SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY – Skidmore Faculty Forward, a chapter of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 200United, reached a tentative agreement towards a first contract with the Skidmore College administration this afternoon after 40 bargaining sessions over nearly two years of negotiations. The union’s negotiating committee unanimously endorses the agreement and encourages members to vote yes on ratification. If ratified by the membership, approximately 180 non-tenure-track full-time and part-time teaching faculty and artists-in-residence, librarians, and accompanists would be covered by the terms and conditions of the collective bargaining agreement.
The tentative agreement provides for significant gains for all non-tenure-track faculty, including long-term renewable appointments for full-time faculty, significant increases in minimum salaries for full-time faculty and per-credit hour compensation for part-time faculty, new promotional opportunities for full-time faculty, ratification bonuses for all faculty, and much more. As a result of the agreement, if ratified, a majority of full-time faculty would be on long-term, renewable appointments whereas before they were hired on short-term, terminal appointments which provided no job security despite years, even decades of teaching experience and service to Skidmore College.
“After two years of negotiations, our Union and the Skidmore administration have come to an agreement on our first contract,” said Jeremy Sloane, Instructor of Biology at Skidmore College. “While we have not achieved absolutely everything we desired, we have made progress toward achieving each goal that we identified two years ago. We are confident that this tentative agreement will improve the working conditions of our faculty and, by extension, the learning conditions of our students. We thank the administration’s bargaining committee for their hard work and good faith bargaining and look forward to the ratification and implementation of our first contract.”
The specific details will be released to the campus community and the general public after they are presented to union members for their consideration. Ratification will be scheduled for some time during the month of March. If ratified, the contract is retroactive to June 1, 2024 and would expire May 31, 2027.
“We have forged a new agreement to make sure non-tenure-track faculty have the improved working conditions that befits a great liberal arts college like Skidmore,” said Will Kennerly, Senior Teaching Professor of Chemistry.
Non-tenure-track faculty at Skidmore College voted overwhelmingly in September 2022 to join SEIU Local 200United, as part of its statewide Faculty Forward organizing project launched in 2014. Since the campaign launched, thousands of faculty and graduate student workers have joined SEIU, including faculty at Fordham University and Siena College and graduate workers at Syracuse University.
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Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 200United represents thousands of higher education workers at over 30 colleges and universities across New York and Vermont, including non-tenure-track faculty at Skidmore College, Siena College, and SUNY Schenectady County Community College in the Capital District.
