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Michigan Profs Demand Massive Salary Increase and Threaten to Strike

Michigan Profs Demand Massive Salary Increase and Threaten to Strike

“This is happening because so far the administration has offered incredibly insulting counters to our eminently fair demands”

Will students protest this? After all, the cost will ultimately be passed on to them.

The Daily Caller reports:

Michigan Profs Demand Double Salary, Threaten To Strike

Approximately 1,700 Michigan professors demanded a pay raise Wednesday that would nearly double the starting salary for lecturers and threatened to go on strike for two days.

Eighty percent of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization, a union representing non-tenure track faculty in the University of Michigan system, voted to strike for two days in April if the school does not reach an amicable arrangement with the union, reported Michigan Radio.

The union reported starting salaries of $27,300, $28,300, and $34,500 at UM Flint, Dearborn, and Ann Arbor campuses, respectively. It asserts that a higher pay scale exists at neighboring public schools and community colleges.

The Lecturers’ Employee Organization asks for a $60,000 starting salary at UM Ann Arbor, with comparable salary hikes at Flint and Dearborn.

“This is happening because so far the administration has offered incredibly insulting counters to our eminently fair demands,” UM Ann Arbor lecturer Shelley Manis said to Michigan Radio.

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Comments

Give them the raise. They are the ones who do the actual teaching. Recoup the money by laying off the diversity and inclusion cult members – er, I meant administrators, really! – and a few of the tenured profs who don’t teach.

Since it’s public schools, ima assuming they already get benefits on top of that salery, including healthcare, pension or 491k, and (very important for beginning teachers) free tuition for classes. And for parents, free tuition for their dependents.

Also I’m assuming starting salery is just that, that they get raises so no one who’s been teaching for 5+ years is still earning that. Not talking about actual average saleries makes me suspect that they’re considerably better – and that this press release from the union is being coy about that. Also suspect that saleries are tied to starting saleries somehow, so that doubling starting saleries would benefit not only beginning teachers but the veteran ones as well.

Many average non-academics would KILL to get that starting pay and those benefits.

And if the pay is so much better at nearby schools, ya gotta wonder why they don’t just jump schools for the pay. Oh, wait, aren’t education majors a glut on the market?

Higher Ed is a fine thing, but arguably too many students are attending in tracks that lead to massive debt for little gain, and the possibility of the bubble bursting and more schools going under is a very real one. May be the wrong long-term plan for the unions to jack up pay and benefits. Detroit isn’t just a city, it’s a destination on that path.

healthguyfsu | April 1, 2018 at 9:41 am

To be honest, that is an absurdly low starting salary for a job that takes 9 years minimum to earn a degree.

I just find it funny that in the South where many faculty have no union representation, the pay is much better. It’s almost as if having the union led to them daring the profs to strike.

Teachers in West Virginia went on strike because their pay was very low, averaging about $45K per year. So it seems that these lecturers making between $27K and $35K do have reason to complain.

Having worked in universities for 40 years, I’ve always seen that the non-tenure-track faculty (especially temporary and part-time) are treated like they are disposable. They are badly paid and given little, if any, respect or job security. They are often on one-year “per course” contracts that don’t give them pay increases over the years, so those starting salaries may not necessarily increase.

Irv is right. The Dean of Diversity and VP for Diversity and Inclusion and Title Nine administrator (plus their retinue of assistants) are paid several times what the average non-tenure-track faculty member is paid. Cut back on the useless administrative bloat, and you can easily pay these working faculty a living wage.