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Dear faculty, We’re looking ahead to a big year for labor on campus. In January, we will being bargaining a new contract for full-time faculty. There’s a lot to address. Since our last contract took effect, many full-time positions have been hired at the minimum salary - which, given the current cost of living, is not a living wage. Non-tenure track faculty, who make up almost half our faculty, lack job security year-to-year. Higher wages, adequate benefits, and job security will likely be key themes in our contract negotiations this spring semester. We want to continue to hear from members about your concerns and priorities and will be providing opportunities throughout this year to connect with you. And we remain committed to our members and not-yet-members on faculty, with our Contract Administration Committee addressing every query, and supporting faculty around benefits, payments, workload, and more through advocacy and, in some cases, formal grievances. Meanwhile, new AFT Vermont sibling unions at UVMMC and Central Vermont Medical Center are bargaining their first contracts, and our colleagues at UVM Staff United continue to organize in protest of the unilateral implementation of the Kronos clock system. Statewide and nationally, the momentum is with labor. We celebrate our colleague Ellen Kaye, co-president of UVM Staff United, who was just elected vice-president of the Vermont State Labor Council at the well-attended AFL-CIO convention. She’s part of a progressive leadership team that is, for the first time, all women. Collective impact requires patience, focus, and showing up. This UVM administration already has a long record of CBA violations, slow-walking, and other corporate tactics for union-busting. We called this out publicly last spring, in our past president Ellie Miller’s op-ed co-written with Staff United leaders Ellen Kaye and Rachel Wallace-Brodeur. Union workers before us fought for and won benefits and protections that improve our lives and working conditions today. What we accomplish going forward is rooted in the organizing of the past. This is the time to get involved in your union if you are not already: by serving as a United Academics department representative or college Delegate, coming to an event, attending our United Academics membership meeting or Delegates Assembly meetings, observing contract bargaining sessions this spring, participating in one of our committees, or other ways! In solidarity, Suzy and Katlyn
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