary increases for everyone, they create unnecessary work for those in supervisory roles (without additional compensation for that work), and also leak information to the public media sources that serves only one purpose --- to benefit the employees in the union --- without regard to the negative blow-back on academic programs for things like recruiting students.
Well, leadership changes so you may have ethical management today and less so a year from now. I really dont see how an optional union would work either, but interesting to hear. As stated, I do have gripes about the union, but believe we are ultimately better off with one. We recently negotiated a pretty solid COL raise that was hard fought and I doubt we would have done nearly as well without being united.
Quote from: Kron3007 on May 29, 2025, 08:26:07 AMQuote from: AJ_Katz on May 28, 2025, 11:37:21 AMQuote from: Kron3007 on May 27, 2025, 01:31:14 PMBefore I rant, I will say that I have mixed feelings about unions in general but feel they are overwhelmingly a force for good. That being said, I am in a faculty union and it is often painful. My specific gripe is just the complete lack of performance based incentives.
In my view, unions are only beneficial if there is a need to be protected from management. In situations where you have an ethical, responsible, and responsive management, unions are unnecessary. We have optional membership in our union with dues being a percentage of your salary, which disincentivizes higher paid employees to have a full membership to influence priorities and policies of the union. So as a consequence, what I've seen is that unions tend to change merit-based salary increases into uniform salary increases for everyone, they create unnecessary work for those in supervisory roles (without additional compensation for that work), and also leak information to the public media sources that serves only one purpose --- to benefit the employees in the union --- without regard to the negative blow-back on academic programs for things like recruiting students.
Well, leadership changes so you may have ethical management today and less so a year from now. I really dont see how an optional union would work either, but interesting to hear. As stated, I do have gripes about the union, but believe we are ultimately better off with one. We recently negotiated a pretty solid COL raise that was hard fought and I doubt we would have done nearly as well without being united.
I agree with Kron3007. We would have had massive layoffs on our campus without a united union branch. We had an excellent vice-chancellor (equivalent of university president), but then the one after, not so much. The union was more necessary than ever under his tenure.
Quote from: Hibush on May 28, 2025, 05:48:42 PMThe union should be responsive to the needs and desires of the bargaining unit. Perhaps the dynamics result in it reflecting the median member.
While unions are gung ho about pay equity, there is noting that requires pay to be equal. That distiction is commonly misunderstood.
The question for Kron's school is whether the median member wants a performance-based component of their pay. That varies quite a bit among schools, so it is hard to know.
It could be that the median member does want a performance component, but the union mostly hears from those who don't. The others grump about the union at coffee breaks and internet fora. The only solution is to have enough members make that a goal that it becomes the desire of the perceived median member.
The issue is that performance based raises would benefit the upper half while hurting the lower half. On average, it would come out in the wash. I doubt you would ever get the majority of people pushing for a policy that would be negative for half of the group. I believe it would be a vocal minority at best.