Category Archives: Campaigns & Contracts

UI Urbana faculty line up on sides to unionize #highered #criticaled #edstudies

Christine Des Garennes, The News-Gazette, February 2, 2014– On one side you have an award-winning, internationally-known scholar. On the other side you have an equally respected researcher and professor with just as many publications and grants to his or her name.

One believes establishing a faculty union would protect and strengthen the university. The other insists a bargaining unit for faculty would weaken the institution.

Can anyone win this debate?

Efforts to form a faculty union on the University of Illinois’ Urbana-Champaign campus in recent years have for the most part entailed discussions in offices and meeting rooms. But as union organizers ramp up their activities — asking people to sign a statement of support (an announcement disclosing numbers is expected soon) and distributing promotional literature — the discourse, if you will, has intensified.

Not long after the Campus Faculty Association, the group behind the unionization effort, delivered to every faculty member a brochure unveiling some of its more prominent supporters, an opposing group ratcheted up its campaign. That group released its own list of notable professors and their reasons for coming out against a faculty union.

Meantime, university officials, including Chancellor Phyllis Wise, have said publicly they don’t see a need for a faculty union and that having one would only make dealings between the faculty and administration more confrontational. And about 140 miles north on the UI’s Chicago campus, the nascent UIC United Faculty is in its 17th month of negotiating with administration for its first contract after organizing back in 2011.

Whatever happens in Urbana, it’s likely the debate will continue for some time.

One union, two contracts

In the U.S., more than 350,000 college and university faculty are represented by collective bargaining units, according to the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College City University of New York.

Because of a Supreme Court ruling in 1980, which stated that faculty at Yeshiva University acted as managers or supervisors rather than employees, few unionized faculty are found at private institutions, said William Herbert, executive director of the center and former deputy chairman of the New York State Public Employment Relations Board.

The majority of unionized faculty are at public institutions, and about 43 percent are at four-year institutions. In Illinois, there are about 20,062 unionized faculty. Unions are found at state universities like Southern Illinois and community colleges such as Parkland College.

“It’s safe to say that when there is an effort to organize on a campus, it’s democracy in action, and democracy in action takes many different variations,” Herbert said.

Illinois has a public sector collective bargaining statute, which allows employees to unionize. And the process can entail a gathering of what Herbert called “a showing of interest to establish support for unionization.”

“That can lead to voluntary recognition by the employer or, if employer refuses to recognize, then a petition can be filed” with the Illinois Educational Relations Labor Board.

To prove a union has support, organizers can hold an election or a card check in which faculty would sign (or not) cards stating that they favor union representation. If at least 50 percent plus one of all eligible faculty sign authorization cards in favor of forming a union, eventually the union would be able to negotiate a contract.

The Campus Faculty Association has indicated it could go the route of the card check.

“I think it’s going to go much more smoothly here,” compared with the Chicago campus campaign, said CFA President Harriet Murav, UI Professor of Slavic languages and literatures. “This is a campus that has a reputation for excellence. This is the flagship campus … and I don’t think administration would want to impede what we have going on here, in terms of research, teaching and public service excellence. I think the whole country will be watching closely.”

Read More: The News-Gazette

“Premier’s plan is flawed:” BCTF responds to plan to undermine bargaining

Premier Christy Clark’s proposed plan for a 10-year deal with public school teachers  ignores court rulings, contradicts government’s own legislation, and risks scuttling a positive bargaining framework on the eve of its expected ratification by  the BC Teachers’ Federation and the BC Public School Employers’ Association.

“The premier’s plan is flawed in a number of significant ways,” said BCTF President Susan Lambert.

“The key problem is that it ignores the ruling of the BC Supreme Court that teachers have the right to bargain working conditions, such as class size and class composition. The Liberals’ own Bill 22 also allows for these issues to be negotiated in this round but her new plan requires teachers to give up this hard-won right. Over the past decade, when Liberal policy regulated learning conditions, class sizes grew and support for students with special needs suffered,” Lambert said.

As a consequence, BC has the worst student-educator ratio in the country, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. In order to bring BC’s teacher staffing levels just up to the national average, the province would have to hire an astounding 6,800 more teachers.

Another major problem is the indexing of teachers’ salaries to average increases of other government employees. “This is fundamentally unfair because it effectively prohibits teachers from negotiating for their own salaries,” Lambert said. “Under such a scheme government has all the cards. The average of net zero is zero.” BC teachers’ salaries are lagging far behind those of other teachers in Canada, and the gap will only widen under this plan, she added.

Lambert questioned the government’s timing on today’s announcement, given that it comes one day before the beginning of the BCTF’s Representative Assembly and the BCPSEA’s annual general meeting. Representatives of both organizations are slated to vote on a new Framework Agreement which offers a positive process for the upcoming round of bargaining.

“In recent months we’ve quietly had productive conversations with the employer about how to achieve a smoother more effective round, and it’s most unfortunate that government chose to intervene at this time,” Lambert said. “The BCTF will continue to recommend ratification of the Framework Agreement and we hope this abrupt announcement from government will not prevent BCPSEA from doing the same.”

On the surface the premier’s rhetoric sounds conciliatory after more than a decade of conflict between the BCTF and the BC Liberals but, in reality, her plan is yet another effort to severely limit teachers’ constitutional right to bargain.

Read More: BCTF News Release

CUPE 2278 TAs Approve and Mobilize for Strike at UBC

The count is in and the Graduate Teaching Assistants in CUPE 2278 at the University of British Columbia, readily and predictably approved an escalation of job action to strike. The Union Executive advised:

Dear [CUPE 2278] members,

We conducted the vote yesterday, and the results: 76% were in favour of
taking job action.

Therefore, we will be booking out of the Labour Relation Board mediation, and we will serve the employer with a 72 hour job action notice when ‘booking out’ is confirmed.

Continue your normal duties until further notice.

Please stand by for more information, and keep checking the website,
facebook and twitter for updates.

In the meantime, the Faculty Association of UBC , which gave up its right to strike moons ago, advised its faculty members that it was preparing for a round of binding arbitration with the University.

California State University reaches contract agreement with faculty

Mercury News: California State University reaches contract agreement with faculty

LOS ANGELES — California State University has reached a tentative agreement on a four-year contract with its faculty that largely preserves current contract terms and calls for no salary raises, the university and faculty union said Tuesday.
“It’s a fair agreement in the context of hard times,” said Lillian Taiz, who heads the California Faculty Association, which represents 23,000 professors, lecturers and other professional employees. “We are disappointed we were not able to get a raise, but that wasn’t in the cards. It was a tough pill to swallow, I won’t kid you.”

The university agreed to possibly reopen salary talks for 2012-13 and 2013-14. Benefits were maintained at the current level.
Both sides said the agreement will allow them to put to rest more than two years of contentious negotiations and work together to push for more revenue for the 23-campus system that has seen $750 million in state funding cuts over the past four years.
The system is one of the largest public university systems in the nation with 400,000 students.

Faculty members have not had a raise for the past five years after the university failed to fulfill salary commitments in the last contract. Taiz said that issue has been set aside in the interest of collaborating with the university to push for more state funding.

California Faculty Association and CSU make tentative contract agreement

California Faculty Association and CSU make tentative contract agreement

After two years of negotiations, the California Faculty Association and the CSU have reached a tentative agreement on the faculty contract today.

The contract will run through June 30, 2014 and will be effective when both parties ratify the agreement.

The agreement comes after the CFA announced that 95 percent of faculty across all 23 CSU campuses were in favor of a strike in the fall if their demands regarding workload, compensation and academic freedom were not met.

According to CSU spokesperson, Stephanie Thara, the tentative agreement will open up the possibility to talk about salary increases for 2012-2013 and 2013-2014.

“Campus presidents will also have the discretion to decide how campus funds are used in terms of salary inversion or salary issues,” Thara said.

Another provision stated that there will be changes to the way three-year temporary faculty members are evaluated and appointed.

In a statement released today, the CFA Bargaining Team said that, “While the CSU administration should be held accountable for its spending priorities, this will be a time to work together with management to show the public why our public university system needs resources to continue to function at a high level.”

A decision will be reached at the September 18-19 CSU Board of Trustees meeting.

Wayne State U. and Faculty Union Work to Defuse Conflict Over Tenure Rights

The Chronicle: Wayne State U. and Faculty Union Work to Defuse Conflict Over Tenure Rights

Representatives of Wayne State University and its faculty union are beginning talks this week in an attempt to head off a major clash over tenure rights.

The Michigan university’s administration and the faculty union set up a special committee on tenure last week as part of an agreement to extend the union’s contract, which had been due to expire on July 31, until the end of September. The six-member panel, comprising equal numbers of union and administration officials, has been charged with trying to resolve an escalating conflict over a contract proposal from the administration. Union leaders have denounced the proposal as an attempt to gut tenure protections, an allegation that university officials deny.

The conflict centers on an administration proposal, offered in the early round of contract negotiations, that would in effect scrap previously negotiated job protections for tenured or probationary faculty members, as well as seniority-based protections afforded many academic staff members, and replace them with new rules governing the suspension or termination of such employees.

The administration’s proposed contract language would give the university’s president, or an administrator working on the president’s behalf, the power to terminate such employees for a variety of reasons, including a “failure to meet professional responsibilities,” a “failure to perform academic assignments competently,” and a “financially based reduction in force.”

Union officials have denounced the proposed contract language as an attempt to do away with tenure and have accused the university’s chief negotiator of explicitly characterizing it as such. Last week the AAUP’s national office began circulating a petition protesting the proposed contract language, which it described as offering “extremely broad” justifications for termination and replacing faculty peer review with the judgment of administrators.

In an e-mail sent to Wayne State’s employees last month, President Gilmour argued that the proposal was “being misinterpreted” as intended to eliminate tenure when instead its goal is to give the administration more leeway to remove faculty members who are not doing their jobs.

“Faculty tenure is an important aspect of academic freedom, and we support it,” he said. “But it cannot be a place to hide for those whose performance or behavior is poor.”

Dalhousie, faculty union set to resume talks today

Chronicle Herald: Dalhousie, faculty union set to resume talks today

As talks resume in an effort to thwart a faculty strike at the region’s largest post-secondary institution, Dalhousie University in Halifax is continually updating its 17,000 students in case a walkout occurs.

The school, which is resuming talks with the Dalhousie Faculty Association today and Friday, updated its website Wednesday to let students know what to expect in case of a strike by 870 professors, instructors, librarians and counsellors.

Wilfrid Laurier U reaches tentative deal with full-time faculty

The Cord: University reaches tentative deal with full-time faculty

At approximately 3:00 am Friday morning, Wilfrid Laurier University reached a tentative deal with the Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association (WLUFA), the union that represents the full-time faculty.

According to Kevin Crowley, director of communications at Laurier, the agreement must be ratified by the university’s Board of Governors and members of WLUFA. This decision comes one day shy of the legal strike date of the union — if they chose to go on strike or if the administration decided to lockout— and after two full days of collective bargaining with the assistance of a provincial mediator.

University of Hawaii, union reach deal: Pay cuts now, paybacks later

Honolulu Advertiser: University of Hawaii, union reach deal
Agreement calls for pay cut for UHPA members now, but paybacks later

A day after its members received their first paychecks reflecting a 6.7 percent pay cut, the University of Hawai’i Professional Assembly announced that a tentative contract agreement had been reached with the University of Hawai’i.

After years of negotiations U of Florida and faculty union reach contract agreement

Gainesville Sun: UF and faculty union reach contract agreement

The University of Florida’s faculty union has reached agreement on a new contract, after years of negotiations and recent weeks in which a last-ditch deal threatened to fall apart.

United Faculty of Florida and administration negotiators reached agreement late Monday. Union members and UF’s Board of Trustees must still approve the three-year contract, but union chapter president John Biro said it was “almost certain” that would happen

Contract Fight at U. of Hawaii Knocks Down Faculty Morale

The Chronicle: Contract Fight at U. of Hawaii Knocks Down Faculty Morale
Disheartened by a pay cut that they say violates their agreement, some professors look for jobs elsewhere

Discouraged by stalled contract negotiations and their employer’s decision last month to cut their pay, faculty members at the University of Hawaii made their way back to class this week. Although talks are slated to resume, their future is hazy. A few professors—set on leaving the system and its troubles behind—are poised to look for work elsewhere in a job market that is grim for most.

Maine faculty union clashes with administration on negotiations

The Maine Campus: Faculty union clashes with administration on negotiations

The Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine appears no closer to reaching compromise on a new contract with the administration after nearly nine months of negotiations.

The contract expired June 30 but was extended to Dec. 31. The union has been negotiating on and off with the administration since March, which decided in October negotiations weren’t cutting it and brought in a mediator from the Maine Labor Relations Board. James McClymer, physics professor at the University of Maine and vice president of AFUM, said the administration has been less than willing to come to the table.

Trent faculty reach new deal

Peterborough Examiner: FACULTY REACH NEW DEAL

The Trent University board of governors ratified a three-year contract between the university and its faculty association yesterday.

Trent faculty salary increases will continue to be calculated on an annual basis using a formula to ensure parity with comparator universities across Ontario, the university states.

Other significant changes include an increase in employee and employer pension contributions, adjustments to the compensation formula and revisions to language governing faculty personnel decisions.

The Trent University Faculty Association represents more than 300 faculty and professional librarians at the university.

Examiner: Trent University Faculty Association and Trent University Agreement Ratified

Peterbourough – On Friday Trent University’s Board of Governors ratified the three year settlement reached between the University and the Faculty Association on October 23, 2009. The Association previously ratified the tentative settlement on November 9, 2009. The new three year agreement is retroactive to July 1, 2009.

Maryland: PART-TIME FACULTY SETTLES HISTORIC FIRST CONTRACT WITH MONTGOMERY COLLEGE

SEIU Local 500: PART-TIME FACULTY SETTLES HISTORIC FIRST CONTRACT WITH MONTGOMERY COLLEGE

ROCKVILLE (Nov 16) — Late last week, part-time faculty leaders settled a historic first contract with Montgomery College. The contract, which must now be ratified by the part-time faculty and Board of Trustees, is the culmination of more than two years of organizing and negotiations by the part-timers, who teach nearly half of all classes at the College and who are represented by SEIU Local 500. Once ratified, it will be the first collective bargaining agreement for part-time faculty in any institution of higher education in the state of Maryland.

U of Western Ontario librarians and archivists reach tentative agreement

Western News: Librarians and archivists reach tentative agreement

Friday, October 30, 2009 The University of Western Ontario and its librarians and archivists have reached a tentative agreement. The university has been in negotiations with UWOFA-LA (University of Western Ontario Faculty Association – Librarians and Archivists) since May working to renew the group’s first contract, which ended July 1.

Nova Scotia Community College have voted in favour of a new three-year contract

Chronicle Herald: College faculty, staff OK contract

Faculty and staff at the Nova Scotia Community College have voted in favour of a new three-year contract.

Eighty-one per cent of faculty voted on the deal, with 85 per cent of those voting in favour. Eighty-seven per cent of support workers voted on the deal with 97 per cent voting in favour, Nova Scotia Teachers Union president Alexis Allen said Friday night.

U West Florida faculty, admin talks reach impasse

PNJ.com: UWF faculty, admin talks reach impasse

The University of West Florida’s faculty union, under the United Faculty of Florida, went to impasse in contract negotiations on Friday with the UWF administration for the first time in the school’s history.

After many months of attempted bargaining, the two parties could not reach a consensus on whether anonymous student comments should be added to faculty evaluations.

Chipola faculty reject contract

Jackson County Floridian: Chipola faculty reject contract

The Chipola College faculty voted Wednesday to reject the 2008-2009 contract that the Chipola College District Board of Trustees passed at its July 21 meeting.
According to a news release from the union representing the faculty, Chipola’s faculty had not had the opportunity to vote on the contract. Voting to reject the contract means the faculty are “voicing their displeasure and are forcing the board and college administration to impose the contract on them,” the news release stated.

UF facing impasse over faculty pay

Gainesville Sun: UF facing impasse over faculty pay

Union cites survey showing UF salaries placed 32nd among 33 similar schools in disciplines outside medicine.

University of Florida administrators and professors agree that the faculty is underpaid.

They just disagree on whether enough has been done about it, and how raises should be meted out.

Zimbabwe Teachers Association Says Politics Hindering Wage Talks

VOA: Zimbabwe Teachers Association Says Politics Hindering Wage Talks

Salary negotiations between the Zimbabwe Teachers Association and the government stalled this week after the government failed to send a representative to a meeting scheduled to take place on Wednesday, Zimbabwe Teachers Association sources said Thursday.