Dear President Schrader,
We write in our capacity as the Association Council of the Western Michigan University chapter of the American Association of University Professors, representing over 900 faculty, to urge you to return to bargaining and negotiate a fair contract with your faculty.
As a University President, we have to assume that you are certainly familiar with the tenets of collective bargaining. Thus, we can only view the Board of Trustees imposition of a “last, best offer” as an unseemly display of bad faith. An offer which nullifies previous workload agreements; removes the right of faculty to bargain over healthcare; introduces arbitrary awarding of merit pay; prevents faculty salaries from keeping up with rates of inflation; lengthens service requirements for non-tenure eligible faculty to qualify for continuing appointments; enables the administration to impose furloughs and retain sole decision-making power over summer teaching assignments; and introduces an early retirement program which is clearly designed to remove positions through attrition dehumanizes the hard working faculty that are committed to Wright State University.
We believe the faculty’s objections to this imposed contract and their vote in favor of a strike as entirely justified. Representing only 17% of the University’s budget, according to public records, it is unconscionable to shift the burden of the consequences of financial mismanagement to your faculty and their salaries and benefits. As a bargaining institution, you are obligated to return to the table and find mutually agreeable solutions to the issues facing Wright State. We urge you to return to the table and invite AAUP-WSU to participate in meaningful negotiation for the sake of your students, mission, and our profession.
Sincerely,
The Association Council
WMU-AAUP
814 Oakland Drive
Kalamazoo, MI 49008
Kalamazoo, MI 49008
American Association of University Professors 