Editor,
Although the administration is perpetually exhorting the UNM community to buy more corn dogs at the ball game, or to buy them a new gym that will photograph better in brochures, I would like to direct the reader’s attention toward another matter.
UNM (or is it WisePies? Or, as former President David Schmidly maintained, Wal-Mart?) is most properly understood as a tax-exempt corporation operating a sports franchise and an academic theme park. Accordingly, the actual management of UNM employees is by the Wal-Mart corporate model: every employee is seen as a black mark against departmental management.
At the Center for High Technology Materials, staff was laid off with just four weeks’ notice after decades of documented excellent service.
UNM’s policy is to only relocate laid-off staff into the identical position in another department. Since the total UNM employment pool is quite small and highly specialized for a state agency, there may be less than a half dozen identical positions within the University. The chances of an opening occurring within the requisite six-month time frame are frequently virtually nil.
True, you are allowed to beg for consideration for a different position which may not even pay the bills, but begging is not the way to be successfully invited into a department.
I wish to point out the following items:
1. After promising health care for those employees who had devoted their lives toward advancing the University mission until their retirement, UNM spun retirees off into an isolated high-risk pool and simultaneously slashed UNM’s share of the premium contribution. UNM Regent Jamie Koch, who made his wealth in insurance, is apparently an expert at running insurance in reverse — concentrating risk rather than diffusing it.
2. UNM does not guarantee payout of your earned annual leave. Instead, an employee may be required to use their earned leave time before departure. This effectively allows transfer of your earned benefits back to the University. Scoreboards do cost money.
3. A credentialed engineer with 10 years’ experience at our “flagship” institution may earn $45,000 per year — half of market rate. Accordingly there is an expectation of (seemingly nonexistent) institutional stability.
4. UNM now provides larger percentage salary increases for faculty than for staff, further widening the already substantial bimodal salary distribution.
5. UNM recently increased the years of service requirement before retirement to 30 years. However, UNM only provides 30 days’ notice to staff before termination. Evidently our distinguished regents, when not selling insurance, are doing their best to preserve an asymmetric universe.
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Regardless of what you may have been told, UNM employees are always 30 days away from the unemployment line and are actually working month to month. Make no mistake about it. I urge those presently working at UNM, and those considering it, to fully understand this as it pertains to their own circumstances. Those persons wishing to dedicate their lives to public service have many superior options.
After all, you can easily do better than Wal-Mart.
Sincerely,
Ronald Kay
Retired staff member
