Gu Faculty Angered Over Wage Freeze Plan Talk Turns To Hiring Lawyer, Picketing, Forming Union

A Gonzaga University proposal to freeze salaries for a second consecutive year has teachers threatening to hire lawyers and form a union.

Executives of the Faculty Assembly said they would deliver a resolution to Gonzaga acting president Harry Sladich saying a plan that emerged last week to freeze salaries is unacceptable. They say it breaks a 1996 pact to phase in pay raises over three years.

Administrators had endorsed the pact with teachers, barring “any major unforeseen financial problems.”

“Faculty are not happy about the salary freeze, but they are hopeful that we can come up with a solution,” said Mark Alfino, associate professor of philosophy and an officer of the assembly.

Other members of Gonzaga’s 280 faculty are upset that administrators are considering the freeze at a time when Gonzaga is preparing to build a $22 million law school and has grown its endowment by an astounding $12 million in two years to $75 million.

In e-mail sent to more than 300 Gonzaga employees, some teachers have suggested hiring an attorney, picketing or even forming a union.

Administrators plan to meet with faculty on the issue later this month.

Gonzaga spokesman Dale Goodwin said the school dropped its annual cost-of-living pay raise in 1997 for the first time in 20 years.

As part of the agreement with faculty, he said, the school increased its level of contributions to retirement funds and raised the salaries of certain underpaid teachers. In exchange, employees began paying 10 percent of medical premiums for dependents.

Next year, the agreement calls for employees to pay 30 percent of premiums for dependents unless the salaries are frozen, Goodwin said.

Alfred Miranne, a sociology professor representing the faculty on Gonzaga’s board of regents, estimated the school would save $1 million by avoiding an annual raise for employees for two years.

Goodwin said the figure was accurate. He said Gonzaga spends $29 million of its $65 million annual operating budget on wages for 800 employees.

Gonzaga finance director Charles Murphy cautioned that some teachers are reacting before they get all the facts. A salary freeze, he said, is one of several options that the board of trustees will consider at its April 17 meeting. He declined to disclose other options.

Murphy said that Gonzaga must hold down costs to balance its budget against a recent dip in student enrollment.

“You can’t gut the university just to pay salary increases,” he said. “At this stage, it would be difficult to give salary increases given our enrollment trends.”

Gonzaga’s enrollment of 4,500 students is down 200 since 1994. That represents $3 million in lost tuition, assuming students pay their own way.

Administrators see signs that enrollment will bounce back soon. The number of new students rose 10 percent last fall and Gonzaga has already accepted more than 1,000 students for fall 1998, Goodwin said. That’s 200 ahead of the same time last year, despite the university boosting undergraduate tuition 4 percent to $15,960 for the 1998-99 academic year.

Goodwin said Gonzaga is prohibited from tapping its $75 million endowment for salaries. The fund, which has grown from $63 million in 1996, helps finance scholarships, teaching positions, research and special operations.

, DataTimes