Negotiation Updates: September 5, 2014

WMU’s negotiating team has engaged in extensive discussions with the WMU-AAUP this week with the goal of reaching a tentative agreement before the current contract ends Friday night. Our team appreciates the frank and open conversation that has occurred. We take seriously our obligations to the faculty, but also know that we must balance that responsibility and decisions on compensation with our institutional commitment to maintain student access and affordability both now and in the foreseeable future. We believe that we are making good progress toward an agreement that satisfies both objectives. objectives. 

Current proposals

Compensation

We proposed across-the-board raises for each of the upcoming three years. 

• 2014-15: 2.0 percent
• 2015-16: 1.75 percent
• 2016-17: 1.75 percent

We understand that these rates are lower than those proposed by AAUP. But we want to emphasize that conversations are still ongoing, and there has been a change to our proposal since the last update. These rates are consistent with the trends in university faculty compensation packages nationally and those seen in other recently negotiated public- and private-sector contracts.

Increases have also been proposed for overload rates, salary minimas and promotion increments. There appears to be common ground reached on overload rates and promotion increments.

Health care

We proposed keeping the plan the same with minimal contribution increases in an era when health care costs are increasing nationally. We proposed the following:

Maintain the current health care plan design for the three-year contract period. In other words, no change in deductibles or copays.

Premium rate contributions for employee coverage would be:

• Employee only: 15 percent in 2015, 17 percent in 2016 and 18.5 percent in 2017. (2014 rate is 13.5 percent).
• Employee plus one: 24.7 percent in 2015, 24.7 percent in 2016 and 25.5 percent in 2017 (2014 rate is 24.7 percent).
• Employee plus two or more: 28.5 percent in 2015, 28.5 percent in 2016 and 29.3 percent in 2017 (2014 rate is 28.5 percent).

No change in retiree health insurance benefits for current faculty retirees or active faculty.

Faculty hired in 2016 or later who retire from the University will be granted access to University health care. 

Retirement contributions

No change to current contract language for contributions. 

We appreciate the dialogue that is occurring and the perspective being shared with us. We remain hopeful that an agreement will be reached prior to midnight of Friday when the current contract expires. We also understand that these discussions impact each of you and want you to be aware of the current status of our proposals.