The Lecturers’ Employee Organization, founded in 2003, is a union for non-tenure-track faculty on all three University of Michigan campuses. LEO is currently in the process of bargaining for an updated contract with the University to better meet the needs of U-M workers. In this bargaining session, LEO is demanding reforms to increase faculty salaries, prohibit harassment and decrease workload.
LEO signed its current contract in 2021, which, after bargaining with the University, was ratified in 2022. In an interview with The Michigan Daily in January, LEO president Kirsten Herold, lecturer at the School of Public Health, said LEO’s advocacy work has made an impact on the union and individual lecturers.
“I would say the single biggest achievement in 2021 was to bring lecture salaries and the starting pay for Flint and Dearborn up to the same as Ann Arbor,” Herold said. “We have gone from being viewed as temps and, in some departments, an embarrassment, frankly … we have become a more recognized partner and there is more respect for lecturers and the union.”
In an email to The Daily on Feb. 7, Herold wrote that reforms will be made in three different phases to eventually reach an agreement. Herold and the other union members are trying to reach an agreement with the University about recent negotiations.
“We opened negotiations (with the University) at the end of October,” Herold wrote. “I would say we are in the second of three phases. Phase 1: present your proposals/ goals. Phase 2 (where we are currently): get agreement/ movement on as many of the noneconomics as possible. Phase 3: Get a strong economic agreement and resolve whatever else remains on the table.”
According to Herold, the workers on all three campuses do not make enough money to support themselves and many have to work additional jobs to boost their income. Herold said workers are demanding larger salary increases to make up for being underpaid for several years.
“LEO needs robust raises to make up for the erosion in salaries over the last three years,” Herold said. “What we are hearing from admin is that (U-M) Dearborn and Flint are in bad financial shape. If we insist on keeping parity, equal starting pay and raises, which we won in 2021, we will all get very little.”
In an interview with The Daily on April 3, Herold said there is a pay disparity between the U-M Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn campuses, which is a key part of current negotiations.
“Ann Arbor is now offering 5% (for a salary increase), as I said, but Flint and Dearborn are not,” Herold said. “And so people are behind and they want to catch up. They have kids to send to the dentist, a new car they need and whatever. Our new young lecturers cannot afford to live in Ann Arbor, they can’t afford to buy a house anywhere in Washtenaw County.”
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Rackham student Michael Mueller, a member of the Graduate Employees’ Organization, said the administration’s response to LEO demands aligns with previous responses workers and students have received from the University administration. Mueller cited the protest on U-M campus for the University to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, saying he believes it is necessary because the University has not listened to student voices on this issue. Mueller said he believes this protest is symptomatic of a larger pattern of a lack of engagement between the U-M administration and the U-M campus community.
“I think that the administration has not had a great record of listening to what workers want,” Mueller said. “We’re here at a rally at a protest for divestment. Even though the issues may seem different, in some sense, they’re the same. We know that when students and workers are calling for the University to come to the table to talk in good faith about changing what we need addressed at the University, whether it’s living wages or divestment from genocide.”
In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Colleen Mastony said the administration continues to work with LEO in order to reach a contract agreement.
“Lecturers play a critical role in advancing the academic mission of all three university campuses,” Mastony said. “The negotiations have been positive and productive, and we look forward to continuing to work together toward a strong, fair, and forward-looking contract that satisfies both parties’ interests…The university generally does not discuss details of bargaining subjects outside of negotiations with the union.”
The organization announced a strike pledge on their lecturer bargaining update after meeting with the University on March 29. Herold told The Daily that LEO may potentially strike if their demands are not met.
“Classes end on April 23,” Herold said. “If we strike before that, it means lecturers don’t teach. If we strike after that, it means lecturers don’t grade. The answer to that depends on so many things that I can’t predict at this point.”
Herold spoke about the uncertainty around the possible strike.
“I know from my experience, and I have a lot of experience, at the end of bargaining, things can change very quickly,” Herold said. “We have members who want to know, ‘What day are we striking because I want to add it to my syllabus’. I hope we don’t have to; that’s the bottom line answer. We went through a lot on this campus a year ago. I think it would be terrible if we have to repeat that.”
Herold said LEO has taken steps to prepare for a potential strike, but members still need to vote in order to strike.
“At this point, we’re just having people sign a pledge saying they would strike if it came to that,” Herold said. “We’ll see how that goes. Then we’ll have a membership meeting and we’ll discuss where we’re at in bargaining, and if the membership wants us to send out a strike vote, we will do it.”
Herold also said that even after a strike vote, the decision of whether or not to strike rests on the Union Council, the governing body of LEO elected by union membership.
“But even then it’s not a given that we strike. It’s still up to the nine elected leaders of the union to call it because they know what’s happening in terms of bargaining. Members don’t know that when they vote on that, maybe two weeks earlier.”
Update 4/5: The article has been updated to include comment from the University.
Daily Staff Reporter Ellen Drejza can be reached at edrejza@umich.edu. Daily News Editor Sneha Dhandapani contributed to the reporting of this story.