And more on the contract...

I mentioned the contract secures members' salary raises for the next few years, and a path to 3 year contracts. I want to emphasize that the way I read the contract, you are free to try to negotiate a better deal with your chair, as before the contract. I myself have a multi year appointment, satisfactory salary, and my pay raises have exceeded those secured by this contract. I am hoping to continue working under these conditions once my current appointment runs out.

HOWEVER, I am aware we have the current economic downturn (which the MSU administration has labelled as a "crisis" and used as a pretext to corporatize this university). Given this "crisis", if this contract did not exist, I doubt my pay raises would exceed what we achieved in the contract. For example, tenure track faculty have been forced to agree to a 0% pay raise for 2010-11, and I'm pretty sure any tenure track faculty pay raise for 2011-12 will be quite meager. As for me, I doubt how much leverage my chair would have to offer me another multi year contract once my current one runs out [the chair often has to ask the dean who has to ask the provost]. I felt my most realistic non-unionized scenario was reappointment under a series of 1 year contracts. But now, with the contract, I at least have a safety net of guaranteed raises (OK, not guaranteed, these are "merit" raises where each unit will determine how to divide the pot of money among its UNTF members, but it has to go to them) and a clear path to 3 year contracts.

Despite my fortunate position (it's really not that great, but compared to the horror stories I've heard about how other members have been treated, I feel fortunate), I voted for the union and spent countless hours on the bargaining team because I believe in unions, know that I would have been very vulnerable to the whims of any new chair that may come in my department, and that as a non-tenure track, non-unionized faculty I was an easy mark in the game of budget cuts. My individual talents, fame, value, "indispensability", whatever they may be, count for ZERO in this high stakes game. As universities have become corporatized, administrators have gained tremendous power vis a vis the faculty in academia. Witness the huge salaries and continued large raises MSU administrators continue to enjoy during this economic "crisis" and their ability to cut programs and academic staff at will (allegedly they run all of this by the faculty via "academic governance" but at MSU this is largely a rubber-stamp process). A union is the only viable countervailing force I could see in this setting. Our contract may not be perfect, but having it and a union make me sleep much better at night.