Category Archives: Campaigns & Contracts

Vancouver Sun: Teachers face imposed settlement; Union holds emergency meeting to discuss possible job action

VICTORIA — The provincial Liberal government will impose a settlement by extending the existing contract, with no salary increases, on B.C. teachers this week, triggering the possibility of undefined job action in schools.

When the bill passes in about three days the new law will effectively quash 42,000 teachers’ right to strike to win a new contract. Instead, deemed to be providing an essential service by the Liberal government, they will be hit with a wage freeze that will extend to June 30, 2006. They had been asking for a 15 per-cent increase over three years.

In response, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation called an emergency meeting in Vancouver Monday night to chart the union’s response to the bill introduced earlier in the day.

“They have once again used the legislative hammer in a punitive manner to tell our teachers, working people in this province, that they have no rights,” said BCTF president Jinny Sims.

She would not rule out the possibility of retaliation in the form of job action.

“You will not get . . . effective teachers standing in a front of a classroom, delivering programs with heart and passion when you keep taking away their basic right,” she said.

Since the legislation is not likely to take effect until later this week, the teachers could likely hold a day of protest, as they did in 2002, after the last imposed settlement.

Labour Minister Mike de Jong said the legislation extends to next spring the teachers’ contract that expired in June 2004.

The government is acting now to avoid any disruption of the school year.

“Without any prospect of settlement, we could, as some have suggested, let the situation drift into strike or lockout,” said de Jong. “That, of course, would cause nothing but harm to students.”

Calling the bargaining system “broke”, de Jong said the government will also create a commission to create a new bargaining system between teachers and their employer, the B.C. Public School Employers Association.

The two sides met 35 times and did not agree on a single issue. They were also hundreds of millions of dollars apart.

The employers said the teachers’ demands added up to $938 million; the BCTF put the figure at $673 million.

“I am certain that no one set out to construct a bargaining structure that would fail, but that’s what has happened,” said de Jong. “I will say . . . that I and this government will do everything we can to work with stakeholders in the weeks and months ahead to change that fact.”

But the fight may only be starting and the teachers’ mood is dark.

“It took everything in me not to have the tears roll down my face,” said Sims, accusing the government of undermining the democratic right of collective bargaining. “We have people who come to Canada to escape this kind of persecution.”

It is the fourth time since 1993 that NDP and Liberal governments have taken such action. Sims, who said the government never had any real intention of negotiating a settlement this time, suggested it might be a few days before teachers’ strategy would be clear.

“After [Monday night’s emergency meeting] our members will be having meetings all across the province and we will have more to say after that,” she said. “But let me tell you, over the last four years we have seen what legislation has done to education in this province. What it has meant is that we have students who only go to school four days a week. We have students sitting in a class of 35 with 12 special needs students. What it’s done is, it’s closed libraries . . . .”

The NDP accused the government of needlessly causing a crisis.

“I thought we were here to fix things, not inflame them,”‘ said New Democrat MLA John Horgan. “My approach would have been to seize that opportunity, try to find common ground around those issues and see if there could be a solution there. I’m disappointed that the government acted so prematurely,” he said.

The B.C. Public School Employers’ Association, which bargains for B.C”s 60 school boards, welcomed the appointment of an industrial inquiry commission to examine the flaws in the bargaining structure.

But Hugh Finlayson, the chief executive officer, admitted there are concerns about how the teachers will react to the legislation.

“I think you always are (worried) when you have a settlement like this. But I have great faith in the professionalism of the teaching staff.”

Mary McDermott, president of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers’ Association, said teachers were shocked by the government’s move, especially since their job action until Monday had been minor.

“Teachers are angry. They’re very, very angry,” she said, adding: “I’m appalled.”

Asked if teachers might immediately close schools in protest, she replied: “I can’t imagine that school won’t be open [today] but I can’t say.

“We are sort of in shock right now. We need to pause for a moment” before deciding on a response.

McDermott said the government has painted teachers into a corner. “What does that do for morale and what does that do for students in our classrooms? Parents should be worried about that.”

mcernetig@png.canwest.com

WHAT’S AT ISSUE:

Government’s salary offer: 0%

Teachers’ demands: 15% over three years

2004*: 2% plus 2% Market Adjustment**

2005: 2% plus 3% MA

2006: 2% plus 4% MA

* retroactive to July 1, 2004

** Market adjustment is help B.C. teachers salaries catch up to other provinces

Source: BCTF, Vancouver Sun

Ran with fact box “What’s at Issue”, which has been appendedto the end of the story.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

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City and teachers reach tentative deal

The Bloomberg administration and the New York City teachers’ union reached a tentative contract yesterday that calls for raises of 14.25 percent over 52 months, requires teachers to work longer days, eliminates some cherished seniority rights in staffing decisions and establishes a new master teacher position with higher pay.

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Bloomy & UTF: It’s a deal

15% pay hike, longer hours for teachers

After a long, ugly contract war, the Bloomberg administration and the United Federation of Teachers reached an agreement yesterday on a four-year deal that gives teachers 15% raises.

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Inside Higher Ed: Judge backs universities on same-sex benefits

Michigan voters last year approved a measure stating that “the union of one man or one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.”

While the vote clarified the state’s stance on gay marriage (against), it did not resolve the question of benefits for the partners of gay employees, which a number of public universities in the state provide. Some opponents of gay marriage vowed to try to kill such benefits, but a ruling by a state judge on Tuesday said that the change in Michigan’s Constitution did not in any way bar public universities from awarding benefits to domestic partners of employees.

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BU Today: Faculty Council study finds low salary levels at BU, gender inequity; President Brown vows to address “serious issue” of gender gap in pay

Robert Brown, president of Boston University, pledged Wednesday to study and respond to a faculty report about salary gaps between BU professors and colleagues at comparable institutions, and between male and female professors at the university. A faculty panel found that university professors make 7.1 percent less, on average, than professors at other private doctoral universities, and that the salaries of female professors lag behind those of their male counterparts at all faculty ranks.”As a university, we have to determine what we can afford in order to make our compensation more competitive,” said Brown. “But what we cannot afford, and what we have to fix, is any inequity based on gender.”

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New York Times: Push nearing shove

At a contentious meeting on Tuesday, New York City teachers and their union president, Randi Weingarten, gave Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg a deadline of early October to offer them a fair new contract. If he fails to do so, they threatened, they may strike, endorse his Democratic rival, Fernando Ferrer, or maybe both.

A walkout is considered unlikely. It is illegal for teachers to strike, and they would face jail, the loss of two days’ pay for each day out of work and the likelihood of public sentiment turning against them. But behind the threatening exchange is a complex, bitter and increasingly unpredictable labor dispute.

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New York Daily News: Mike tries to squeeze teach union

Mayor Bloomberg just offered city teachers a deal he’s betting they can’t refuse.
Trying to force the union’s hand, City Hall agreed yesterday to accept a state arbitration panel’s contract proposal that gives teachers an 11.4% raise over three years in exchange for forfeiting key rights.

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Inside Higher Ed: Labor-management deal on health care

Many college administrators these days tell employees that one reason they can’t provide more money for salaries is that health insurance expenses keep rising. And many college employees don’t entirely trust the explanation.

Michigan State University has crafted an unusual approach to this conflict. Members of nine of the unions that represent workers at the university have agreed to link their salary increases to the cost increases faced by the university in health insurance. Michigan State administrators — along with a union leader — described the arrangement in Orlando Tuesday at the annual meeting of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources

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NY Post: UTF gives arbitrate report OK

The city’s bitterly divided teachers union begrudgingly voted yesterday to use recommendations from a state panel as the basis for ongoing contract talks with City Hall.

The decision came during a raucous union meeting in Brooklyn where frustrated teachers muttered about a potential strike and lambasted Mayor Bloomberg and their own labor boss, Randi Weingarten.

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Q & A: Teachers’ salaries and their affect on students”

“Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers” is the provocative title of a new book that attempts to address such issues as teacher salaries and what effect their pay has on students.

The book includes firsthand accounts of teachers’ efforts to make ends meet, arguments why a substantial raise for teachers is necessary and case studies of schools around the nation that have undertaken salary reform.

Published by the New Press, the book is co-written by Dave Eggers, author of “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” journalist and teacher Daniel Moulthrop, and Nínive Clements Calegari, founding executive director of 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing center in San Francisco’s Mission District.

Calegari discussed teachers and their work in two telephone interviews last week.

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New York Post: School labor pain$

The city would have to come up with close to $838 million between now and the next fiscal year if it were to adopt a state labor panel’s recommendations for a contract with public-school teachers, according to budget watchdogs. A preliminary analysis of the panel’s call for an 11.4 percent raise for teachers by the city’s Independent Budget Office projected budget shortfalls of about $88 million this fiscal year — and a whopping $750 million in fiscal year 2007.

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The University of Florida can no longer deny recognition to the United Faculty of Florida, the state’s Public Employees Relations Commission said in a ruling Friday, the Independent Florida Alligator reported Monday. The university has refused to negotiate with the union, saying it does not necessarily represent its entire faculty.

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Faculty, Cincinnati State at odds over contract

Faculty members at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College renegotiate their contract every three years, and in 1999 and 2002, those talks were smooth. Bargaining was easy. The whole process finished early.

Not this time.

Negotiations that began in June between the college’s administration and its faculty union – which represents about 190 full-time teachers – apparently have broken down, leading both sides to declare an impasse in late July and raising concerns about a possible strike.

The current faculty contract ends Sept. 5, the day before the fall quarter begins.

On campus Wednesday morning, faculty members in red union shirts handed out hundreds of leaflets describing the situation and listing some of what faculty members are seeking in their next contract. Union president Pam Ecker said that the faculty and administration have clashed on salary, benefits, workload and non-tenure-track faculty positions.

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From Inside Higher Ed: If you are a junior professor at Princeton and become a parent, you get an extra year before tenure review — automatically

One of the most common policies adopted by colleges seeking to help their professors who are young parents is allowing them to “stop the clock” so that they get extra time before the tenure review that typically is based on six years of work.

In theory, this benefit lets new parents devote more time to their children without fear that it will hurt tenure reviews. In practice, many academics are afraid to stop the clock and feel that taking advantage of this benefit will stigmatize them and hurt their chances. A series of reports have urged colleges to find ways to take away that stigma, so that more parents — mothers and fathers alike — feel comfortable stopping the clock.

Princeton University may have found such an approach. The university is now giving all new parents an extra year before tenure review — automatically. Many colleges promise to award the year to anyone eligible who asks. But at Princeton, you don’t ask — it now just happens. And it can happen multiple times for people who have more than one child (and those who have twins can get two extra years at that time).

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Union workers at FAMU fired

By David Damron | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted July 27, 2005

As many as five more Florida A&M University employees have lost their jobs at the beleaguered Tallahassee school, several workers said Tuesday.

“No warning or anything,” said Barbara Gainous, an associate in FAMU’s Office of Research Services, who said she and four other workers had been laid off or fired in recent days.

FAMU’s interim president, Castell Bryant, had fired 41 employees since taking control of the university in January. Many were targeted after a payroll audit aimed at sweeping away employees who were not working or were holding other full-time jobs outside the city.

“I was going along with [Bryant]. But what about the hardworking, diligent people?” said Gainous, no relation to former FAMU President Fred Gainous. “I think she’s going too far.”

Until now, nearly all of the terminated employees had been administrators, part-time workers or adjunct faculty, according to FAMU records.

But Gainous and another of the latest workers let go are faculty-union members, which affords them layoff and firing protections, said FAMU union President Bill Tucker, a physics professor.

“I’m shocked that this happened,” Tucker said Tuesday. “She can’t lay people off without notifying the union first.”

Tucker said faculty contracts require the union to receive 30 days’ notice of layoffs or firings, and valid reasons must be cited. That wasn’t done in these cases, he said.

The layoff letters gave “fiscal soundness” as the reason for the action, which is not a valid cause, Tucker said.

“It’s clear this will scare the daylights out of the faculty,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Bryant could not confirm Tuesday that additional employees had been fired or laid off.

But Tucker and other faculty said they had heard that Barbara Gainous’ boss, Research Services Director Theresa Bailey, was let go last week. Gainous said that was true. Bailey could not be reached for comment.

On Friday, days after Bailey apparently was let go, Gainous said e-mail accounts for the other four office workers were shut off.

“That was the first sign,” she said.

On Monday, each received letters saying they were no longer employed as of Aug. 8.

“I need some understanding,” said Gainous, an 18-year veteran. “I’m 52 years old. You know what it’s going to be like for me to find another job.”

The Office of Research Services lists dealing with grants as among its duties. FAMU and the National Science Foundation recently signed a settlement requiring the school to repay the federal agency $1.5 million over its inability to account for all of its grant spending.

Last year, former President Gainous assured the NSF that an improvement plan was under way. But Bryant said that when she arrived this year, no plan was in place. She removed Vice President of Research Phyllis Gray-Ray in May.

NSF officials would not comment Tuesday. Gainous’ layoff letter did not cite NSF-related problems, only “efficiency and effectiveness measures.”

Two other laid-off workers, Sandra Chin and Abi Latinwo, said their office never dealt directly with the NSF grants. They said FAMU’s Research Division had expanded in recent years and that their ousters could be a budget-cutting move.

Gray-Ray was replaced by Altha Manning, who signed Gainous’ layoff letter. Manning referred calls to the FAMU personnel office, where no one could comment.

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Oregon University System classified staff accept pact

The Business Journal of Portland – 1:01 PM PDT Monday

University system, classified staff accept pact

Oregon University System and the Service Employees International Union Local 503 have settled contract negotiations for OUS classified staff.

The settlement, which includes salary and “step” increases and full coverage of benefits in the first year, will now be taken by SEIU to its membership for a ratification vote. Classified workers register new students, make sure they know about health services on campus, manage grant programs, maintain buildings and grounds, and many other jobs.

“We are pleased that we were able to make some gains in language this contract,” said Star Holmberg, who helps graduate students complete their masters or doctoral degrees. “We’ve fought a long time for protection from Bully Bosses and have made some progress in this contract.”

The contract covers classified staff at the seven OUS institutions: Eastern Oregon University; Oregon Institute of Technology; Oregon State University; Portland State University; Southern Oregon University; University of Oregon; and Western Oregon University. Each of the seven institutions has a collective bargaining representative at the negotiating table from OUS and from the Union, with OUS and SEIU providing team leaders to their respective groups.

“This is a fair settlement with significant compensation and benefit increases that recognizes the integral support role that classified staff perform on our campuses that is valued by the entire campus community,” said George Pernsteiner, acting chancellor of Oregon University System.

The settlement incorporates the core economic terms of the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) settlement agreement with SEIU while recognizing that universities serve a student population who have a unique set of needs, interests and concerns.

Effective July 1, 2005 salary rates will increase by 2 percent, or $50 per month, (prorated for part-time employees), whichever is more. A second increase of 2 percent or $50 per month, whichever is more, will take place on Dec. 1, 2006.

Full-time employees who work at least 80 hours in a month receive fully-paid Public Employee Benefit Board health, dental and basic life insurance through December 2006. For 2007, employer contributions will increase by up to 12 percent above 2006.

Part-time employees who have at least 80 paid regular hours in the month receive a pro-rated benefits contribution and subsidy through Dec. 31, 2007.

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Lack of same-sex benefits costly for state university professors

phillyburbs.com
By: MARTHA RAFFAELE (Sat, Jul/30/2005)

HARRISBURG, Pa. – State university professor Rita Drapkin considers herself a married woman, even though Pennsylvania doesn’t sanction gay marriage.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania provides health insurance only to Drapkin, who is assistant director of the school’s counseling center, and not to her lesbian partner of 28 years.

While Drapkin contributes almost $400 a year from her paycheck toward her own health plan, her partner, Cindy Klink, a freelance concert producer, is covered by private health insurance that costs roughly $3,600 and only covers catastrophic illness.

“It’s been incredibly frustrating,” said Drapkin, 54, a tenured professor at the school in western Pennsylvania.

As more colleges and universities nationwide extend health care benefits to same-sex partners, the faculty union that represents 5,500 professors at Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities is still waiting for them – even though a contract ratified more than a year ago opened the door to same-sex benefits.

That’s because the pact doesn’t require the State System of Higher Education to provide same-sex benefits unless the state extends similar “domestic partner” benefits to other unionized state workers.

The Pennsylvania Employees Benefit Trust Fund, which oversees state workers’ health care benefits, voted July 21 to study the possibility of offering them to same-sex couples and unmarried heterosexual couples who live together. There is no deadline for completing the study, however.

The vote was prompted partly by persistent lobbying on the part of the Association of Pennsylvania College and University Faculties, the state system’s faculty union, said trust fund board member Joan Bruce, president of Service Employees International Union Local 668.

“I was actually very surprised to find out that their contract was tied to the employee-benefits trust fund, where they have no seat,” Bruce said.

Linking state university faculty same-sex benefits to benefits for other state workers was a key compromise that enabled both sides to reach a tentative settlement in February 2004.

During negotiations, the university system’s administration said it wasn’t feasible to offer same-sex benefits, citing budget constraints. Consultants to the administration estimated at the time the benefits would cost an additional $600,000 to $1.2 million a year, system spokesman Tom Gluck said.

“Because our fiscal situation overall was a very challenging one, and health care costs in particular … to expand benefits in any way to more people for more services, this was not the time to do that,” Gluck said.

Nearly 300 colleges and universities nationwide provide some form of domestic-partner benefits, including 23 in Pennsylvania, according to Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights advocacy group. They include Penn State University, Temple University, and the University of Pittsburgh, which receive state funding but are not state-owned.

The state system’s faculty union is concerned that not offering same-sex benefits puts the universities at a competitive disadvantage, union president Patricia Heilman said.

“The pressure is even more intense for us to obtain domestic-partner benefits, because we actually compete with Pitt, Penn State and Temple for faculty,” Heilman said.

Daryl Herrschaft, a Human Rights Campaign spokesman, acknowledged that same-sex benefits can be a touchy issue at taxpayer-funded public colleges and universities. But he also noted that some of the nation’s largest public systems provide them, including the University of California and the State University of New York.

“If you were to ask a hiring manager at Penn State, would they like to be able to compete with Harvard or Dartmouth or the University of Pennsylvania when trying to hire faculty, I think the answer would be ‘yes,'” Herrschaft said.

Nancy Smith, an education professor at Millersville University, near Lancaster, said having same-sex benefits in the state system would make a huge difference for her and her partner, Virginia Belson. After the two women dated long-distance for a year-and-a-half, Belson quit her job as a child therapist in the Frederick County, Md., public schools to move to Pennsylvania.

Although Belson is looking for a job here, Smith wants to be able to take care of her health care benefits if she can’t find one. Belson currently pays more than $400 a month for temporary health coverage through her former employer.

Smith, who has been at Millersville for 18 years, said looking for a job at a college that does provide same-sex benefits is not an option at this point in her career.

“For anybody, straight or gay, when you’re a full professor it’s hard to relocate in academia,” Smith said. “It’s an option if you want to move into administration, but if that’s not what you want, you stay where you are.”

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On the Net:

State System of Higher Education: http://www.passhe.edu

Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties: http://www.apscuf.org

—

Martha Raffaele covers education for The Associated Press in Harrisburg.

Article’s URL:

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/103-07302005-521204.html

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Inside Higher Ed: Florida’s faculty free for all

When Florida overhauled its higher education system to shift power from the State Board of Regents to boards of trustees at individual campuses in 2003, it invalidated the employment contract between the regents and the statewide union that represented 10,000 professors, throwing academic labor relations into disarray. Last week, Florida’s Supreme Court let stand a lower court’s ruling that found the state’s action to be illegal — a decision heralded by faculty labor leaders, who vowed to try to recoup what they believed professors had lost in the intervening years

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Boston Globe: Harvard improves tenure offers to women

During a year in which the status of women at Harvard University was the focus of unprecedented attention, the university’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences reversed the decline in tenured job offers to women that occurred in each of the first three years of Lawrence H. Summers’s presidency.

Of the 33 offers of tenured jobs made during the academic year just concluded, nine were to women, or 27 percent. During the previous year, only four of 32 tenured offers, or 13 percent, went to women.

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Neal Kwatra, a national strategic coordinator for UNITE HERE, whose local union is embroiled in a labor dispute with 14 city hotels, said academic groups scheduled to meet here reached out to the union after they were unable to get “timely or accurate information from the hotel corporations.”

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