Tulane University’s non-tenured faculty union, Tulane Workers United, proposed an article last week to Tulane, outlining the union’s desire for increased compensation and benefits structure. The proposal was met with what some members called an “insulting” counterproposal from the university.
“Tulane responded with an article that, to be quite frank, was pretty insulting, considering that we all have advanced degrees, that we teach full time, and that we are considered experts in our field,” Casey Beck, professor of practice for digital media practices, said. “They set a floor at $52,500. Our jaws were on the ground.”
The union posted that Tulane’s counteroffer to their request for better compensation and benefits was a “base salary” of $52,500 with no guaranteed raises.
“We value our teaching track faculty and the work they do,” Tulane spokesperson Mike Strecker said in a statement. “We are diligently seeking a collective bargaining agreement that is good for our faculty and good for the university as a whole.”
“What we’re hoping for is a wage where we can live with dignity,” Spanish instructor Tiffany Wilson said. “I currently have to work a second job to pay bills, and to see that the university offered $52,000 as what they think we’re worth, it’s disappointing and shocking.”
The union has been negotiating with Tulane for the past year on a collective bargaining agreement, a legally enforceable written contract between a union and management. Compensation is typically one of the last issues to be negotiated in the collective bargaining process.
“We’ve made really good progress on our appointments, on our course assignments and winning protections for the non-tenure track faculty,” Beck said.
The team representing Tulane, which includes officials from the Office of the Provost, Office of Human Resources, the Office of General Counsel and each school where represented faculty work, has met 21 times with the union and has tentatively agreed on 18 contract provisions, according to Strecker.
“We are committed to working through the few remaining open items and reaching a first contract with Tulane Workers United,” Strecker said.
Computer science professor of practice Matt Toups said pay and benefits have been a central issue for the union since its beginning.
“Every year I’ve been at Tulane, I have had to say farewell to some of my dear colleagues who have left when they found better jobs at other universities,” Toups said. “That happens everywhere, but I think it happens too much here. Implementing the union’s proposals for pay and benefits would make Tulane more attractive and retain more of our great talent on the faculty.”
In a TWU Instagram post, the union highlighted the salaries of other Tulane employees, including President Mike Fitts, who earned $1.6 million in 2023, and head football coach Willie Fritz, who earned $2.9 million in the same year. Tulane has not yet released tax filings for the fiscal year ending in June 2024.
“When you look at what other people, like the football coach, are making at Tulane, it really starts to paint a picture of Tulane’s priorities,” Beck said. “It’s pretty frustrating for us to realize that we, the full-time faculty of Tulane, are not a priority for them.”
Wilson said that the university’s response is not just a Tulane issue, but a larger issue in the U.S.
“We’re seeing people with SNAP [federal food assistance] benefits not have their benefits this month,” Wilson said. “This is a bigger issue of inequity with wages, and I think that the university is just following the status quo of not paying people an equitable wage.”
Because TWU is Tulane’s first faculty union, negotiating the university’s first contract has been a lengthy process since the union was officially formed in April 2024.
“We hope in future years that when there’s already a contract in place, then bargaining is mostly about making fine adjustments,” Toups said. “We had to start with a blank slate and figure everything out.”
“I want Tulane to make this investment in the faculty, and this news has caused the faculty to get more involved in their union, and we’re confident that we’re going to end up with a contract that we’re all proud to ratify,” Toups said.