The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Fall 2018 — 3C

After three days of electronic 
balloting and five membership 
events spread out across the three 
campuses 
outlining 
the 
new 
contract, the Lecturers’ Employee 
Organization voted to ratify a new 
labor agreement with the University 
on July 13.
Ninety eight percent of LEO 
members voted in favor of the new 
contract which will raise wages, 
improve healthcare and boost job 
security for lecturers across the 
three campuses. The contract was 
reached and presented to the union 
members for a vote following months 
of 
negotiations 
and 
numerous 
bargaining 
sessions 
with 
the 
University. LEO represents a union 
of more than 1,700 lecturers who 
collectively teach tens of thousands 
of students at the Ann Arbor, 
Dearborn and Flint campuses.
“This agreement is a result 
of months of hard work at the 
bargaining table – and much more,” 
LEO Vice President Kirsten Herold, 
a lecturer at the U-M School of 
Public Health and manager of the 
LEO bargaining team, said in LEO’s 
official statement. “We organized. 
We marched. We rallied. We 
lobbied. And we built a coalition 
that includes students, tenure-track 
faculty, union members on and off 
the campus, elected officials and 
community allies.”
LEO’s previous contract expired 
on May 29. Since the beginning of 
the last academic year, LEO has been 
pushing for higher wages, improved 
healthcare and greater equity of 
resources across the three U-M 
campuses.
Under the new contract, as of 
September current lecturers will 
receive annual base pay raises 
ranging from $3,000 to $12,500, 
depending on the length of each 
lecturer’s 
service. 
Those 
who 

make over $80,000 will receive a 
combination of base increases and 
lump-sum payments.
By September 2020 the minimum 
salary at which the University can 
hire lecturers will increase at each 
campus. In Ann Arbor, the base 
salary will increase by 47.8 percent 
from $34,500 to $51,000. In Flint 
there will be a 50.2 percent increase 
from $27,300 to $41,000. Finally, in 
Dearborn, the starting salary will 
go from $28,300 to $41,000, a 44.9 
percent increase.
LEO President Ian Robinson said 
the new contract represents not only 
a shift in the University’s treatment 
of lecturers but also in its perception 
of lecturers.
“I would say that this is a real 
paradigm shift for our relationship 
with the University of Michigan,” 
Robinson said. “We really have 
dramatically 
improved 
the 
livelihoods of many, many of our 
members. 
Not 
everybody 
was 
poorly paid but many were and 
most of those now are at a living 
wage and the kind of wage that is 
more appropriate for a professional 
making a career teaching at the 
University of Michigan and that’s 
huge.”
Robinson 
explained 
the 
University has taken a massive step 
forward, serving as an example for 
other institutions with lecturers 
facing the same issues.
“There aren’t many, if any, other 
universities in the country that have 
made such a big change in the way 
they treat their lecturers,” Robinson 
said. “I don’t want to say this is the 
best agreement in the country, but 
I think it’s up there in the top few. 
It’s also a beacon for other lecturers 
and other universities for what 
universities can and ought to do 
around the country.”
The new contract will increase 
the University’s contribution to 
retirement income for lecturers, 
improve healthcare, enhance job 
security by modifying the lecturers’ 

performance review process and 
provide additional funding for 
professional development for the 
lecturers. As a result of the new 
contract, 
a 
labor 
management 
conference will be held during the 
Fall 2019 semester in order for LEO 
and the University administration to 
discuss their progress towards the 
goal of improving diversity among 
the population of lecturers.
While the contract is a huge 
step forward for the lecturers, both 
Herold and Robinson agree it does 
not meet all of LEO’s expectations.
“We did not achieve everything 
our members wanted, especially in 
Flint and Dearborn – that is going 
to take more than a single round of 
collective bargaining,” Herold said. 
“But this contract does recognize 
the value lecturers contribute on all 
three campuses and sets the stage 
for further improvements.” 
LEO member Steven Toth, a U-M 
Flint chemistry lecturer, said the 
discrepancy between the campuses 
can be discouraging for lecturers 
outside of the Ann Arbor campus.
“I think we should be working 
more towards equity across the 
campuses and I think it’s a pretty 
bad signal to say someone that 
teaches at Ann Arbor is worth more 
than someone who teaches at Flint 
or Dearborn,” Toth said. “I do think 
that they should be paid more due to 
the cost of living (in Ann Arbor) but 
not as dramatic as it is now.”
Similarly, Robinson said LEO 
is not done fighting to overcome 
the wage discrepancy between the 
three campuses. He believes there 
are other ways outside of collective 
bargaining to meet this need.
“Some things are bargained for 
collectively through negotiations 
and some things are much bigger,” 
Robinson said. “This is something 
that is much bigger than just a 
collective agreement.”

LEO ratifies new contract 
increasing pay, benefits

GRACE KAY
Summer Managing News Editor

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