Temple University provided its economic proposal, with comprehensive details on salary and benefits, to the Temple Association of University Professionals (TAUP) at the bargaining table on Thursday, Oct. 9. Over the four-year term of the proposed agreement, total faculty compensation will increase more than 17.3 percent.

The university and the union have been in contract discussions since mid-June with a goal of reaching an agreement by Oct.15.

The university’s principal economic proposal places greater emphasis on pay increases based on individual performance. The process for year one would remain the same as the last four years. Thereafter, an annual performance-based pool would be used to provide an additional increase to individual faculty members. Similar performance-based programs are increasingly common at other universities and are already in place at several schools within Temple and for Temple’s non-union employees. New provisions, namely uniform guidelines to be issued by the Provost and faculty-written annual reports, are designed to ensure consistency, transparency and a broadening of the base of faculty members receiving pay for performance increases.

Last year, through the current merit pay system, 37 percent of the non-tenure track faculty and 56 percent of the tenured and tenure-track faculty received merit increases. Temple’s negotiating team explained to TAUP that under its new proposal, “exceptional” performance would no longer be required for performance-based increases, thus enabling many more to qualify.

“We know that many faculty are doing excellent work, and they should be rewarded for their efforts,” said Deborah Hartnett, vice president for human resources and a member of the university negotiating team. “But under the current merit pay system, which is based on self-nomination, many are being overlooked."

Under the proposal, in addition to performance-based increases and across-the-board increases to base pay, all faculty members will receive annual bonus payments, for total annual increases of 3.75 percent. In addition, the university has advised TAUP that, subject to the resolution of other issues, it is willing to increase the $100,000 annual “increased compensation” pool available to faculty members in each of the four years of the new agreement.

Additional improvements proposed by the university include increasing the minimum pay for summer teaching annually to $1,850 per semester hour by the fourth year of the contract. The number of available summer research awards will increase from 35 to 50, while pay for summer research awards will increase from $4,500 to $5,000. The university’s proposal also provides for an automatic 7 percent increase upon promotion to a higher rank.

The university is also proposing a more beneficial “overload teaching” compensation program. Currently, compensation for overload teaching is restricted to a fixed amount. The university is proposing that a minimum be established, allowing additional compensation above contractually agreed on amounts at the discretion of the department, school or college.

Regarding benefits, the university is not proposing any immediate increases to faculty members’ contributions for health and prescription coverage premiums. Possible future increases for faculty would be imposed to be consistent with rates for regular full-time non-bargaining administrative employees.

Every year, Temple participates in a compensation survey conducted by the American Association of University Professionals and conducts its own review of faculty salary data to ensure the market competitiveness of the Temple faculty salaries. The data consistently show that Temple faculty receive above average compensation relative to peers at comparator institutions.