After state-led mediation, the Part-time Faculty Association of Maine (PATFA) and the University of Maine System (UMS) have reached tentative agreement on a new two-year contract for part-time faculty members at all seven System universities.
The proposed contract (Sept. 1, 2015-Aug. 31, 2017) includes a 2 percent raise as of Sept. 1, 2016, in the per-credit-hour pay scale for part-time faculty and an additional 1 percent raise for those with 13 or more service units.
Rates for part-time regular faculty will increase 2 percent for the 2016-17 academic year, and part-time faculty paid above the minimum rates will receive the dollar value of the 2 percent increase, starting Sept. 1, 2016.
The System consistently proposed lump sum payments for some adjuncts. PATFA urged a percentage raise based on the contract rate for every adjunct.
“We succeeded in one huge, hard-fought effort: to steer away from the System’s push to offer one-time, lump-sum dollars that disappear for the purposes of the next contract bargaining,” said Michele Cheung, president of PATFA, Local 4593 of the American Federation of Teachers. “The pay increases we did gain will form the baseline in our next contract’s negotiations – because they are in the contract.”
PATFA represents 2,180 people who teach part-time in the University of Maine System’s seven universities. About 600 to 800 teach in any single semester. Its two-year contract governs course assignments, workloads, grievances, limited benefits, and academic freedom issues.
PATFA and the System met for eight bargaining sessions, stretching from January to November 2015. PATFA requested state-led mediation in November.
The mediation focused on a single issue: pay. After two sessions in late January, PATFA became the last of the six bargaining units to settle with the University of Maine System. The contract must still be ratified by PATFA members and the UMS board of trustees. [Members ratified the contract by secret ballot in late February, and the trustees ratified March 16.]