Once again, the University of Louisville’s upper administration is threatening to radically overhaul our workplace without considering, consulting, or fairly compensating us, the workers responsible for putting these plans into action.
The reorganization of Academic Advising—introduced just five weeks before its proposed implementation—exemplifies
upper administration’s refusal to understand and appreciate workers’ duties, skills, knowledge, and say in our own jobs and in the university to which we’ve dedicated so much. Faced with fierce and widespread resistance from workers, administration postponed some of the most egregious aspects of the Advising reorganization. Yet the current plan still reassigns major duties from advisors to faculty without sufficient training or preparation, sowing confusion about job titles, responsibilities, and compensation right before the start of the academic year. The administration is still soliciting faculty to take on work for which they have not been trained, offering them minimal x-pay while denying most advisors any compensation whatsoever for performing these same duties. Changes as sweeping as this Advising reorganization, which will reverberate among workers and students for years to come, should not and must not be made lightly or unilaterally.
On the heels of the Advising announcement, UofL staff received the profoundly disappointing results of the much-publicized Compensation and Total Rewards Study. For years, administration used the ongoing compensation study as an excuse for delaying or denying staff requests for raises, creating the expectation that the study would finally address systemic inequity and stagnation. Instead, despite years of research, endless deferred promises, and
hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on private consulting firms, the
study delivered little more than confusing changes in job titles and pay ranges, with many staff receiving no increase in compensation whatsoever. Moreover, the new midranges and maximums are often lower than in the old system (discouraging staff from committing to work at UofL for the long term) and don’t account for the record inflation that has occurred since the old ranges were introduced in 2017 (essentially subjecting all staff to permanent pay cuts). In response to our dissatisfaction with this outcome, President Schatzel stated that the university “set unrealistic expectations” for the study’s outcome, effectively refusing to recognize or honor the previous administration’s promises to staff. Such treatment reflects neither the valuable work that staff do nor the many duties that staff are increasingly asked to take on as cuts, resignations, and retirements mount.
As we know, these are not isolated incidents.
UofL administrators have a habit of making structural decisions about our duties and responsibilities by fiat, without granting us representation or prioritizing fair compensation. This year, it’s Academic Advising. Last year, it was the proposed
restructuring of the College of Arts & Sciences. The year before that, it was
COVID policies that prioritized a return to normalcy over the health and safety of workers and students. And all the while, we’ve been told to do more with less: denied the tenure-track faculty lines required to grow or even sustain departments, expected to retain our R1 status without adequate funding for research, subjected to pay and hiring freezes while new high-paying upper-administration positions are created, compelled to take on more and more duties with no change in compensation, and forced to work in unsafe buildings that are literally crumbling around us.
The University of Louisville chapter of United Campus Workers of Kentucky demands an end to this pattern of disrespect and disinvestment. As staff, full- and part-time faculty, facilities workers, and graduate and undergraduate student workers at the University of Louisville, we matter and our expertise matters. As workers, we are often more familiar with the university’s day-to-day operations than those in the administration. And yet, the administration rarely if ever consults with us before proposing or enacting sweeping changes to the systems, policies, or procedures that we have spent years mastering and improving. Rather than working with us, the administration repeatedly imposes significant top-down changes that undermine our ability to perform our jobs well and with pride. Instead of creating promise and hope for the future, the administration promotes dissatisfaction, uncertainty, suspicion, and cynicism.
We are at a crisis point. Years of understaffing and low morale—combined with rampant institutional disregard for workers’ expertise and insights about our jobs—have led us to take action. We demand change. We will not accept proposals from UofL’s upper administration that do not meaningfully take into account workers’ current and future wellbeing. We demand the respect we deserve for the priceless services we provide the University of Louisville.
We demand:
COMPENSATION
- Effective immediately: 10% COLA to reflect the rampant inflation over the past three years.
- Effective immediately: A long-term commitment to annual COLA raises that reflect the rate of inflation.
- Effective immediately: X-pay for advisors who teach FYE courses, to ensure parity between faculty and staff instructors of these courses.
- By 2024: Restore workers’ maximum salary/wages to reflect the previous pay grades where those grades were higher than the new scale.
- By 2025: A minimum hourly wage of $25, without decreasing scheduled hours for current full- and part-time positions.
REPRESENTATION
- Access to documentation of the Compensation Study’s results and procedures, including:
- An explanation of how and why changes to classification and compensation were made
- Documentation of the number of employees who received increases in compensation, how much employees’ compensation was increased on average, how much compensation increased in total, etc.
- A seat at the table: Include workers across job classes and levels in future studies and proposals.
- Require cooperation with and approval from both staff and faculty governing bodies for all major structural changes to schools or colleges.
- Require cooperation with and approval from affected staff or faculty via governing bodies, such as the University Advising Council, for major reassignment of duties across units or departments.
- Involve undergraduate and graduate student representatives in the conversations and decision making surrounding any similar compensation studies and/or plans occurring in the present and future.
- Commit to regular meetings and dialogue with United Campus Workers staff, faculty, and graduate and undergraduate worker leadership.
To:
University of Louisville Leadership, President Kim Schatzel
From:
[Your Name]
We, the faculty, staff, students, and other members of the Cardinal Community and United Campus Workers of Kentucky, call on University of Louisville President Kim Schatzel to take immediate action towards meeting the following demands:
COMPENSATION
1. Effective immediately: 10% COLA to reflect the rampant inflation over the past three years.
2. Effectively immediately: A long-term commitment to annual COLA raises that reflect the rate of inflation.
3. Effective immediately: X-pay for advisors who teach FYE courses, to ensure parity between faculty and staff instructors of these courses.
4. By 2024: Restore workers’ maximum salary/wages to reflect the previous pay grades where those grades were higher than the new scale.
5. By 2025: A minimum hourly wage of $25, without decreasing scheduled hours for current full- and part-time positions.
REPRESENTATION
1. Access to documentation of the Compensation Study’s results and procedures, including:
a. An explanation of how and why changes to classification and compensation were made
b. Documentation of the number of employees who received increases in compensation, how much employees’ compensation was increased on average, how much compensation increased in total, etc.
2. A seat at the table: Include workers across job classes and levels in future studies and proposals.
a. Require cooperation with and approval from both staff and faculty governing bodies for all major structural changes to schools or colleges.
b. Require cooperation with and approval from affected staff or faculty via governing bodies, such as the University Advising Council, for major reassignment of duties across units or departments.
c. Involve undergraduate and graduate student representatives in the conversations and decision making surrounding any similar compensation studies and/or plans occurring in the present and future.
d. Commit to regular meetings and dialogue with United Campus Workers staff, faculty, and graduate and undergraduate worker leadership.
We are at a crisis point. Years of understaffing and low morale—combined with rampant institutional disregard for workers’ expertise and insights about our jobs—have led us to take action. We demand change. We will not accept proposals from UofL’s upper administration that do not meaningfully take into account workers’ current and future wellbeing. We demand the respect we deserve for the priceless services we provide the University of Louisville.
