Addressing Gender Equity through Collective Bargaining

Addressing Gender Equity through Collective Bargaining

Nancy WelchProfessor of EnglishChair, Delegates AssemblyUniversity of Vermont United Academics AFT/[email protected]://unitedacademics.org


These slides summarize some of the key provisions of UnitedAcademics’ current collective bargaining agreement (CBA)for full-time faculty, with and without access to tenure. Perthe Vermont Labor Relations Board, in place for part-time faculty is a separate CBA which has brought improvements but not yet the significant equity gains detailed here. For full details: http://unitedacademics.org/currentcontracts.html

Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure

Each unit must have faculty-vetted RPT guidelines, in accord with the collective bargaining agreement’s (CBA) overall guidelines governing appointments and evaluation, with unit-appropriate and appointment-specific criteria.Committees and administrators may not augment or supplant the RPT criteria in evaluating a candidate.

Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure

The CBA clarifies and defines a candidate’s responsibilities and rights (including right to review/raise objections to the list of candidates for external evaluators); chair and dean’s responsibilities; who may vote; and timetable, including when a dossier is closed, the limited circumstances in which something can be added or subtracted.

Reappointment and Promotion for Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

After two initial one-year contracts, full-time lecturers(.75 FTE and above) will receive a two-year contract, which will be renewed if the position is still needed and the faculty member has a record of teaching effectiveness.


After six full-time years (out of eight years of service), a lecturer is eligible for promotion to senior lecturer with an initial contract of two to four years and subsequent contracts of three to five years.


Grant-funded research faculty with six or more years of service may receive up to nine months of “bridge support”– salary and health care—between grants. Lecturers who are not reappointed must be notified by March 15 for the following year; senior lecturers by December 15 for the following year.

Working Conditions and Respect for Part-Time Lecturers

Most part-time lecturers are still on single-semester appointments.CBAs have brought some seniority recognition in pay and course assignments plus requirement that all lecturers have office space, desk and lockable files, phone, email, office assistance, full-year library privileges, and payment in case of course cancellation within two weeks of start date.

Transparency and Equity in Compensation

Salary minimum for each rank, negotiated with each CBA, addresses inversion, narrows gaps between faculty of same rank.Annual salary raise pools emphasize across-the-board, compression, and market and minimize performance (“merit” pay).


All tenure-track faculty must receive some release from teaching during a semester prior to the tenure decision. College of Arts and Science faculty receive a pre-tenure, one-semester release from teaching.


For every “general fund” (most full-time) faculty, each unit receives at least $1,200 annually in professional development funds from which all full-time (both “general fund” and research-funded) faculty can draw. Each unit develops written guidelines for distribution; lecturers are eligible.


Every seventh year all faculty at the ranks of senior lecturer, associate professor, or full professor are eligible for a one-semester sabbatical at 100% salary or one year at 77.3% salary. Sabbaticals are not competitive.Sabbatical-eligible faculty may take “half sabbaticals,” one semester at 77.3% pay after every three years.

Family Friendly Policies

Tenure clock may be extended, up to three years, for a faculty member who becomes a parent or legal guardian to a minor child, is caring for a seriously ill family member, or is faced with a serious illness.


All assistant, associate, and full professors and senior lecturers—plus lecturers with four or more years of service—can take one semester (for nine-month faculty) or 15 weeks (for 12-month faculty) of paid parental leave with benefits. This benefit includes faculty who adopt or whose spouse or partner gives birth.


All assistant, associate, and full professors and senior lecturers—plus lecturers with four or more years of service—can take per year up to 30 days of family leave with pay and benefits followed by, if needed, FMLA’s six weeks of unpaid leave.

Intellectual Property, Academic Freedom, and Faculty Governance

The CBA’S intellectual property rights policy ensures that a faculty member’s syllabi, curriculum, and course materials are hers/his.CBAs have staved off administration attempts to expand “management rights” to include review of faculty civic and political activities and to take the writing/approval of RPT guidelines out of department hands.

Addressing Gender Equity through Collective Bargaining•Transparency and unit-/appointment-sensitivity

in RPT•Longer-term contracts, professional treatment for lecturers•Improved compensation and professional development support, with emphasis on equity over “merit”•Family friendly policies including tenure-clock extensions and paid parental/family leaves•Protections for intellectual property, academic freedom, and faculty governance


Nota bene: Negotiating a contract is a faculty-wide effort so that a negotiating team goes to the table knowing that their proposals, discussed and shaped by members, reflect the needs and have the support of an educated membership who will also lend continual assistance to the negotiating team.


•Feedback via whole-membership surveys and meetings through department representatives and collective-bargaining caucuses

•Testimony and presentations for negotiating sessions and public actions: press conferences, “pep rallies,” public campaigns with students, parents, community


“[B]ecause of our Fall meetings, our surveys, and our ongoing meetings with the delegates assembly, we had a much firmer idea of what our members wanted and why … [B]ecause of the initial press conference—where we led with our goals, demands, and rationale—the administration could anticipate what a public campaign would have done…” –Chief negotiator, 2008-2011 CBA for full-time faculty


Nancy WelchProfessor of EnglishChair, Delegates AssemblyUniversity of Vermont United Academics AFT/[email protected]://unitedacademics.org

Addressing Gender Equity through Collective Bargaining

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