BY ELIZABETH EDNIE
Members of the Stonehill College faculty and staff planned to rally over compensation issues as unionized facilities workers worked to iron out pay in a contract Wednesday, October 27 on the outskirts of campus, but a storm and a resolution of the union contract lead it to being canceled.
The day before the rally, the College and the union reached an agreement, but a faculty group said issues involving faculty are still an issue.
The day before the scheduled rally, an email was sent from the Office of Communications and Media Relations saying that the College and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents facilities workers reached an agreement.
This new settlement does not affect faculty, which is not unionized.
According to Jill Goddard, the director of Communications and Media Relations, the SEIU agreement is a two year contract, beginning July 1, 2021 and will last until June 30, 2023. The College and the Union agreed to keep the same benefits in terms of health and welfare, and comments on pay raise were not disclosed.
“The Union ratified the agreement this past Thursday by a vote of the entire union membership,” Goddard said in an email.
While the College settled with the union, another group of faculty members associated with the national group, American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is working to get pay raises for faculty.
Newly tenured and associate professor of philosophy, Megan Mitchell, organized the since canceled rally along with both Students In Action (SIA) and March For Our Lives (MFOL) organizations.
There is now a Zoom meeting on Thursday, November 4 to discuss with the Stonehill community what the faculty are still fighting for, Mitchell said, encouraging people to attend.
“The College claims that they cannot afford to pay College employees fairly and so, we all must work harder for less pay. We claim the College can afford to pay us and, in this zoom, we explain how,” Mitchell said.
Goddard, the College spokesperson said, the pandemic posed financial problems for Stonehill and other schools.
“As Father John shared in a State of the Hill address to all employees in September, many colleges and universities are facing serious financial threats due to the pandemic. The College had to make tough financial decisions these past two years,” Goddard said.
The first issue arose when the pandemic began, and according to Mitchell, that was when senior administration first froze money in the faculty contracts.
“Since the early 2000s, full-time Arts and Sciences tenured/tenure-track faculty were on a salary grid system; each year we stay at Stonehill we “step up” to a new year/rank on the grid and so, receive a guaranteed 2.5% pay increase. Freezing the salary meant that for that year, we would “step up” in year/rank but we would not step up in pay,” Mitchell said.
Along with the pay raise tenured faculty are supposed to get each year, the College took away the five percent retirement match, she said.
According to Mitchell, the College’s benefit plan automatically contributes five percent of the base pay for a full-time employee to their retirement funds. Each employee can elect to contribute up to another five percent and the College will match that contribution. When the pandemic hit, that extra five percent match was also taken away.
Goddard said the College is matching a smaller amount of the individual’s contribution at this time but it still contributes to the account.
“Under the current retirement plan, the College automatically contributes 5 percent of an employee’s base salary to their retirement account with TIAA-CREF upon meeting eligibility requirements. If an employee chooses to make an additional contribution to the plan, Stonehill will match up to an additional 1 percent at this time. An employee must contribute to the plan to receive the match,” Goddard said.
Mitchell said that she, along with others, are feeling betrayed by the College because they thought the salary and retirement cuts would be temporary.
“We found out that the cuts they told us were temporary were going to become permanent, and the salary structure that they had shown us when they hired us (and for many of us was the reason we came to Stonehill even though our starting salaries were very low) was going away,” Mitchell said.
“Depending on when they return the match, all employees across the College stand to lose about $8.2 million dollars in total from our retirement accounts. For the average Associate Professor, like me, it’s about $46,000,” Mitchell said.
According to Mitchell, senior administration chooses to prioritize keeping the endowment as high as possible by cutting programs and salaries.
“It says something about what their priorities are—it says that some hypothetical future student, staff, or faculty member matters more than students, staff, and faculty members now.”
Goddard noted that the College is discussing the financial issues with the appropriate group representing faculty at this time.
“The College is not in direct conversation with the local AAUP chapter as they are not a part of the established faculty governance structure. The senior administration continues to work closely and respectfully to examine compensation with the Faculty Compensation Committee, a subcommittee of the Faculty Senate,” Goddard said.
March For Our Lives (MFOL) is a student-led group that has helped to break down the problem into a language students can comprehend and encourages them to show their support for their fellow members of the Stonehill community.
“I think this is one of the most urgent and imperative causes that the Stonehill community has taken up. The impact that Stonehill faculty have on students is invaluable; personally, I’ve built relationships with faculty members who have changed my life and made me a remarkably better person,” Vice President of MFOL, Karly O’Keefe said.
O’Keefe said that MFOL has helped bring awareness to the issue by creating buttons and by passing out flyers advertising last week’s rally, which was canceled due to the storm.
As a student of Mitchell’s, O’Keefe said that it is horrifying to think that future classes of Stonehill students will not get the opportunities to grow and learn that she has gotten, because of poor financial decisions made by the College.
According to Mitchell, faculty members of the AAUP will be continuing to fight for fair wages.
“I think faculty can absolutely secure a fair deal from administration but we have to continue to speak up and work in solidarity with other College employees, and we need help from students and alumni. We have to work together to convince the administration to do the right thing for all its employees,” Mitchell said.
According to Goddard, the senior administration works through a budget process to build a fair, sustainable and equitable annual operating budget that balances resources and needs of the College which includes any changes to compensation and benefits for all employees. That process begins in January.
Mitchell compares the issue to a leaking dam. Without a plug or a solution to the problem, another leak/problem will happen leading to more issues later on, she said.
“It feels like a dam that has started leaking everywhere at once and every time they plug one hole, another bursts open. Unless Senior Administration is willing to invest in the rebuilding the dam—making the faculty and staff whole again with fair compensation and the resources we need to do our jobs well—I don’t see how it can be stopped,” Mitchell said.
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