WBZ Radio report.

There was some nice coverage of the UML Adjunct Union protest today.

LOWELL (CBS) – Adjunct Professors at UMass Lowell are spreading their message with a protest today: They feel the UMass Board of Trustees are operating with a Wall Street frame of mind.

The adjunct professors are now in contract negotiations, and are seizing on frustrations felt by many about recent reports of the salary for outgoing UMass President Jack Wilson’s sabbatical. The Trustees approved a $425,000 sabbatical salary for this year, and then afterward at $261,000 salary for his work teaching and working as a top academic administrator at UMass Lowell.

The average full time professor salary at UMass Lowell is $130,000.

Tess George, an adjunct professor in business communication, says, “We’d like taxpayers students and parents to take a look at where the university’s financial priorities are.” She says, “I question the priorities. That’s an exorbitant salary being paid to an ex-president while we have an acting president and adjunct faculty are paid $3,500 per course with no benefits, no security.”

LOWELL — A group of UMass Lowell professors who are upset with the financial package of former President Jack Wilson will protest the deal at a rally at the UMass Inn & Conference Center tomorrow.

The protest is being organized by adjunct professors at the university, who say Wilson’s deal is out of whack with their salaries, which they say have not been increased in a decade.

Wilson is receiving his $425,000 annual presidential salary during a year’s sabbatical, and will be paid $261,000, nearly triple the senior faculty average, when he begins teaching at UMass Lowell later this year.

Nural Aman, an adjunct economics professor at UMass Lowell, called Wilson’s deal “an insult to the parents, student and faculty” at the university.

“Parents are struggling to send their children to college,” wrote Aman, in a letter to The Sun. “Students are working longer hours than ever to pay for ever-increasing tuition and fees.”

Aman, who is also a full-time professor at UMass Boston, said the university’s adjunct professors make $3,500 to $4,500 per course, with no benefits or job security. He said the university’s administration should not be “permitted to run the university like a third-world sweat shop” by denying raises to adjunct faculty, while doling out “excessive bonus paychecks” to Wilson.

“(UMass Lowell) is our university, a state institution paid for with our taxes and established to serve us, the citizens of the commonwealth,” wrote Aman. “It is time to call the administration to task.”

Aman expects about 15 to 20 people to show up at the rally, which was scheduled to coincide with the university’s Online and Continuing Education open house. He said the demonstrators will pass out leaflets between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., detailing their gripes to students and their parents.

A UMass Lowell spokesperson did not return a call seeking comment.

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(via UMass salary spurs Lowell protest - Lowell Sun Online)