Keep alert, adjuncts! As the fall semester moves along, your leadership in PATFA (Part-time Faculty Association of Maine) urges you to make sure you are receiving accurate and timely information about your work within the University of Maine System.
1) While PATFA and the System are still negotiating over a new contract, the current document still applies – and it’s good to know what it allows and does not allow. You can always find a copy at
http://www.maine.edu/about-the-system/system-office/human-resources/labor-relations/
2) One part of the contract, Article 22, explains that adjuncts can be reimbursed for gas mileage when they use their cars for assigned non-campus work. Starting this past summer, the System hired a vendor, Concur, to handle travel management. That means: No more paper for gas miles. It also means plugging in for some cumbersome training. You can find the Concur logo when you sign in at your university’s portal and get a list of options (Blackboard, Maine Street, etc.)
Be careful: PATFA encourages you to share only the required personal information when you sign up for Concur. Concur is a vendor and vendors love to acquire as much data as they can.
The System also insists that travel be approved by a supervisor through Concur before it happens. Also, under Article 22, travel needs to be at least 30 miles round trip to be eligible for reimbursement.
3) This may be nearly October 2015, but some System universities are already discussing and planning their fall 2016 course schedules. (Spring 2016 courses are already listed on Maine Street. Have you checked yours?) It behooves each of us adjuncts to alert our department chair or coordinator about what we would like to do in summer 2016 and fall 2016.
4) Be sure to check your rank in Maine Street. All adjuncts have a rank: Lecturer I, Lecturer II, assistant professor, instructor, etc. And base pay is connected to that rank. Sometimes the System lags in changing rank and that could affect your pay. Your course contract should tell you what the System thinks is your rank. But check it: A PATFA officer received a course contract this past summer with the wrong rank. He caught it and the University fixed it.
4) Did your course get canceled?
If you are entitled to a cancellation fee, you should contact your university’s Human Resources people and your coordinator/department chair directly and clearly – by phone and by email or letter to leave a trail. Then you should be diligent in checking your pay statement (available via Maine Street) at the next pay day (the last business day of the month) to make sure you actually receive any cancellation or other fees owed – and double-check the dollar amounts. The contract language below shows that some adjuncts should receive 5 percent and others 10 percent, depending on the circumstances and timing.
PATFA reminds all adjuncts to be persistent in pointing out the Article 11 language that says adjuncts “shall not be arbitrarily or capriciously denied assignment” of courses.
Article 12:
“D. Changes in official assignments may be made in the event of unusual or unforeseen circumstances or by mutual agreement of the unit member and the appropriate administrator.
“E. Courses may be retracted at any time by the appropriate administrator, or may not be offered to a unit member due to lack of work or enrollment or budgetary or programmatic considerations.
“F. Unit members shall receive a cancellation payment when an official assignment is retracted within one (1) month prior to the first class meeting. Such payment shall be five percent (5%) of the amount which was to be paid for the course.
“G. Unit members shall receive a cancellation payment when an official assignment is retracted after the first class meeting in the amount of five percent (5%) plus a proportional basis for any actual classes met.
“H. In the event the retracted official assignment was a course determined by the appropriate administrator to have required significant academic preparation or to be a course not previously taught by the unit member, cancellation payments specified above shall be ten (10%).”
Your PATFA Executive Board: Michele Cheung, President; James Seymour, Vice President; Pam Mitchel, Treasurer; Tom McCord, Secretary.