Ewu Trustees Approve Contract Eastern’S Faculty Voted In Favor Of Contract Earlier

Eastern Washington University’s Board of Trustees approved a new four-year contract for Eastern’s faculty on Friday, providing healthy raises to senior faculty members.

Eastern’s faculty voted in favor of the contract earlier this month.

The new contract outlines a process to make salaries more competitive with other regional four-year universities across the country. Salary increases, however, depend on qualifications and experience. A faculty member with 15 years of experience, for example, could see a one-time 4to 5-percent salary increase in addition to the state’s annual cost-of-living increase.

EWU chemistry professor Jeff Corkill, outgoing president of the United Faculty of Eastern, said the new contract likely will help Eastern retain and recruit talented faculty members.

“I consider the acceptance of this contract yet another step of EWU’s revival and dynamic growth that has occurred in the past two years,” Corkill said.

Tenured professors at Eastern currently earn between $50,000 and $60,000 a year, Corkill said.

The new contract, which covers all 400 faculty members, also improves the dispute resolution process and conforms with state accreditation requirements, making faculty more accountable for their teaching, research and service activities.

Faculty morale reached a low point about three years ago when the university was struggling with sinking enrollment and financial and administrative problems.

The union, formed in 1994, settled its first four-year contract in 1995. But as the university weathered a budget deficit, the union agreed to give up some of its salary increases and renegotiated its contract in 1997. Though the revised contract wasn’t scheduled to expire until 2001, President Stephen Jordan offered to negotiate a whole new contract after he arrived on campus in 1998.

Since Jordan’s arrival, Eastern has recovered with a healthy budget and has surpassed its enrollment goal set by the state.

“It is important that this contract successfully strikes a balance in which we recognize our responsibility to our faculty as well as our accountability to the state,” Jordan said in a prepared statement. “I congratulate all who worked so hard in a collaborative way to move us toward the vision we all share.”

The contract, which was reached after 13 months of bargaining, becomes effective July 1.

Eastern is the only university among the state’s four-year institutions that has a collective bargaining agreement. The state’s labor laws do not include collective bargaining rights for university faculty, meaning the administration is not required to bargain.

“I think this sets a challenge for other four-year institutions to look at collective bargaining,” said Joe Thorp, of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, who has been working with Eastern’s union.