Employees to get raise

FAMU faculty reached a quick agreement with the administration to boost faculty salaries by 2-percent last Friday. This is the first faculty pay raise granted by the FAMU board of trustees in their five year exsistence. FAMU's faculty has been working without a contract since 2003.

Despite this raise agreement, the FAMU faculty union is not giving up its right to bargain on wages and other issues of employment for the 2004-05 and 2005-06 academic years.

On a base salary of $50,000 the FAMU faculty pay raise totals a little over $38 per pay period.

Interestingly enough, this pay raise does not cover an entire year (current fiscal year began July 1, 2005). This means that a 2-percent annual raise on a $50,000 salary for the current year has effectively been cut in half by not making it retroactive to January 1, not July. Further, it hasn't slipped by anyone that over 80% of the faculty will go off the payroll at the end of May until school starts again in August.