By Mark Sherry, UT-AAUP/AFL CIO Delegate

We have a collective bargaining agreement for two reasons: to ensure that workplace practices operate in a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory way; and to ensure that people whose rights are aggrieved have a clear process to defend themselves.

To remove the entire collective bargain for academics means that there will be no binding agreements that both the unions and management have to follow; all the current mechanisms for professional assessment - and the appeals procedures which are agreed in the contract - will be gone.  In most circumstances, management's decisions - whether fair or not - will be final.  Unfair decisions about healthcare, or about annual evaluation of professional activity, will no longer be bound by a contract.

As Professors, we already have merit-based pay - it is calculated through a detailed process laid out in our collective bargaining agreement.  We submit our Annual Reports of Professional Activity (our professional publications such as books, journal articles, films, service activity on University and professional committees, and our teaching evaluations).  Our work is then independently judged by a group of peers in our Department, who rely on their specialized knowledge of the field to know the academic standing of the journals we publish in.  Then our achievements are sent to the Chair of our Departments, and the Deans, who also evaluate our yearly achievements.  We are protected by our collective bargain - it provides transparency in the rankings.  Someone who feels they have been wrongly evaluated has various mechanisms of appeal.  That way, personal biases, professional jealousies or discriminatory attitudes cannot interfere with the professional assessment process.

We must not have a simplistic system of merit - for instance, one that judges us on how many students pass our classes, or graduate from our Departments.  Student success depends on a range of factors, including enrolment choices, aptitude and college readiness, family and peer support, financial status, individual study habits, levels of interaction with peers and faculty, and academic support on campus.  What we have - a multi-level system of checks and balances, where both peers and administrators evaluate our achievements, and where we have the right of appeal where necessary, is fair and equitable.  Senate Bill 5 will destroy this.