University of Wisconsin Faculty Also to Face Furloughs

A colleague in the University of Wisconsin system calls to my attention the now official "furlough" policy for faculty.  His summary and comments:

All UW faculty will be furloughed over the next 2 years, taking 6 days/year for faculty 9-month appointments, effectively a 5% cut (3% + rescinded 2% raise).  Since furloughs cannot interfere with instruction, and research-minded folks like me cannot seem to find their curiosity time-clock, it’s just a pay-cut without permanently reducing base salary—which will return to Fall, 2008 levels in the Fall of 2011.  We have obtained the right to unionize, however. 

Comments

[James K.A. Smith]

I find the stipulation that furloughs "cannot interfere with instruction" to be strange, but not unsurprising. If research is integral to the responsibilities of a professor (and one would think reappointment and tenure processes confirm this), then why would only instruction be guarded in this sense? Was this stipulation handed down from the Wisconsin legislature (in which case I would see it as a kind of lingering anti-intellectualism which thinks professors are only "working" when they're in the classroom)?

[Alan]

"Furlough time cannot be taken on instructional days" is the direct quote from the official document outlining the procedures. There is nothing in the document about the relationship between research and furlough time except for statements about research that is funded from outside sources. I don't know if the proviso about instructional days was stipulated by the legislature or imposed by System.

[robert allen]

One wonders if the administrators responsible for this policy and the army of lackeys supporting them- the latest AFT newsletter reports that the 2 groups have grown respectively 41% and 50% over the last 12 years- are making a similar sacrifice? Probably not, as their objective is to profit from what should be a non-profit enterprise. One also wonders why real academics continue to allow such injustices to flourish? On the assumption that most of us are committed to fairness and maintaining high academic standards- neither of which most administrators pay anything but lip-service to- militant action would drive the parasites back into the business world where they belong.

[Alan]

Just to be clear--the furlough program applies to all Wisconsin state employees--prison guards as well as UW administrators, if those positions are at all distinguishable.

[harry b]

robert -- the furloughs were imposed by the Governor, as a populist, state-employee bashing measure; administrators have no choice in the matter and are trying to make the best of a lousy situation. An honest paycut (which is what this really is) would have saved them a lot of time and enery.

[Sean McAleer]

The requirement that furlough days not directly interfere with instruction was decided by UW System -- with no input from the faculty and academic staff representatives of each campus. The rationale -- that cancelling any classes would undermine the System's efforts to convince the legislature that faculty do far more than just teach -- is less than persuasive. Our situation isn't nearly as bad as California's, but morale is pretty crappy. On the upside, faculty and staff will finally have the right to decide whether to unionize ...

[harry b]

I don't see what choice there was -- in the circumstances it would just seem irresponsible to the public for us to allow instruction to be disrupted. I see that students at somewhere like Madison could reasonably be asked to share some of the costs of this, but not at most of the 2 and 4 year campuses. Morale is, indeed, bad, but I don't really see how selective disruption of instruction would help.

[Jonathan Mayhew]

A furlough on non-instructional days is basically theft of labor. On the other hand, furloughs, as opposed to straight salary cuts, leave your base salary untouched.

[Jeanne Swack]

There really is no furlough--it's a fiction. I come in every day and work on weekends--this is normal. There is nothing in exchange for the alleged 'furlough". I have to put down some fictional day on the monthly sheet. This is wholly a lie. What a sham.