photo by: University of Kansas

The skyline of the University of Kansas is pictured.

Members of the labor union representing faculty members at the University of Kansas have overwhelmingly voted to ratify the union’s first contract with KU.

Voting wrapped up late last week, and the union — United Academics of KU — recently posted on its website that 92% of members voted to ratify the three-year contract.

The organization didn’t release specific vote totals. The union represents about 1,600 faculty members on the Lawrence campus, but only employees who have agreed to join the union were eligible to vote. Kansas law doesn’t require employees covered by a union to become dues-paying members of a union, thus union members and covered employees are often different.

The ratification vote by the union brings the contract one step closer to final approval. The Kansas Board of Regents — the state-appointed board that oversees operations of KU and Kansas’ other public universities — must approve the contract before it can become final.

The Regents are next scheduled to meet on April 15, although the board does have the ability to call special meetings to approve items

Final approval would bring to a close a process that began about two years ago when faculty members voted to form a union. Negotiations have been underway ever since. Compensation issues have been among the topics that have sparked debate between the union and KU’s management team.

As the Journal-World reported last week, the interim contract approves at least a 1% raise for all faculty members, but higher raises for those who have received promotions or been found to be below market averages when compared to other similar employees at peer institutions.

Key details about wages and compensation that are included in the tentative agreement include:

The contract sets minimum base salary levels for the following positions: Assistant Professor: $70,000; Associate Professor: $76,500; Full Professor: $88,500; Distinguished Professor: $103,500. Librarians — which have similar ranks as professors — would receive those same minimums. The contract also sets minimum wage levels for lecturers at $52,500 to $64,167, depending on a few variables.

The contract creates guaranteed raises for when a faculty member receives a promotion. They include: From Assistant Professor to Associate Professor: 9% raise, or at least $6,500; From Associate Professor to Full Professor: 12% raise, or at least $12,000; From Full Professor to Distinguished Professor: 12% raise, or at least $15,000. From Lecturer to Senior Lecturer: 9% raise or at least $4,875.

• In the current year, $1.5 million would be set aside in a merit pool fund that department chairs and other leaders of university divisions could seek to use to provide raises to employees in their departments. Under the terms of the contract, no employee could receive more than a 3% raise from that pool of money. The $1.5 million also would not be enough money to ensure that all faculty members received a 3% raise. Only employees that receive a rating of “Good” or better on their annual evaluation would be eligible for a merit wage increase. The contract establishes five rating categories for annual evaluations: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Marginal and Poor.

Faculty members who did not receive a raise as part of the change in minimum compensation levels would receive a 1% salary increase this year.

• The labor contract between the union and KU would last for three years, but several of the compensation provisions are not guaranteed for the full three-year term of the contract. For example, KU administration has not committed to providing merit wage increases for the second and third year of the contract. It also has not committed to providing the 1% across-the-board wage increase for eligible employees in the second and third year of the contracts. Rather KU administration has agreed to conduct more negotiations with the union on wage levels for the second and third year of the contract.