Amid union protests, U of L ensures staff of COVID-related work flexibility and a pay bump

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A union representing campus workers claimed victory Tuesday after University of Louisville leaders said they are giving a 1% salary increase for certain professors and staff and ensuring they have the flexibility to work remotely during the omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But university officials said the union was making inaccurate claims and the announcements around pay and remote work follow previously shared plans and policies.

In a Tuesday afternoon email to faculty and staff, U of L administrators said they "want to clarify the university's position on flexible scheduling."

"Since the beginning of our COVID-19 response, we have asked faculty and staff to be flexible with students who are complying with our health and safety protocols by staying home when experiencing symptoms, in quarantine or in isolation," wrote the six administrators, including interim Provost Gerry Bradley and Dean of Students and Vice President for Student Affairs Michael Mardis. "Faculty and staff also have flexible instruction and work options when following COVID-19 protocols. Faculty may utilize their continuity of instruction plans (such as temporarily shifting to online instruction) and staff can utilize remote work options as agreed upon with their supervisor."

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The administrators said U of L's "Emergency Temporary Leave Guidelines" have been "updated to reflect current circumstances."

The guidelines, they added, are "meant to be short-term solutions, and do not suggest that faculty may switch modes of course delivery for the entire semester."

A few days earlier, interim President Lori Stewart Gonzalez told U of L faculty and staff in a Friday email that starting March 1, all eligible staff employed on or before Jan. 1, 2022, will receive a 1% pay bump, "making good" on a commitment announced last summer.

Departments were expected to receive eligibility guidelines and instructions in the next few days, with similar criteria used for a 1% salary increase in August 2021 also in place for the latest increase, according to Gonzalez's email.

"While we did not meet the enrollment targets we had set to trigger this increase, we feel it's vital to provide this compensation, particularly as we enter the third year of the COVID pandemic," Gonzalez wrote. "… In addition, and despite continuing tight budget estimates, we are prioritizing a salary increase in 2022-23 as we develop the FY 2023 operating budget. We will know more about our ability to offer an increase later this spring."

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The United Campus Workers of Kentucky chapter at U of L said in a Wednesday statement the announcements are proof that "upper administration is beginning to concede to the demands that we as students, staff, and faculty have made for the health, safety and dignity of the entire Cardinal Community!"

The UCW chapter said the announcement around remote instruction and work "was not a clarification (as they acknowledge when they use the word “update” in the email), but a change in policy from what was previously allowed — and we couldn’t have gotten this change without each of our actions."

But U of L spokesman John Karman told The Courier Journal the "contentions made by the union are completely false."

"The 1-percent raise was included last summer in the fiscal 2022 budget, contingent on the financial performance of the university, and it was never rescinded. To claim that it was is inaccurate," Karman wrote in an email. "Also, faculty and staff have always had flexible instruction and work options when following COVID protocols."

The UCW chapter, however, noted that Gonzalez said during a Faculty Senate meeting on Dec. 1 that due to an enrollment shortfall and a remaining $2 million budget gap, the 1% raise would likely not occur.

And the debate between some staff and administrators over the "clarification" language also came up earlier this month, when some faculty and staff in the College of Arts & Sciences — U of L's largest college — had said a lack of flexibility on remote work would subject them to discipline if they taught classes online instead of in person.

David Owen, acting dean of the college, eventually backed off from the policy, telling department chairs he recognized they may "require a degree of flexibility to manage individual and short-term circumstances as they see fit."

The latest emails to staff came after roughly three-dozen students, campus workers and faculty demonstrated last Thursday outside Grawemeyer Hall before entering a U of L Board of Trustees meeting to give leadership copies of a "Keep All Cardinals Safe" petition that organizers said nearly 1,800 campus community members had signed.

The petition, written by members of the UCW chapter, listed several demands, including:

• Allow instructors to move courses online and allow employees, when possible, to work remotely

• Offer hazard pay to frontline staff

• Provide N95/KN95 masks to all campus community members throughout the semester and make at-home test kits available "on demand"

• Mandate weekly, not only monthly, testing for anyone on campus who is unvaccinated, and enforce "meaningful consequences" for failure to mask or comply with regular testing

"Our campaign for COVID safety is winning because we are acting and organizing together," the UCW chapter said Wednesday. "Each of us signed and shared this petition, planned and supported phone banks, distributed fliers around campus and stood outside Grawemeyer Hall."

"Without these direct actions, Interim President Gonzalez and Board Chair Mary Nixon would not have backtracked on denying this small raise, let alone on granting faculty and staff the flexibility they need," the union chapter claimed. "Without our union growing - both tripling in membership and gaining key community allies, we would not have the capacity to organize at the scale we need."

Karman, the U of L spokesman, had said last week the university “has made and will continue to make COVID-related decisions in the best interest of its students, faculty and staff following the guidance of local and national health experts.”

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Still, the union concluded its latest statement by saying "the fight isn't over."

"While many faculty and staff will see a 1% raise in March, graduate teaching assistants will not," the statement said, adding that "those on the front line deserve hazard pay."

"This doesn’t begin to address the unreliable availability of KN-95s across campus, or the reliance on federal at-home test kit programs, limited to four per residence," the UCW chapter's statement said, also mentioning similar demands by Kentucky Community and Technical College System, Murray State University and UK HealthCare workers. "… We can’t meet these needs unless we continue to fight together."

Reach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: University of Louisville ensures staff of COVID-19 work flexibility