Ewu Faculty File Grievance Over Pay Raise Enrollment Growth Fulfills Clause In Contract, Teachers Union Says

Eastern Washington University’s teachers union has filed a grievance against administrators for rejecting a $300,000 pay hike that is triggered when student enrollment goes up.

The United Faculty of Eastern filed the grievance last week, saying administrators have violated a 1995 labor agreement that calls for a “productivity pay raise” when enrollment rises 2 percent or more.

Administrators, however, say the union misunderstands the contract.

The grievance comes at a sensitive time for officials, who are attempting to work with faculty to reorganize academic departments and to lobby Olympia lawmakers for the right to raise or lower tuition to pay for special needs.

In addition, first-year President Stephen Jordan has sought the support of faculty to participate in his investiture on Thursday, a formal ceremony that will induct him as leader of the four-year university.

“This (grievance) couldn’t have come at a worse time,” Jordan wrote Friday in an e-mail to Eastern employees. “I am afraid that the action by the UFE now puts the administration and faculty in adversarial positions and could well create disharmony among faculty members and other university employees.”

UFE officers said Jordan could have resolved the dispute by issuing the pay raise and fulfilling the labor agreement.

“The administration seems to have taken a no-compromise position,” said union Vice President Brian Houser, an associate professor of physics. “We’ve let it be known publicly that we are willing to look at a compromise that’s short of $300,000.”

Meeting the teachers’ demands would increase Eastern’s payroll $300,000 this year and $400,000 each year thereafter, Jordan said. He said he is reserving 2 percent of next year’s proposed tuition hike in case the university loses the dispute.

Jordan asked the union to wait until September before filing the grievance. In exchange, he promised to consider extending the union contract from 2001 to 2004. The union rejected the offer, saying a contract extension was already scheduled to be discussed.

The labor agreement provides teachers a pay raise for helping to boost enrollment by 2 percent or more. Teachers would pocket half, and the rest would go toward library books and other instructional resources.

Administrators reject the raise because enrollment has not risen above the level in 1993-94, the year prior to signing the contract. Student numbers currently are 500 below 1994 numbers.

The UFE says the contract does not specify a base year from which to measure enrollment growth. Thanks in part to faculty efforts, enrollment jumped 4 percent in 1998, the union said.