By Theresa Schliep and Victor Ordonez
Note: This article is breaking and will be updated as more information comes to light.
Update: 5/1/17, 6:23 p.m.
Clark provided this statement in response to Howe to The Fordham Ram:
Bob Howe’s statement that Faculty Salary and Benefits Committee made
changes over the weekend is utterly false and we demand that this
false statement be retracted. I did indeed write to faculty informing them of the deal we reached with the administration on Friday. I also informed faculty and then Salary and Benefits of provisions agreed to in that agreement including the $400/800 HRA fund through 12/31/20 and the $250,000 roll over hardship fund through
12/31/20 that they are now contesting. On Sunday we received an email at 10:54 pm from our lawyer that the administration proposed changes that went against the agreement we reached Friday afternoon. We have clear documentation of the negotiation meeting and will prove the record clear.
Update: 5/1/17, 4:30 p.m.
Budget negotiations between faculty and administration, seemingly completed on Friday, have complicated. In an email to The Fordham Ram, Andrew Clark, chair of the Faculty Senate salary and benefits committee, said the administration “is taking back the terms they agreed to and shook on [on] Friday.”
In response, Bob Howe, director of communications for the university, said the university’s offer from Friday “is still on the table.” In a statement, Howe said Clark endorsed the offer in an email. Here is the statement:
The University’s offer of Friday, April 28, which Professor Clark endorsed in an email that day, is not only still on the table, but is a very strong package which the Faculty Senate could and should ratify today. The Salary and Benefits Committee asked for additional concessions over the weekend, without which they said they would not recommend the package to the full Senate
Clark said the administration has taken back their agreement “by adding in new clauses that they never presented before and asking for more givebacks.”
“It is disgusting,” Clark said in his email to The Fordham Ram. “There is no more faith. They speak with split tongues.”
Clark said unless they agree to the terms they agreed to on Friday, the Faculty Senate will not make a deal.
The administration and faculty seemingly came to an agreement on salary and healthcare on Friday, the last day for the administration to “find accommodation with the Faculty Senate’s Salary and Benefits committee, within the budget that the Board has approved,” said the Board of Trustees in a statement in late April. See The Observer’s coverage of Friday’s events here.
The Faculty Senate is meeting today, and The Fordham Ram is reporting from the meeting. We will provide updates as they come.
