Staffers at University of Maine Complain They Can Barely Make Ends Meet
“Recruiting and retaining personnel is a high priority of the Board, and we know that higher wages would support those efforts.”
How many of these people do you suppose voted for Biden and are now planning to vote for Harris?
News Center Maine reports:
University of Maine System staff say they can barely make ends meet
Faculty and staff who work in the University of Maine System are currently working without new labor contracts, and many employees within the system said they are barely able to make ends meet with the pay afforded in their current contracts.
With negotiations between UMS and various bargaining units and their unions at a standstill, employees and union representatives said their concerns about wages cannot be ignored.
UMS has seven bargaining units. The system’s labor relations staff is concurrently negotiating agreements with four of those units:
– The Associated Faculties of the University of Maine System, or AFUM
– The Universities of Maine Professional Staff Association, or UMPSA
– Associated Clerical Office Laboratory Technical Staff of the Universities of Maine, or ACSUM
– The University of Maine Graduate Workers Union, or UMGWA, which is newly formedContracts for the bargaining units that are currently tied up in negotiations expired in June.
The UMS Board of Trustees chair spoke Tuesday during a board approval hearing at the legislature.
“The high quality of UMS rests on the hard work of dedicated and excellent faculty, staff, and administrators,” Chair Trish Riley said. “Recruiting and retaining personnel is a high priority of the Board, and we know that higher wages would support those efforts.”
But despite Riley and other trustees being aware that increased wages would improve retention and overall employee satisfaction, ACSUM President Brian Berger said the board has not come to the negotiation table with an offer that is sufficient or feasible for staff members to survive in this economy.
“We feel that it’s important for the taxpayers of Maine and other people to be aware of the situation at the university as a partially publicly funded school,” Berger said.
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Comments
Wait…ok, I found my tiny violin for those in academia who think economics should never apply to them.
I wish they would say how much the various staff levels are paid. Otherwise, it’s impossible to tell whether they have a case. If they’re making $30K per year, then they need a raise. If they’re making $100K, then forget it.
Some of the staff barely make $20,000 while others are on more than $200,000.
I did a quick Duck and found University of Maine System
Salaries of Regular Employees – https://www.maine.edu/human-resources/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/11/UMS_PUBLICINFO_MAIN_11-22-21-dist-1.pdf
Whackademia pays in three cases: a) you are a coach of a major alumni supported sport that wins a lot; b) you are a senior administrator; and c) you are a faculty member who brings in a boatload of research bucks. If any of the above three don’t apply to you, well, sorry, you will live at a maybe “comfortable” salary at most if you have years and years of experience and have managed to survive the labyrinthine process of staying on through multiple administrations.
Parricide offender demands foster care.
Is this one of the fine collegiate institutions that are pumping out the imbeciles who can’t help my disabled suicidal daughter over ten years to get a placement? Even when a Family Court Judge told the DD system to place her in a residential facility asap? Same graduate MD’s who now tell you it is not a suicide attempt unless you cut them down from a rope or don’t believe the police that tell them it is a suicide attempt as they helped tackle her out of a busy street. They should try being forced to stop working to take care of her (she’s 30). Not only that but I had to cash out what measly retirement I had to pay off the house and car to survive. And now I have to sell the only car I have!!!! Not sure what the system will do when I can’t pay my property taxes and we lose the house and my 86 year old Mom and I have to live her car. It’s no laughing matter anymore as people are dying because we the tax payers paid for people who can’t balance a check book to work in these fields.
Seven unions is ridiculous. Sounds like the European model – lots of small unions throwing their weight around and disrupting the very businesses they’re trying to profit from. The virtue of US unions is that they are normally big enough to be able to afford their own accountants and business consultants, so they don’t accidentally kill the golden goose for Sunday dinner. If the business fails, the unions get nothing. Clearly, these academic unions believe they are in a special, tax payer funded business with no objective financial standards. Pretty arrogant. On the other hand, they may be right. For at least a period of time. K