All posts by NMU-AAUP/AFT Admin

Tentative agreement reached between the AAUP and the American Federation of Teachers

In a unanimous vote, the Governing Council of the American Association of University Professors has agreed to a tentative affiliation agreement with the American Federation of Teachers. If approved during the summer AAUP Convention, the forty thousand members of American Association of University Professors will come under the umbrella of American Federation of Teachers and join its 1.3 million members. So, what does this mean for members of the NMU-AAUP? The financial implications are addressed in the following paragraphs.

According to the tentative agreement announced on March 7, the AAUP will remain undisturbed and will maintain all of its present functions. The statement also said that affiliation with AFT will not result in an increase in national AAUP dues. For current AAUP chapters, national AFT per capita dues will be covered as part of the normal AAUP dues. However, there will be an increase in dues for being affiliated with the state chapter of the AFT. As we presently understand the agreement, the state contribution to the AFT starts at 5% of the per capita rate with a cap of 25% of the normal rate. This amounts to just over seven dollars per member per year at the start, with rates increasing to a cap around thirty-six dollars per member per year.

Because the AFT is also affiliated with the AFL-CIO, AAUP members will have to pay the per capita rate of about eight dollars per year per member to the Michigan AFL-CIO. The NMU-AAUP recently agreed to pay the local Central Labor Council fee to the Upper Peninsula Regional Labor Federation which is just over four dollars per member.

All totaled, we estimate the increase in dues for each faculty member to be about fifteen dollars in the first year of the agreement, and will cap out at around forty-four dollars per year. Given we represent contingent faculty, we will seek options for a modified payment system that will be equitable for them.

What we get in return for the extra dues payments is political and legislative representation in Lansing that we currently do not receive from the AAUP. We will also have full voting rights in the AFT of Michigan and with the AFL-CIO and UPRLF. We will have access to an additional legal defense fund for arbitration hearings and unfair labor practice suits. At only 25% dues, we will likely not have an AFT Michigan staff person assigned to us. We would have the option of increasing our state dues to receive more services from the AFT.

The AAUP will continue to employ its own staff and have complete autonomy over the management of its own budget and programs. The AAUP brand will still be used in higher education.

Additional details will be provided as we learn more about this tentative agreement.

The full release sent out from AAUP national on March 7, is available below.

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We are incredibly proud of the work that AAUP and AFT have done together to organize faculty and graduate employees around the US and to strengthen higher education and the profession. As a result of our partnership, more than twenty thousand faculty and other academic workers are in unions that are jointly represented by the AAUP and the AFT. In addition, we have worked together on important legislative efforts at the federal and state level to expand access to higher education, ensure adequate funding for public institutions, increase Pell grants, and expand academic workers’ right to unionize. AAUP members are already being included in planned student loan debt clinics run by AFT higher ed staff, and AFT members have had the opportunity to attend our Summer Institutes. Since last fall, we’ve been discussing how to best build on our successful organizing work, support our shared commitment to education and the common good, and build a stronger and more inclusive higher education movement.

Our update today is to share with you that a tentative agreement on an affiliation with the AFT has been reached, and that the AAUP’s governing Council has unanimously recommended that a vote to ratify the affiliation be brought to the AAUP’s biennial meeting in June. The tentative agreement is the result of months of work by the AAUP and AFT’s teams, thorough consultation with the AAUP’s Council, and careful review by our legal experts and auditors. It also reflects the four core principles that the Council laid out at the beginning of this process:

●       Preserve the AAUP’s independence and autonomy

●       Increase the AAUP’s reach and influence among the profession

●       Maintain the AAUP’s brand in higher education

●       Be fair to the AAUP staff

Under the terms of this affiliation agreement, all AAUP members, by virtue of their membership in the AAUP, will also be members of the AFT/AFL-CIO. All AAUP collective bargaining chapters will become chartered locals of the AFT and all AAUP advocacy members will be part of a nationwide AAUP-AFT local. All CB and advocacy chapters will also continue to be chartered chapters of the AAUP. AAUP members and AAUP chapters will have access to AFT support and services, including specific AFT member benefits. AFT higher ed members will have access to certain services and programs that the AAUP provides as a service to the profession. Current “solo” AFT higher ed members will not become members of AAUP as a result of this affiliation. All new academic organizing—in both CB and non-CB settings—will be joint AAUP-AFT efforts and all new members will enjoy the rights and benefits of, and have access to the services and support of, both national organizations.

This affiliation will not result in an increase in national AAUP dues and, for current AAUP members, AFT per capita will be covered as part of the AAUP dues. Where applicable, AAUP solo CB chapters will become members of the AFT state federation at a reduced per capita rate. AAUP solo CB chapters will also become members of their state AFL and central labor councils (CLCs). While solo AAUP CB chapters will be required to pay per capita to the AFT state federations, the state AFL and the local CLC, we believe these costs will be financially manageable for most solo AAUP CB chapters. (For more information, click here and log in with your AAUP member credentials.) In order to provide support and assistance to our solo CB chapters as they make this transition, the AAUP has set up a CB chapter assistance fund. The national AAUP and its chapters will remain autonomous organizations with full control over their own finances, policies, programs, and staff. The national AAUP will continue to be governed by the AAUP Council; will continue to have its own committees; and will have complete autonomy over the Redbook, our policies and statements on behalf of the profession, investigations, censure, and sanction. The AAUP will continue to employ its own staff and will retain sole authority over management of its budget and programs. While the affiliation with AFT is not cost-free to the AAUP, we do believe that the financial impact on our organization is manageable.

An overview of the agreement, a frequently asked questions document, and the agreement itself can be found here (member login required). The relationship between the national AAUP and its chapters will not be changed. The AAUP will continue to operate as an autonomous entity and will continue to provide the same services and support to our chapters, our members, and the profession.

This affiliation recognizes and builds upon our successful joint organizing agreement and will allow the AAUP to maintain our organizational independence and our reputation in the profession while expanding our influence and reach in higher education. It preserves and memorializes our two organizations’ strong commitment to working together and recognizes that important and distinct role that the AAUP plays in the academy. Crucially, this affiliation recognizes that there is much more we can do together to confront the challenges facing higher education and our nation. It establishes a structure on which we can build a stronger, more inclusive higher education movement. It provides a pathway for our chapters to work more closely in solidarity with their AFT colleagues around the country and in their states and communities. It also allows us to enhance our successful joint organizing work and to expand into sectors of the academy where we have not yet had the opportunity to organize together. We know that the AAUP’s knowledge and expertise paired with the AFT’s reach and resources have been a winning combination at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, the University of New Mexico, the University of Alaska, the University of Illinois-Chicago, and the University of Vermont, to name a few. We believe that there is much more that we can do together to organize the unorganized in union and non-union settings.

The three of us, along with the Council of the AAUP, believe that this is a truly historic moment for the profession. It is a truly historic moment for free inquiry in a free society, a truly historic moment for the common good, and a truly historic moment for democracy. We don’t believe it’s an exaggeration to say that democracy is hanging on by a thread right now, and a strong higher education movement is part of what’s needed to salvage and strengthen our democracy. In the few months since we started exploring possibilities for affiliation, the attacks on higher education and the common good have increased. Educational gag order legislation aimed at curtailing academic freedom has been introduced in thirty-eight states. We see administrations acquiescing to pressure from governing boards and state legislatures on fundamental issues such as academic freedom, faculty shared governance, and due process. We see state systems launching full assaults on tenure.

At the same time, we see a renewed interest in organizing to confront these challenges among faculty and other academic workers. On campuses where unionization is possible, we see faculty forming organizing committees and starting union campaigns. We also see a renewed interest in building and strengthening advocacy chapters as a vehicle for campus change. The ongoing challenges facing higher education and this renewed interest in organizing underscore the need for solidarity—with our colleagues and within our own organization, to be sure, but also with other organizations and with the academic labor movement as a whole. This affiliation will help all of us—AAUP and AFT Higher Education members together—achieve this.

The full text of the agreement, along with a summary, can be found here (member log in required) If you are unable to access this material, please email executivedirector@aaup.org, and we will provide the information in an alternate form. We will be sending a formal notice about the affiliation vote to take place at the June 2022 biennial meeting later this week. Please note that we will also hold a question-and-answer session on Thursday afternoon, June 17, at the AAUP Conference and Biennial Meeting. Over the next few weeks, we will be reaching out to chapters and leaders to discuss this proposed affiliation further and to answer any questions they may have. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out to the three of us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Irene Mulvey, President

Paul Davis, Vice President

Chris Sinclair, Secretary-Treasurer

What the NMU-AAUP Can Learn from the Ukrainians (Opinion)

We have all witnessed the heart-breaking images documenting the slaughter of innocent civilians in Putin’s war against freedom in Ukraine. As we hear the bombs explode and see the sadness in the faces of the afflicted, we wish we could do something to stop it. In our despair, we reach for our credit cards in hopes that our donations to relief agencies will help mitigate the suffering of these innocent people. Short of boarding a plane and taking up arms against the invaders, providing financial support is about all most of us can do.

As a group of faculty members in a remote portion of America, we are far removed from the unfathomable physical and emotional trauma we view on our screens. However, we can learn a lot from the Ukrainians as we witness the first salvos of an ideological war that has been launched here at home against academic freedom.

Last October, the University System of Georgia Board of Regents voted to make it possible to fire tenured faculty members without affording them a dismissal hearing. On March 5, the Governing Council of the AAUP voted to censure the USG for removing protections for academic freedom for nearly 6,000 tenured faculty members across the state and called upon the USG regents to rescind changes to their post-tenure review policy.

In February, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick pledged to dismantle academic tenure during a press conference on February 18. “What we will propose to do is end tenure, all tenure for all new hires,” For currently tenured professors, he said, “the law will change to say teaching critical race theory is prima facie evidence of good cause for tenure revocation.”

Most of this war about teaching Critical Race Theory is currently being fought in the predictable states like Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma. However, the Michigan House of Representatives passed a similar ban on November 3, 2021. Fortunately, it was not signed into law. This battle is not just about CRT, it is about the encroachment of the government on free speech of all kinds including academic freedom.

While this fight may seem trivial compared to what our friends in Ukraine are facing right now, the fate of our First Amendment rights and academic freedom in Michigan may very well rest on what happens in the 2022 elections. Considering this, I hope we can draw inspiration from our brothers and sisters in Ukraine. Their level of sacrifice should challenge us to get involved with campaigns supporting our values as faculty members and union members. Having witnessed the Ukrainians’ abundant courage, we can certainly do something as benign as knocking on doors and giving our money to help elect people who will push back against those who desire to remove First Amendment and academic freedoms.

The governor’s race in particular will not only have implications for academic freedom, it directly impacts who sits on the NMU Board of Trustees. Having the candidate of our choosing in that office is of critical importance. This is our fight. And like the Ukrainians, we can’t count on anyone else to fight it for us.

Dwight Brady, President, NMU-AAUP

NMU-AAUP work continues through break

Even with the end of the semester, the NMU-AAUP has continued working on behalf of its members.

First of all, the NMU-AAUP was able to amend language regarding the annual evaluation process for associate-level continuing contract faculty in 5.4.1. of the Master Agreement. Our recently ratified contract gave tenured associate professors the option to submit annual evaluations every two years, but it did not offer the same option to continuing contract associate professors. This has been remedied and language offering this option to continuing associate faculty is now included in our amended contract.

Also, the NMU-AAUP worked out an agreement with the administration to grant contingent faculty an additional 1.5 percent bonus beyond the one percent bonus in our current contract. This agreement brings all contingent faculty into parity with all other university employees who received a 2.5 percent bonus, and they will receive the bonus in their December 23rd paycheck.

Finally, we are presently working with our legal counsel Bob Fetter to enforce 5.1.1.b of the MA concerning term faculty members who apply for newly authorized term positions. For many years, our contract has assured first consideration for faculty members presently teaching in a term position if a newly authorized term position is created (provided they were hired as part of a national search and have received positive annual evaluations). Our Contract Officer Gabe Logan has filed a Stop Counting Memo to allow us time to work out a solution before we grieve what we believe to be a violation of this portion of the contract with a current job search for a term position. We will keep you posted on this.

NMU Board approves five-year contract

Just days after NMU faculty ratified the latest contract proposal, the NMU Board of Trustees voted unanimously to support the agreement. “It doesn’t mean everyone is completely happy, but the ratification of this contract means our compensation levels will return to where we were before we made concessions to help the university get through the uncertainty of a pandemic,” said NMU-AAUP Chief Negotiator Lesley Putman.

Negotiations started in March of 2021 and became more contentious as the faculty continued to work without a contract that expired on July 1. The faculty walked out on president Fritz Erickson during the Fall Convocation on August 18. Two weeks later, they passed a strike authorization vote, and later voted down a contract proposal negotiated during mediation. In all, faculty would work 135 days without a contract before the Board of Trustees approved the new collective bargaining agreement during a special session on November 12.

In all, faculty would work 135 days without a contract before the Board of Trustees approved the new collective bargaining agreement during a special session on November 12.

Putman feels a turning point in the negotiations may have occurred on October 26, when students, without any prompting from faculty, organized a march from the dorms to the Northern Center. “About 250 students marched in shouting ‘We stand with them.’ This not only lifted our spirits, I think it opened some eyes, and we will be forever grateful for their support,” said Putman.

In addition to the five-year contract, the union also recovered back pay for newly promoted faculty who were caught in between contracts. Putman says that she and her colleagues look forward to returning their full focus on teaching, scholarship and advising students.

NMU faculty ratify contract proposal

Members of the NMU-AAUP have voted 197-30 to support the most recent contract proposal. The ratification vote was held on November 8, with most of the participants voting by email. The proposal will now go to the NMU Board of Trustees. “Provided the Board of Trustees approves this agreement; we will return to pre-pandemic compensation levels. However, it is distressing that it took eight months of negotiations and mediation to achieve this,” said the union’s Chief Negotiator Lesley Putman. “We are thankful for the students, members of the community and other union members in Marquette County who expressed overwhelming support for the Northern Michigan University AAUP faculty in our struggle for a fair contract,” added Putman.

Negotiations began in March of 2021, and NMU faculty have been working without a contract since July 1, 2021.

Response to the President’s Office statement regarding negotiations

From the perspective of the NMU-AAUP leadership, the recent statements from the NMU President’s Office (all-campus email, 8/26/21; Mining Journal, 8/27/21) contained multiple inaccuracies or were otherwise presented without context.

To be clear, we are in mediation with a state-appointed mediator, and we have not shared – nor will we share – specifics from the mediation in the public arena because details discussed with the mediator are confidential. However, to the extent that we are permitted to provide them, our point-by-point responses to the statements from the NMU President’s Office (green italics below) are provided within this document. 

Northern continues to bargain in good faith as we have throughout the negotiating period. We have been actively engaged throughout the summer, even during long periods of waiting for union counteroffers.

As contractually specified, negotiations commenced on 3/2/2021. Despite financial issues being a mandatory topic of bargaining, Administration refused to negotiate or even discuss financials for more than a month. This delayed the negotiating process, making it more difficult to come to an agreement before our 2020-21 contract expired on 6/30/2021. 

NMU-AAUP requested a contract extension before the expiration date in order to continue negotiations with the mutual benefit of a contract in place, but we were denied this extension. After the expiration of the 2020-21 contract, the AAUP requested that a state mediator be appointed. The process and timetable of mediation is substantially different from typical negotiations; nonetheless, the AAUP has continued to provide counterproposals in a timely manner. 

The statement has been made that Northern does not value and is not willing to invest in its faculty based on our contract proposals. However, we believe the proposal of up to $12 million in accumulative compensation increases, depending on the length of the contract, for the 340-plus AAUP faculty members is a strong and equitable investment in our faculty.

Large numbers completely removed from context may appear to be impressive, although when context is provided they may be less so. For instance, in 2020, a cost-saving program from Administration offered early retirement, and many senior faculty participated in this program without being replaced by new hires. The net savings from these buyouts is roughly equal to the accumulative compensation increases proposed by Administration. Put another way, Administration is essentially proposing to use money saved from retiring faculty to fund any increases in current faculty compensation. As the total University budget continues to grow year after year, this would result in a sharp decline in the portion of the budget dedicated to instruction, to levels lower than those seen at NMU in 20 years. Such a large reallocation of resources away from instruction in no way equates a “strong and equitable investment” in the faculty.

The current contract offer provides greater salary increases to our faculty than offered by any other bargained-for institution in the state this year or last. It also exceeds the 2019 levels mentioned by the AAUP.

We are not sure which contract offer Administration is referring to; moreover, Administration should not be publicly discussing any offer while parties are in mediation. Certainly other faculty unions across the state of Michigan are currently in negotiations with their administrations, but we are not privy to specifics. We support all our fellow union colleagues working for fair and equitable contracts. 

The AAUP maintains that any proposed contract that takes four years to return total compensation levels to those previously provided in 2019 is not something either side should be proud of, and will result in NMU faculty falling even further behind our peers at other institutions. 

There has been no comprehensive salary reduction for faculty. The only recent decrease was a negotiated contract agreement for less money to teach in the summer and overload assignments. Nearly all overloads and summer assignments are optional teaching assignments for faculty members.

This claim is incredibly misleading. Although base salaries remained flat in 2020, the average faculty member saw a decrease in total compensation of 4.4% when compared to 2019. This was planned and negotiated, and ultimately agreed to by the faculty, out of a sense of duty to the University. We were all concerned about the potential impacts of the pandemic the University may have had to face, and we believed the temporary cuts in compensation which we agreed to were our part to ensure NMU emerged from the pandemic as strong as it entered.   

In the seventeen months since the pandemic’s onset, the predicted financial devastation was fully prevented thanks to state and federal COVID-related relief funds. Enrollment, always a concern, remains strong at NMU, largely because of the extraordinary efforts by the faculty to continue teaching throughout the chaos of the past year and a half. 

As for “optional teaching assignments,” chronic understaffing across departments has led to a teaching shortage, resulting in nearly one-third of full-time faculty regularly teaching overloads. To state that these assignments are optional is disingenuous, at best. As teachers, we have an obligation to ensure that our students can take the courses they need to graduate in a timely fashion. Until the university hires more faculty to teach these courses, that mission is only accomplished through continued, widespread overload assignments. Similarly, there are an increasing number of programs at NMU with summer semesters built into them, where a standard progression to graduation requires courses which are offered in the summer.  If faculty refuse these “optional” assignments, our students cannot graduate on time.

The AAUP has put statistical information into the public discussion on where their wages and compensation rates rank when compared to salaries of statewide public higher education institutions. However, current higher education market data* indicates that Northern faculty are paid 8.5% above the national average when compared to institutions similar in size, scope and Carnegie classification. Additionally, when compared to the CUPA* peers, 85% of Northern’s AAUP members are receiving salaries that are above market with a range from 1% to 45% above market. The up to $12 million proposal continues to support this trend. (*data from CUPA-HR, College & University Professional Association for Human Resources)

Any party can selectively choose a set of other universities to compare themselves to in order to achieve a favorable outcome, which is what Administration is now attempting to do. However, when using the established CUPA-HR peer group, which was most recently mutually agreed to in our 2015-2021 contracts, and which the University has used for more than a decade to set and adjust faculty salaries, full-time NMU faculty are, on average, 6.2% below the national average, and three-quarters of all full-time NMU faculty have salaries which fall below their respective national averages.  

Initial salaries for new faculty hired at NMU, although not mentioned in the President’s Office memo, have also been a major topic of discussion during 2021 contract negotiations. A new Assistant Professor hired at NMU in 2020 could have expected to receive a salary averaging 7.2% below – and in some cases, nearly 20% below – the national average for their respective discipline, a fact which has made it increasingly difficult to attract the highest quality educators whom our students, alumni, and community have come to expect. This is also one of several factors contributing to NMU’s chronic understaffing.

The administration made a contract extension offer to AAUP union leadership in early August that did not receive a response. Despite working without a contract, the campus and public should know that the University continues to provide the AAUP faculty their wages and benefits.

The AAUP Negotiation Team never received such an offer. The union leadership also has no evidence that such an offer was made, although if an offer was made outside the negotiating table, it would constitute an unfair labor practice. Bargaining outside the negotiating table is not bargaining in good faith. If Administration chooses to stand by this claim, the burden falls upon them to demonstrate that it is not false and/or that the offer was not made outside the negotiating table.

Prior to the start of official negotiations in 2020, an offer was made to the AAUP to extend the contract with a 2% base salary increase and the AAUP declined the proposal. After the 2020-21 academic year, Northern recognized all employees’ extra effort during the COVID-19 pandemic with a 1.92% salary bonus (capped at $2,880), which also went to faculty.  And, unlike many institutions around the state and nation, Northern did not lay off any faculty, nor did faculty take any furlough days.

Official negotiations are the only negotiations. Again, bargaining outside the negotiating table is not bargaining in good faith and constitutes an unfair labor practice. The AAUP Negotiation Team, the only body officially recognized to bargain on behalf of the faculty, received no such offer to extend a contract in 2020. Therefore, the AAUP could neither accept nor reject any such unofficial offer. 

In the middle of the 2020-21 academic year, an Employee Appreciation COVID-19 Grant was distributed to all campus employees, a “thank you” from Administration for going “above and beyond when called upon,” according to a President’s Office email on 12/7/20. To call this grant a “salary bonus” implies that it was an extra that was added on top of an already complete compensation. Given the significant temporary cuts agreed to, and described above, by the AAUP in the 2020-21 contract, even with the grant included, the average full-time faculty member still experienced a 2.9% decrease in total compensation in the 2020-21 academic year, when compared to the previous year.

For those who have questioned why NMU has not paid salary or promotion increases, legal counsel has advised the University that it is prohibited from doing so under Michigan law; see Public Act 54 of 2011 (Section 15b-1).

It is true that wage step increases and increases in salary directly related to rank changes, or so-called “lane changes,” are prohibited under state law and related precedents. However, faculty and Administration are obligated to follow the recently expired contract until negotiations end. The expired contract specifies minimum salaries for each rank. Many of our newly promoted colleagues now have salaries that are, because of their promotions, below the status quo minimum salaries for their respective ranks. We believe that this constitutes an unfair labor practice.

During negotiations, Northern has provided the AAUP with all requested financial documents, including the projected 2021-22 budget that has not yet been finalized due to the Legislature still working on the state budget. NMU never requested the AAUP to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for university financial information. It is public information and, as such, most of it is posted in the Finance and Administration Division section of the University’s website.

Administration has not, in fact, given AAUP all requested financial documents. While it is true that the Administration never told the AAUP to file a FOIA request for budget information, we did file a request out of frustration because every time we asked for budget projections, we were told that they don’t create them before the state appropriations are finalized and the fall enrollment is known. We know this to be untrue because we have been supplied with such projections in past negotiations. When we asked for budget projections on 6/30/2021, we received a copy of the continuation budget that included the exact same numbers as the 2020-21 budget. On 7/2/2021, we filed a FOIA request asking for the 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24 General Fund revenue and expenditure budgets, both summarized and in detail, and with descriptions of any assumptions made. We were subsequently directed to a public document that is a summary of the 2021-22 projected revenues and expenditures that does not include details or assumptions other than an obvious flat amount for state appropriations. We continue to be baffled by how an organization such as NMU can plan for the future without making specific budget projections.

A point of clarification regarding last weekend: Housing and Residence Life and the Center for Student Enrichment secured funding for the Welcome Weekend activities. The Ferris wheel was a one-time expense out of auxiliary funds. Having the Ferris wheel as part of our Welcome Weekend activities had no impact on faculty salaries.

The Ferris wheel issue is not related to our union’s negotiations, and the AAUP has never addressed it as such.

In sum, the NMU-AAUP faculty accepted significant cuts in compensation during the 2020-21 contract to help the University survive a pandemic. The thanks we have received for our sacrifice is an attempt by the Administration to extend these cuts indefinitely. Nevertheless, we remain focused on achieving a contract that allows us to continue providing the high level of education that students and the community have come to expect.

Working without a contract

As of midnight on July 1, the one-year collective bargaining agreement forged during a global pandemic expired. Working without a contract is quite rare in the history of the NMU-AAUP, so we have sought legal counsel on key issues to help provide some guidance during this uncertain time.

  • Under Michigan law, the terms and conditions in our expired contract have to be maintained as part of a status quo. This means all wage and benefits continue on as previously articulated in our 2020-2021 contract as long as we are doing our job. This also means procedures regarding self-governance and promotion and tenure still continue on as they were.
  • They could possibly take away our email and free internet access. In most cases, they should continue.
  • We cannot engage in arbitration during a contract gap, but we can still engage in mediation. In arbitration, both parties give the power to decide the dispute to the arbitrator. In mediation, the mediator has no power to impose a resolution, other than the power of persuasion.
  • Any salary or benefits we negotiate in the interim between July 1 and the ratification date would not be retroactive. For example, if we negotiated 2% pay raise for ratified and the board approved on September 1, we would not receive the portion of our pay raise for the period between July 1 and Sept. 1.
  • If health insurance costs increase during the interim period, we would be responsible for paying this out of pocket.
  • They still have to pay us the wages under the 2020-21 contract as long as we are showing up for work.
  • They can only claim an impasse if our teams are not moving toward an agreement.
  • If an impasse occurs, the duty to negotiate is suspended, and an employer is permitted to unilaterally implement the terms of its final proposal. They can implement any changes to working conditions that it had proposed to the union during negotiations without the union’s approval.
  • The Board can order HR to stop collecting dues payments for the union.
  • It means the administration cannot just start firing people. Employees are not subject to termination or interference because there is no CBA in place. They should report to work as directed.

I hope this helps you understand what we are facing during this period. We will continue to work toward a new CBA, and we ask for your patience and participation in this process.

Three NMU Professors Lead Community Toward a Sustainable and Resilient Superior Shorline

By Rayna Sherbinow and Dwight Brady

The pristine yet rugged shoreline of Lake Superior may seem invincible, but climate change and over-development could radically alter its present state. Preparing for these forces of nature and human activity is the main thrust of a project headed up by three NMU professors. 

Thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation, Jes Thompson (College of Business), Scott Jordan (Outdoor Recreation)  and Sarah Mittlefehldt (EEGS) have launched a program to help members of the coastal community offer input and plan for equity and adaptability while maintaining a sustainable and resilient shoreline along Lake Superior.

Part of this project involved three workshops about past sustainability issues, current concerns and ideas for the future. Seventy stakeholders from the community participated in the workshops and represented various interests and concerns about lakeshore sustainability. “We had a lot of diverse perspectives,” Thompson said. “We had people who were really conservative and we had people who were really liberal, and it really didn’t matter because we all know that we have to work together to live alongside this common resource.”

Ultimately, Thompson hopes these forums will lead coastal communities in the U.P. to define their own identity and develop planning codes that will ensure sustainability and resiliency in the face of climate change and migration to the north.

Dr. Jes Thompson leads a workshop at NMU

The workshops took an interdisciplinary approach to lakeshore sustainability. Specifically, they explored the connection among the ecosystem’s health and the community’s well being in terms of commerce and development. At the end of the workshop series, the team put together a digital magazine that documented the results of the session and highlighted the interdisciplinary research from each professor. Thompson focused on business development. Mittlefehldt focused on environmental sustainability, and Jordan’s primary concern was tourism.

Mittlefehldt contributed historical research to the project. She looked at local responses to sustainability issues over the years. “I spent some time in some of the regional archives looking at different planning efforts in the past to see how people have been planning for coastal development before people started talking about climate change,” Mittlefehldt said.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Upper Peninsula saw a movement toward industrialization. People made use of resources in and around Lake Superior and its shoreline as they traveled, transported goods and built towns and cities. The local industrialization efforts were a form of coastal development, and undoubtedly required communication and planning from everyone involved. 

“Although many of our goals and concerns may have changed over the years, communication, planning and building a healthy local economy are still important parts of the sustainability conversation,” said Dr. Mittlefehldt. 

After establishing what can be learned from the past, CoPe (Coastlines and People) shifted its focus to the present. Jordan was interested in the current relationship among the lakeshore, tourism and outdoor recreation. “The lakeshore is creating outdoor recreation,” Jordan said. “Climate change is kind of part of that.”

Jordan explained that as the northern climate warms, people are less inclined to move south for outdoor activities. Instead, there is increasing use of Lake Superior’s shoreline for recreation. “That creates some sense of place issues,” Jordan said. “It creates some economic issues, good and bad.” 

An example of tourism’s impact can be seen from the 1.2 million people who visited Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore during a global pandemic in 2020. This shattered the previous record of 858,000 set in 2019. Workshop participants from Munising and Grand Marais felt tourism could overwhelm their current infrastructure.

When talking about the present, the CoPe team learned which sustainability issues concerned stakeholders most. “We would get that information and then find experts associated with those topics and try to address those questions,” Dr. Jordan said.

The cover page of the digital magazine produced from the research and workshops

Many stakeholders expressed concern over increased erosion and flooding, but they also wanted the shoreline to remain accessible to the public. After this discussion, the workshops considered how to protect the environment while also allowing future generations to enjoy it. 

Several local organizations contributed to the project, including the architecture firm Studio RAD. “They were critical because they brought a skillset that we don’t have, which is designing and creating pictures to help people visualize different futures for the shore,” Thompson said.

The workshops discussed multiple potential solutions, each accompanied by an illustration from Studio RAD. Participants discussed the pros and cons of every option. Some of their quotes were printed in the magazine alongside Studio RAD’s images and written descriptions of each idea.

In addition to teaching and interacting with community members, the professors found the workshops to be educational experiences for themselves. “The effects of climate change on Lake Superior and the south shore were much greater than I had known,” Jordan said.

According to the Environmental Law and Policy Center, daily temperatures in the Great Leakes Region increased 1.4 degrees between 1985 and 2016. The report also projects an increase of 5.7 – 9.8 degrees by the end of the 21st Century.

Mittlefehldt enjoyed working with a variety of people to address widespread sustainability issues. She says people often become isolated within their fields of expertise, so the workshops provided a valuable opportunity to break those barriers.

“Probably the best thing that came out of this was the collaboration between all the different entities, different levels of government, private sector, public sector,” Mittlefehldt said. “It was just a really great mix of people that kind of was what made the project successful.”

Thompson agrees. In retrospect, she sees more value in the experience. Due to the pandemic, she fears this opportunity may not arise again for quite some time.

“Having a workshop with 70 people with different perspectives, representing different stakeholders, that was such a gift,” Thompson said. “That was such a treat, and I now know we can’t do that on Zoom.”

Thompson says strong communities are those that can come together despite their differences to work towards a common goal. The importance of working together can be seen throughout the CoPe project. Jordan emphasizes this point as well.

“Involving local people in local decision making is important, and that takes this community ownership,” Jordan said. “So it’s not fair when just a few people from a community make decisions about their shoreline.”

The professors all hope that these workshops helped encourage discussions about sustainability. Mittlefehldt would like to establish a sustainability hub at NMU which would facilitate similar interdisciplinary work among faculty, staff, and community members. 

“I always enjoy working with people outside of my own disciplinary expertise, because I think that’s where we find real solutions to environmental challenges that we’re facing,” Mittlefehldt said.

Thompson wants to see the conversation about sustainability continue to grow and expand beyond the academic world. Ideally, she would like to see planning codes line up with the identity of these coastal communities.

She says the key to avoiding this is to be pracademic. The word is a portmanteau of ‘practitioner’  and ‘academic.’ It implies academic expertise and active participation in a field. In the case of sustainability, a pracademic would not only discuss problems and potential solutions, but also implement those solutions. 

“I think sometimes people assume research can’t be local, can’t be real,” Thompson said. Thompson hopes that CoPe will help prove those doubters wrong.

To view more images and read more information about the workshops and those involved, click here. A digital publication of the project’s findings can be found here. To learn more about the National Science Foundation, visit their website.

Enrollment Data a Mixed Bag for W21 and F21

According to NMU’s Office for Institutional Research and Analysis, enrollment at NMU for W21 is down 495 or 7.3% compared to last year at this time. This drop clearly indicates the impact of Covid-19 on enrollment. The decline is 301 or 4.5 percent when compared to enrollment for December of 2019.

However, admissions data for F21 indicates the potential for a more positive long-term scenario. Applications and freshman admits are up from last year and freshman orientation is up significantly from previous years. “I think it’s a good sign that the percentage of admits registered for orientation this year is higher,” says Gerri Daniels, Director of Admissions at NMU. According to Daniels, 32 percent of freshman admits typically enroll at NMU, so her current estimate on freshman enrollment for F21 is 1,475. If this holds, freshman enrollment would be up around eight percent from F20 but down about three percent from the average freshman enrollment between F16 and F19. Daniels added that about three percent of freshman admits are not current high school seniors. This indicates some of these students may have decided to take a “gap year” between high school and college due to Covid-19.

Governor Whitmer Orders Higher Ed Online

On November 15, Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced an executive order requiring Michigan high schools and colleges to switch to online learning by November 18. The announcement comes two days after the NMU administration agreed to the NMU-AAUP’s request to allow faculty to decide how to best deliver course content for the remainder of the semester. This agreement still allows faculty to move courses online prior to the Governor’s November 18 deadline without getting approval from department heads or accommodation from Human Resources.

As with the NMU-AAUP’s request, the governor’s action was based on data showing rapidly rising COVID infection rates across the state of Michigan and the entire mid-west.

Additional information can be obtained through the following links: news release and mask requirements.