To: University of Michigan
Equal Pay for Equal Work at UM
As its mission statement indicates, the University of Michigan recognizes an important moral and social responsibility to honor equality and fairness in the workplace. Unfortunately, with respect to the salaries of its faculty Lecturers, the University is not living up to its principles. As the University administration and Lecturers’ Employee Organization (LEO) negotiate to establish a new employment contract for 1,500 teaching Lecturers, I strongly support LEO’s demand for raising lecturer salaries based on the principle of “equal pay for equal work.”
Why is this important?
Lecturers and professors at the University of Michigan teach the same courses with no evidence of any difference in the quality of their teaching. Students pay the same amount of tuition for a course, regardless of who teaches it. Yet lecturers are paid significantly less for their teaching than professors are. (For additional information, visit the website http://www.leounion.org and read the report "Teaching Equality.")