Students at Eastern Michigan University have returned from summer break to find their professors on strike and their classes, which are scheduled to begin this morning, taught by alternates.
The professors, who are represented by a local chapter of the American Association of University Professors, went on strike just after midnight on September 1, when their contract with the university expired. With no classes in session, faculty members spent the last six days of the summer break on picket lines.
According to Howard Bunsis, president of the AAUP chapter, the union has been unsatisfied with the university’s pay and health-care proposals. He said the university had proposed increasing the amount of health-care expenses professors would have to pay out of their own pockets without offering a significant enough raise in salary to cover the extra burden.
He also said the union wanted a say in how many full-time faculty members the university employs. A union news release issued last night said that the professors were willing to continue bargaining but the university “walked away from negotiations.”
Ward Mullens, associate director of university communications, said on Friday that Eastern Michigan would not comment on the issues under negotiation, but it issued a news release last night describing its last offer as amounting to a 16-percent increase in pay and benefits.
The university has also filed a complaint with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, accusing the union of unfair labor practices and saying it had failed “to bargain in good faith” and was “participating in an illegal strike.” According to the university, it is against state law for public employees to go on strike (The Chronicle, September 4).
The university later said it would cease negotiating if talks had not resolved the strike by 10 p.m. on Tuesday. Eastern Michigan said classes would be taught, for now, by nonunion instructors, adjunct professors, and what it called “other qualified educators.” It said it would return to the bargaining table when professors returned to the classroom.
