Service & Solidarity Spotlight: United Academics of KU Secures Historic First Collective Bargaining Agreement Ensuring Due Process, Other Benefits

Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

Faculty and academic staff at the University of Kansas (KU), represented by the United Academics of the University of Kansas (UAKU), announced Friday that they had reached a tentative first contract agreement.

“Every step of the way we have seen the power of collective action, united across rank, position and title, in order to strengthen our institution and deliver the best possible education for our students,” said Marsha McCartney, UAKU’s co-lead negotiator and an associate teaching professor in psychology.

The tentative agreement, when ratified, will establish a minimum salary structure that provides a median raise of 13% for several hundred workers on the lower end of the pay scale, a pool of money to address salary compression and reward professional performance, improved job security for nontenured faculty, a first-ever path to promotion for lecturers, safeguards for tenure and promotion, and enforceable protections for academic freedom and shared governance rights.

“Faculty and academic staff have won a landmark agreement that will create ripples across our state. AFT-Kansas welcomes over 1,600 faculty and academic staff as we organize and fight for our collective labor rights,” said AFT-Kansas President Katie Warren.