Category Archives: Unions

mycentralnewjersey.com: Rutgers instructors want union eligibility rules settled

RUTGERS —Members of a newly formed union of summer and winter teaching faculty paid a surprise visit to university President Richard L. McCormick’s office Friday morning in an effort to find common ground on slowed contract negotiations.

Follow

Labor Notes: Puerto Rico’s Teachers Beat SEIU Raid
— Steve Early

When last seen on the picket line, Puerto Rican teachers were fighting their way through police barricades to appeal to fellow workers from the Service Employees (SEIU) at its lavishly funded convention in San Juan in June.

The message of the Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) was simple: please stop SEIU President Andy Stern from colluding with the indicted governor of the island to replace FMPR with a “company union.”

Follow

Wilmington News Journal: SSCC faculty circulates ‘protest’ letter

Members of the faculty at Southern State Community College have posted a notice on the college’s campuses stating to students that they will only teach courses winter quarter they are contractually required to teach.

“The full-time faculty members of SSCC have been working for more than 400 days without an employment agreement signed by the college’s board of trustees,” the letter states.

Follow

The Chronicle News Blog: AAUP to Investigate Closing of Antioch College

The American Association of University Professors plans to investigate whether Antioch University violated faculty-governance standards when it shut down Antioch College.

The Yellow Springs News, in Ohio, reported on Friday that the AAUP sent a letter this month to Antioch leaders informing them of the investigation. Anita Levy, an associate secretary of the association, told the newspaper that the group was concerned that professors had not been properly consulted and that their due-process rights had been violated. An ad hoc committee of professors from around the country who have not been involved in the case will conduct the investigation.

Follow

SW Radio Africa: Zimbabwe teachers union urge authorities to postpone examinations

School children from most government schools in the country have had no lessons since the school term opened this month because of a teachers strike. The strike for better wages has come at a time when many pupils are preparing to write their final O and A’ level examinations.

Follow

People’s Weekly World: why labor unions are good for labor

People’s Weekly World Newspaper, 09/12/08 15:29

Workers’ Correspondence

I arrived at the University of North Florida (UNF) in the fall of 1979 as an untenured faculty member with two contractual guarantees. The first was the bargaining agreement between the faculty union and the state Board of Regents, in effect a due process document that offered collective protection and a route for protest that could end in the final court of appeal for labor agreements — binding arbitration. The second was a four-year “letter of appointment,” in effect a separate employment contract. It was issued to protect me against the uncertainties of the special pot of money dedicated to supporting my new faculty line.

Follow

The Chronicle: Scholar of Higher Education Named General Secretary of the AAUP

Gary Rhoades will be the first scholar of higher education to head the office of the nation’s largest faculty association. The American Association of University Professors is expected to announce today that he will take over as its general secretary in January.

Mr. Rhoades has spent his entire 22-year career at the University of Arizona studying issues that affect the professoriate. He directs Arizona’s Center for the Study of Higher Education. Leaders of the AAUP hope his expertise will bring a depth of knowledge to the group and put him in a good position to help guide it through its centennial year, in 2015.

Follow

Inside Higher Ed: AAUP Turns to Scholar of Higher Education

If the American Association of University Professors set out to find a scholar to analyze its situation, Gary Rhoades probably would have been someone to talk to. Director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona, Rhoades is an expert on faculty-administrator relations, faculty unions and the economic status of professors.

Rhoades is the author of Managed Professionals: Unionized Faculty and Restructuring Academic Labor (SUNY Press) and co-author of Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press). Today the AAUP is announcing that Rhoades will be its next general secretary. Much of his work looks critically at the way new economic models in higher education have been used to change and in some cases limit faculty roles and rights.

Follow

Inside Higher Ed: Did a Union Doublecross Its College Activists?

Student activists on several college campuses are speaking out against one of the nation’s largest labor groups, claiming they were deceived and used as “pawns” by the Service Employees International Union.

The students’ grievances, outlined in an open letter to SEIU leadership, allege a “disturbing pattern” wherein SEIU undercut students’ efforts to help organize service workers on at least four campuses.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that SEIU leaders often see students and campus workers as little more than pawns to use as they see fit,” the letter states. “SEIU has sought to maneuver these pawns in a way that brings new members and dues into the union in the short term but keeps workers in poverty and actually hurts our collective efforts to help unions grow at a massive scale.”

Follow

Liverpool Echo: Union secretary wins pay rise in tribunal

Aug 9 2008 by Ben Turner, Liverpool Echo

A LIVERPOOL teaching union which went on strike over unfair pay “unlawfully” refused to give its own secretary a basic rise.

Today Deborah Moran said she was relieved after an employment tribunal ruled her bosses unlawfully deducted wages.

The 42-year-old said she was looking forward to continuing in the post she has held for 25 years.

Follow

The New York Times: Politics Has Dissidents Talking to A.F.L.-C.I.O.

The presidents of several labor unions that quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O. three years ago have been quietly meeting with union presidents in the federation to coordinate their political operations and message for the fall election, a move that labor leaders say could lead to several of the unions rejoining the federation.

In a series of dinners and meetings in Washington, the presidents of several breakaway unions and the presidents of several federation unions have been mapping strategies to help elect Senator Barack Obama and forge joint policies on trade and other issues.

Follow

Chicago Tribune: Tenured radical’ tries to revive professors group

WASHINGTON – In his professorial attire and flowing, Zeus-like beard, University of Illinois professor Cary Nelson would look right at home behind a lectern, expounding on obscure poets. He even resembles one of the leading influences on his scholarship — Karl Marx.

For decades, this self-described “tenured radical” has been satirizing academia and criticizing the “corporatization” of universities. Now, the man dubbed “scary Cary” by former graduate students for his pull-no-punches style has a kind of corporate role himself.

Follow

The Post: Faculty considers possible unionization

Ohio University faculty, describing morale at an all-time low, might unionize to seek leverage against an administration they perceive as resistant on crucial issues.

Originally prompted by anger over health care budgets and unsigned resolutions, unionization talks were fueled recently by announcements of a possible move to semesters and an $85,000 raise for OU’s president.

Follow

Daily Gleanor: University faculty unions fear loss of autonomy

The ability of provincial universities to think for themselves is being threatened by the creation of a mysterious Post-Secondary Education Agency, say the presidents of some university faculty unions.

Follow

York Daily Record: Union delays call to oust Cheyney president

Article Last Updated: 06/14/2008 02:31:18 PM EDT

CHEYNEY, Pa.—A union representing support staff at Cheyney University that had planned to call for the school president’s ouster has agreed instead to meet with her to review concerns.

Follow