Dear Mercy College Adjunct Faculty and Lecturers,
I write today to provide an update on Mercy College’s negotiations with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which have been ongoing since October 2019. Throughout these negotiations, the parties worked diligently to find common ground on a wide range of issues and have made a great deal of progress toward reaching an overall labor contract.
In May 2021, the College presented an initial wage proposal that we believed to be competitive with the national and regional marketplaces. After nine months, we received a counterproposal from the SEIU at the bargaining session on March 2, 2022. After careful study and consideration, the College presented a new proposal on wages at yesterday’s session. This proposal represents increases to the base rate ranging from 10% to 20% (this is in addition to the 2019 rate increases, which ranged from 36% to 97%). Compared to base adjunct salaries prior to the formation of the adjunct union at Mercy College, the original increase from fall 2019 and the increase proposed now represent a combined increase of 45.5%. This proposal further reflects the College’s commitment to substantially upgrade pay rates for our adjuncts which began back in 2019 prior to the union negotiations. We strongly believe this new proposal is more than fair and should form the basis for finally reaching an overall contract.
At yesterday’s session the College also put forward a proposal that allows for arbitration in instances where disputes between the parties cannot be resolved through our internal processes or mediation. We still have concerns that arbitration is designed to mimic a litigation process that is adversarial and that could become a serious drain on the College’s resources if used on a frequent basis. We view this as a major concession that the College has decided to make in order to achieve a contract and in order to build a solid working relationship with the SEIU.
In light of these developments, we believe that any further talk of a potential strike would be irresponsible and contrary to the best interests of our students and the entire College community, including adjunct faculty members. We urge everyone concerned to express your support for a negotiated resolution to all remaining issues, which we hope can be accomplished in the near future.
Sincerely,
Tim Hall
President