We Urge the AAUP Not to Cut Off Its Nose to Spite Its Face

The day after our last Substack post, Inside Higher Ed published an article about the ongoing contract dispute between the AAUP and the United Staff of the AAUP (US-AAUP). Reporter Ryan Quinn reached out to management and the union to ask about the dispute after receiving and declining to publish an op-ed written in support of the US-AAUP by faculty who are AAUP members. In the article, AAUP senior counsel Aaron Nisenson commented as chief negotiator for the management’s team: “We think we’re very close, and we’re hopeful that we can wrap this up very soon.”

We were hopeful too, especially since we had just presented a package that moved closer to management’s position, with significant concessions on study leave and student loan debt support in favor of a settlement on the core issues of compensation and telework for DC staff, and we have been silent on Substack and social media since the article came out because we have been focusing all of our efforts on moving toward settlement. Instead of responding to our concessions, the AAUP has retaliated with anger about the article and refusals to make any new counter-proposals that move toward us. Since late June, they have doubled down on a regressive bargaining position—withholding what now amounts to ten months of retroactive pay that should compensate staff for cost-of-living adjustments going back to January 1, 2023. Retroactive pay has been a typical feature of the AAUP’s previous contracts with the US-AAUP, and the staff needs such compensation now more than over, since unit members’ salaries have increased only 6.3 percent since January 1, 2019, while inflation has increased 22.3 percent, resulting in a 13 percent decrease in our real salaries. In effect, the employer is punishing staff for the length of a bargaining process that began months before our contract expired on October 1, 2022, over a year ago. Since then, the US-AAUP has also done groundbreaking work on the introduction of a new salary step system and adjustments to outdated portions of the personnel manual addressing discrimination and harassment.

Now it seems the AAUP has no interest in advancing new proposals. Why is it that an organization dedicated to uplifting and empowering the collective voices of academic workers so persistently refuses to engage constructively with its staff union? The association has made changes to its bargaining team: after commenting to Inside Higher Ed that the AAUP was close to settlement, Aaron Nisenson resigned from management’s team, and AAUP past president Rudy Fichtenbaum was elevated as the new chief negotiator. The employer also added to its team Mark Bostic, the director of the Department of Organizing and Services, even though he is the direct supervisor of four members of the US-AAUP bargaining team. Fichtenbaum and Bostic have union backgrounds with Wright State University and the AFT, respectively, but they have been unable to make progress toward a prompt and fair settlement.

This week, after the management team rejected a new package that the union had presented with new compromises on education benefits to settle on telework, and informing us that they would not be submitting a new counter-proposal, the US-AAUP submitted to the National Labor Relations Board two charges of unfair labor practices, including the failure to fulfill information requests related to AAUP finances and failure to bargain in good faith, with the removal of thousands of dollars in retroactive pay for staff as evidence of a regressive pattern of bargaining that demonstrates an intention not to settle. 

Through its affiliation with the AFT, the AAUP has ostensibly intensified its focus on building the academic labor movement and has established ambitious goals for organizing faculty across the country—goals that have stretched the AAUP’s small organizing department (which has shrunk as organizers and field service representatives who resign are not replaced) to its limits, with some organizing staff frequently working twelve-hour days. In a year when we have seen auto workers, health-care providers, pharmacists, UPS employees, writers, and actors stand up for their collective rights, we think the AAUP should live up to its commitments by engaging constructively with its own staff. 

There is much work to be done in higher education by AAUP staff, and US-AAUP members want to do that work while feeling supported by our employer. The AAUP’s financial position remains strong, and the staff union compensation proposal is affordable and under budget. As a result of the pandemic, the Association was able to build up millions of dollars in cash reserves as expenses were reduced dramatically when travel by organizers and other AAUP staff, leaders, and committee members was suspended for two years. Additionally, the practice of leaving vacant positions unfilled during years of high turnover has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in unspent salary. On top of that, our research shows that the AAUP received hundreds of thousands of dollars in Employee Retention Credit (ERC) funding from the federal government. Although the employer has failed to furnish complete ERC information, even after six requests, we understand that the AAUP has received somewhere between $400,000 and $600,000 through this federal program to support organizations and their staff during the pandemic. Why, we ask, does the AAUP continue to delay much-needed adjustments to compensation and to insist on withholding retroactive pay from staff who are, in many cases, living paycheck to paycheck? Is this an austerity tactic or just a reflection of the AAUP’s complete lack of interest in the dignity and well-being of its diverse and talented staff? Or is the AAUP’s leadership seeking to exact revenge by collectively punishing the staff? Resorting to a cliché, we urge the AAUP not to cut off its nose to spite its face.

Today, representatives of the staff union had an introductory meeting with a federal mediator of the FMCS to discuss the four issues of compensation, telework, study leave, and student loan debt support. We shared the contact information for the management team to help get the ball rolling, and we remain open to mediation for a settlement. We hope the management team is too. 

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