The faculty strike is over, and a 2009-12 contract agreement was reached between Oakland University administration and the union that represents about 600 OU faculty members. But the agreement, which union leaders say was a “compromise,” is only tentative, and may not be official for at least two weeks.

Joel Russell, chemistry professor and president of OU’s chapter of AAUP, said there will be meetings to inform faculty of the changes on Monday, Sept. 21 and Thursday, Sept. 24, both at noon in the Gold Rooms in the Oakland Center.

At least seven days after these meetings, a vote, most likely online, will be held, and a majority of members have to approve it. Then the board of trustees have to approve it to make it official.

To reflect the four days of missed classes, OU is not adding on more days to fall semester, but changed some deadlines on the academic calendar, (available at www.oakland/edu/calendar).

A brief summary of the major changes is on www.oaklandaaup.org. Russell, in an interview with The Oakland Post, clarified these changes. OU, as of press time, declined to confirm or deny details released by AAUP because it’s an ongoing matter.

Shared faculty governance: AAUP said this was the most important issue, and that the faculty was holding out on this not only for them, but for students.

AAUP said it was wary of OU administration trying to take more control of academic governance, and said reducing faculty input would hurt the students.

In the tentative agreement, AAUP said there are “no changes to the protection of governance processes,” which Russell said meant a victory for AAUP.

Salary raise: AAUP said the tentative agreement would give faculty no raise this year, a one percent raise in 2010 and a three percent raise in 2011. Russell said AAUP compromised on finance to gain on other issues.

“It’s a bad thing OU chose not to give raises when they have the funds for it,” he said. “In the future it makes us much less competitive in hiring.”

He said there is a 50-day period when the 2011 raise is open to renegotiating by both sides, but if a new agreement isn’t reached, the old language will hold, so from the faculty’s viewpoint, the three is minimum.

He said OU can dock the pay of two days for all faculty, even those who missed no classes during the strike.

New faculty hires:  Russell said OU wanted a 20 percent increase in new adjunct (non-tenure track) faculty hires, which would have decreased OU’s quality, but settled on a five percent increase. He said “our standards for hiring faculty will be maintained.”

Health care:  AAUP said OU wanted to give all faculty three health care providers, but under a “healthy living” plan that would make faculty members considered “less healthy” pay more insurance, AAUP considers it discriminatory. The tentative agreement says faculty can now choose if they want a regular HMO plan, or the “healthy living.”

Intellectual property: AAUP said OU wanted more rights-ownership of faculty’s intellectual property like research and even lecture materials, which are typically owned by faculty. AAUP said the tentative agreement doesn’t demand this, and the rights would remain.

Research/travel pay: Russell said OU initially wanted to give no increase to OU’s current $516,000 per year research and travel money pool, but the new agreement increases this amount by $10,000 per year, which “probably won’t cover increases in faculty or inflation.”

Medical school faculty: AAUP wanted information from OU, a public school, about how to incorporate the faculty of the upcoming OU William Beaumont School of Medicine, a private school, but in the tentative agreement, AAUP will not represent the med school faculty.