May 4, 2011 | WMU News
KALAMAZOO--Western Michigan University's Board of Trustees, meeting via conference call May 4, unanimously approved a new three-year labor agreement with the WMU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the union that represents the University's full-time faculty.
With trustees' approval, the new contract becomes effective immediately and expires Sept. 6, 2014. The agreement, which was negotiated during April, calls for no salary increases during the upcoming academic year but does include 4.5 percent in increases over the three-year term of the contract as well as health care plan design changes, beginning next January.
Faculty members will see no increase to wages during the 2011-12 academic year, but would see 1 percent increases in fall 2012, spring 2013 and fall 2013. The final semester of the contract, spring 2014, would see faculty salaries increase by 1.5 percent.
University and AAUP negotiators agreed to an expedited bargaining process this year that called for just five contract articles--all related to compensation and benefits--to be part of negotiations. Both sides agreed that all other articles from the previous contract would be rolled over into the new agreement. The goal was to have a tentative agreement ready for consideration by union membership by the end of the spring semester.
Negotiations between the AAUP and the University began April 14, and an agreement was reached April 22. Members of the AAUP ratified the agreement in a vote held April 29. The contract required approval by the WMU board before it was finalized and implemented. With that approval, the contract is now final.
WMU-AAUP represents 867 full-time faculty members at WMU and is the University's largest union
