Elder/Childcare Benefit: The Unknowns Add Up
Barbara Altmann, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of French
April 22, 2013
On March 21, United Academics presented a “Fringe Benefits” proposal requiring the University to provide a $625 voucher per term for bargaining unit members to cover the costs of elder or childcare. In addition, the University would be required to reimburse any bargaining unit member for elder or childcare expenses incurred when the member was required to “attend a work function” outside of regular business hours.
Union negotiators couldn’t say how many people might take advantage of such a benefit, or how much it might cost.
So the University put pencil to paper and made some estimates:
- It would cost $1.2 million per year, assuming 30 percent of bargaining unit members claimed a $625 voucher over four terms each year if they claim one voucher each term. It would cost $2 million a year, assuming half the unionized faculty participate. And it would cost $2.8 million a year, if 70 percent of those eligible requested vouchers.
The numbers don’t count non-bargaining unit member faculty doing similar jobs who would be entitled to the same benefit. Add another $464,000 if 70 percent of non-bargaining unit member faculty claimed the elder/childcare voucher benefit. Moreover, it would be difficult for the University to implement such a benefit without extending it to our other 2,500 employees who also have similar family issues.
It proved impossible to calculate the costs of the “afterhours” child and elder care benefit that the union wants.
Nobody disputes that caring for a young child or elderly parent is difficult and expensive for working UO faculty. In the absence of real numbers, generous elder/childcare stipends may sound like a good idea. But even the unknowns add up.
