University asking for "extreme" flexibility in faculty contract due to COVID

[ReykiaDiana]

New to the forum and still fairly new faculty (first year as full-time faculty) with a contract question.

We just received our contracts for the upcoming year with two COVID clauses - one states that the teaching appointment is nine months during the period of Aug 1, 2020 to July 31, 2021 (they are considering moving around the calendar year) and the second states our school reserves the right to decrease the base salary if there is an operating budget shortfall of $1 million or more. How this will specifically be calculated is not clear and the wording is intentionally ambiguous to provide the university with the maximum amount of flexibility.

Has anyone seen a 9-month appointment on a 12-month footprint? This will impact numerous faculty (like me) that augment our ridiculously low pay with summer classes. We are also not allowed to engage in part-time teaching elsewhere, tutoring, consulting, or another activity without permission.

What differences have you noticed for the upcoming year? How are your reductions (if you are seeing them) being handled? Our administration has been insanely tight-lipped and our faculty senate had to be "convinced" just to hold a meeting about the changes as they waited until the last week of the semester to announce these new provisions. They are assuming we will be forced to accept anything because of the hiring freeze/COVID impact.

[Hegemony]

I take it you are not unionized?

Our administration tried some hijinks — not these particular ones, but worrying ones — but quickly withdraw to think again when it became clear that the union wouldn't stand for it.

To be clear, we all acknowledge that most universities are going to be in a tight situation, and that unpleasant decisions will be necessary. But some are conscionable and some are not.

Forbidding you to teach, tutor, consult etc. elsewhere, while taking away your summer work, seems like one of those unconscionable clauses to me.

If you have a 9-month contract, though, couldn't you still teach in the summer, for additional money?

I think it's almost certain that your university will have a shortfall of $1 million.  Ours has lost $17 million already.

Our university has instituted a hiring freeze, furloughed a whole lot of contract people, and wavers back and forth between the next step, which is laying off a whole lot of contract people, decreasing everyone's salaries, and shutting down some departments entirely.

[polly_mer]

In 2009, my first faculty contract with a particular institution did include a stipulation regarding budget shortfalls.  When I showed up in the fall, I was immediately subject to furlough over the course of the year that did result in a 10% overall paycut.

In your shoes, I would ask what the process for obtaining permission to do external work is.  At various places I've worked, the concern on external work is more about people clearly taking on tasks to be significantly more than full-time during a given term and much less about people picking up a little extra during breaks.

For example, the TT professor at Super Dinky who was teaching 5 sections for us, advising 30 students, mentoring three student groups, and chairing a faculty committee who, it turned out, was also teaching 3 sections online elsewhere as well as working a part-time job in town was not allowed to step away from chairing the faculty committee as "too much work".  No, first you quit all the other part-time jobs and then see if it's still too much work to do your regular job.  Super Dinky had summers off and a six-week break in the winter; people could have other employment during those times.

[writingprof]

OP, how will they even know if you take part-time work elsewhere?  Are they hosting self-criticism sessions?

Regarding the pay thing, you should stay if you have no better options and leave if you do.  I know from experience that it's easy to let emotions distort that very simple formula, but, in the end, I know of no better calculus. 

[Diogenes]

Flex contracts are becoming a thing to help get more faculty teaching in the summer in some places unrelated to COVID-19. They could be thinking something like that. For example, if the pandemic goes into the Fall, they may have an enrollment cliff so they'd want to put some faculty load more on Spring/Summer.
I would talk to the tenured faculty with more clout, whether in your Senate or not. Get them to raise the tough questions about who/what/where/why to administration.

[tuxthepenguin]

Has anyone seen a 9-month appointment on a 12-month footprint? This will impact numerous faculty (like me) that augment our ridiculously low pay with summer classes. We are also not allowed to engage in part-time teaching elsewhere, tutoring, consulting, or another activity without permission.

Yes. I've seen that. There have been various justifications. One place does that so they can ensure faculty are holding office hours in the summer, serve on faculty committees in the summer, .... That didn't mean they couldn't do summer teaching. They'd still be paid if they did it. Interestingly, they couldn't require faculty to teach in the summer, since only a small percentage did. Concerns about labor laws or something.

[larryc]

So they can cut your pay by whatever amount they choose if a totally certain to happen thing happens? God that is terrible.

This might be a good time to form a union, if you are not in a "right to work" state. If you are, dust off your resume and buckle up. And I am so sorry you are facing this.

[Parasaurolophus]

So they can cut your pay by whatever amount they choose if a totally certain to happen thing happens? God that is terrible.

No kidding.

Naïve question, but: does the shift from 12 months to 9 mean a 25% pay cut? Plus an additional cut or cuts when the inevitable $1mil shortfall occurs?

[mahagonny]

So they can cut your pay by whatever amount they choose if a totally certain to happen thing happens? God that is terrible.

This might be a good time to form a union, if you are not in a "right to work" state. If you are, dust off your resume and buckle up. And I am so sorry you are facing this.

Forming a union requires massive timely communication. No one can go to a campus now. How to get it done? Facebook?

[polly_mer]

So they can cut your pay by whatever amount they choose if a totally certain to happen thing happens? God that is terrible.

This might be a good time to form a union, if you are not in a "right to work" state. If you are, dust off your resume and buckle up. And I am so sorry you are facing this.

Forming a union requires massive timely communication. No one can go to a campus now. How to get it done? Facebook?

The decisions for this year will all be made before a new faculty union can get off the ground. 

The time to unionize was a minimum of five years ago. 

Unionizing now if starting from scratch is a hope for a future that may not exist at a given institution.

Even if a strong union already exists and has been negotiating in peak performance, when the resources don't exist, they don't exist and trade-offs will have to be made.  Sometimes, the best trade-off is less money now (furloughs, pay cuts) so that everyone in the union keeps their jobs during a tight time.

[mahagonny]

So they can cut your pay by whatever amount they choose if a totally certain to happen thing happens? God that is terrible.

This might be a good time to form a union, if you are not in a "right to work" state. If you are, dust off your resume and buckle up. And I am so sorry you are facing this.

Forming a union requires massive timely communication. No one can go to a campus now. How to get it done? Facebook?

The decisions for this year will all be made before a new faculty union can get off the ground. 

The time to unionize was a minimum of five years ago. 

Unionizing now if starting from scratch is a hope for a future that may not exist at a given institution.

Even if a strong union already exists and has been negotiating in peak performance, when the resources don't exist, they don't exist and trade-offs will have to be made.  Sometimes, the best trade-off is less money now (furloughs, pay cuts) so that everyone in the union keeps their jobs during a tight time.

Polly, I think I can save you some time. Everyone here knows you well enough not to read anything you say about unions, unless the reader is also strongly anti-collective bargaining rights, for example, an active or budding union-buster. Particularly because the repetitive advice, thinly disguised tactics aim at the goal of being able to better control and stifle faculty. Not only that, but you're stalking me. I wasn't even the one suggesting unionizing; it was LarryC.

[Hegemony]

Thank heavens for our union, which has averted several kinds of disaster in the last month alone. When the administration told us why a whole lot of badly paid people would have to lose their jobs entirely, because their salaries were the only possible sources of savings, the union asked who was going to teach those hundreds of essential classes if those workers were no longer employed?  And why not make cuts to X and Y instead?  After a great deal of facing off and posturing, the university found that X and Y could be cut after all, who knew? The workers' time is now also cut, but they still are employed enough to have health insurance, which is a win. Since we got the union, about a decade ago, a lot of draconian non-negotiables handed down from on high have suddenly been revealed to be negotiable.

[Anselm]

Is the school offering some flexibility in exchange for this or is this a one way street?  They could be more generous with paid time off, reduced teaching load, hiring more staff to assist teachers, etc.

[Juvenal]

So far (Zoom-land) I hear from former colleagues (I am retired, but lift up the rocks to see what's under), so far nothing dire is proposed.  Silence of the lambs?  Oh, well, I have my retirement and a shotgun and a box of shells.  Don't frown on this, Mom!  Oh, you are not around these days.  Miss you on your day.  WWMD?

[Mobius]

It is too late to form a union to do anything about the upcoming academic year. You have to decide who is part of the bargaining unit. Should adjuncts and other NTTs have their own units? What support do you have among faculty? Is it overwhelming or close to a 50-50 split? Will tenured faculty do the heavy lifting, as those who aren't tenured need to keep quiet (for obvious reasons)?

You are likely looking at two years before a CBA is agreed to if you are starting from scratch. I think unionization is a good idea, but it's a long process and jobs will likely be lost even if a CBA comes to fruition.