UMaine Part-Time Faculty Secure Raises & Better Working Conditions in TA

The Part-time Faculty Association of Maine (PATFA-AFT 4593) has reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with the University of Maine System that increases wages and improves working conditions. PATFA represents about 2,000 part-time faculty members in the UMaine System.

“This contract has been a slow negotiation, but it improves the working conditions of adjunct faculty in a number of ways,” said PATFA President Michele Cheung, who teaches at University of Southern Maine and led the PATFA negotiation team.

The tentative agreement includes:

• A 3 percent raise for adjunct faculty in each of the two academic years it covers: 2021-22 and 2022-23. The 2021-22 raise will be figured retroactively.

• Pay for adjuncts to cover mandatory training as well as serving on thesis committees and undergraduate honors thesis committees.

• Establishes a task force to address University of Maine at Farmington’s impending shift from a 4-credit-hour to a 3-credit-hour course structure, which affects full- and part-time faculty there.

• Establishes a new, senior seniority list (20-plus service units) and sets up a task force to continue work on ways to improve conditions for senior adjuncts and availability of academic-year appointments. 

• It establishes a new structure for excused absence, following changes in state law.

• Changes the adjunct evaluation language to add a third “result.” The current contract language allows only “Satisfactory” or “Unsatisfactory” results in evaluations, and an “Unsatisfactory” can prevent an adjunct from receiving a service unit for that semester. A new choice, “Needs Improvement,” allows the evaluator to suggest improvements without penalizing the adjunct. The new language also forces the evaluator to disclose whether the evaluator actually visited the adjunct’s class. 

The contract will be voted on by dues-paying PATFA members in the coming weeks and the UMS Board of Trustees must approve it as well when they meet at the end of March.