Throughout Fall Semester 2023, CSN-NFA negotiators hammered out the details of amendments to their collective bargaining agreement with administrative representatives. Finalized on December 15, the amendments includes language to secure and improve several areas affecting faculty compensation including merit pay, COLA adjustments, increases to base salaries, and lab pay rates. This success at the negotiation table builds on the achievement of a 12% COLA this year and an 11% COLA next October for which faculty activism, coordinated by NFA, was critical. Following a ratification vote, the agreement will be submitted to the Board of Regents for approval at their February 29/March 1 quarterly meeting.
NFA found that CSN faculty and NSHE community college faculty salary schedules have not increased in over 10 years, creating severe compression and an inability to recruit or retain academic faculty. CSN’s current collective bargaining contract does not include language that tied starting salary increases to NSHE COLA adjustments, causing pay rates to decline and leading to numerous failed searches and losses in faculty retention. Additionally, CSN faculty are paid lower rates than all other NSHE institutions while teaching lab courses. Thanks to the hard work of CSN-NFA, these deficiencies will be corrected.
Key details of the new agreement include:
- Lab Pay Increases to Full Pay: The end of the inequitable and unfair compensation of faculty who teach labs. Currently paid at 0.775 of a lecture IU, over the next year and a half, this will increase until the ratio is 1:1.
- COLA Increases on Salary Schedule: The salary schedule used to determine faculty’s initial salary will be ratcheted up to include the 12% COLA we received in July 2023, the 11% COLA we will receive October 1, 2024, and future COLAs.
- New Faculty Increases: The 12% increase to the salary schedule will be retroactive. All faculty who started July 1, 2023 or after will receive this 12% COLA increase to their salary with back pay.
- Future COLAs: All future COLAs will be applied to the initial placement salary schedule to increase hiring and retention.
- All-Faculty Stipend: All current full-time academic faculty will get a one-time $400 bonus (officially called a “professional development stipend”) in their August 2024 paycheck.
To ratify these changes, there will be an NFA members vote, conducted according to the NFA Bylaws, during Spring Semester's Convocation week beginning January 8. To answer faculty questions, CSN-NFA will hold two Q & A sessions. The first will be in person on Monday, January 8th directly after the CSN President Zaragoza's State of the College Address. The second will be from noon to 1 pm on Friday, January 12th, on Zoom. CSN faculty are encouraged to contact any CSN-NFA chapter officers for more information.
