Toledo Blade: Teacher strike averted
Toledo board OKs fact finder’s report on contract
The Toledo Board of Education yesterday approved a fact finder’s report resulting in the first new contract with teachers in seven years.
By doing so, the possibility of a teachers’ strike was avoided.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Bloomberg.com: Norwegian Teachers, Health Workers to Strike Over Pay, VG Says
May 24 (Bloomberg) — Norwegian labor union Unio Kommune called on 3,000 teachers and health-care workers to strike after it rejected a local government accord on pay, newspaper Verdens Gang reported, citing a union official.
The health workers will strike starting today and the teachers will stage a walk out on May 26, Unio Kommune’s Helga Hjetland said, according to the newspaper.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
250 News: CNC Faculty to Hold Rally and Info Session Tonight
Prince George, B.C. – There will be a rally and information event this evening at the College of New Caledonia Prince George Campus.
The CNC Faculty Association recently passed a motion of non confidence in the governance of the college by the College Board, the President and the administration.
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Posted in Governance
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: UW cutting 66 jobs in technology division
Some workers could be moved to other positions
The University of Washington will cut 66 employees from its technology division, marking the university’s biggest announced job cutback since 1994.
University administrators learned about three months ago that UW Technology, which provides phone and e-mail service and is a central support for the UW’s computing services, was operating at an annual $10 million loss.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Chicago Tribune: U. of I.’s Global Campus program is still struggling
University of Illinois officials said Thursday that their Global Campus project remains behind schedule, with fewer students and less tuition revenue than expected by now.
Still, the university’s board of trustees approved an additional $3.4 million for the online classes, bringing the total board funding for the program’s first two years to $9.8 million.
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Posted in Corporate University
Inside Higher Ed: Drexel West
Philadelphia-based Drexel University is looking to California for expansion. The university announced Thursday that it will open a graduate school in Sacramento, offering five master’s programs by January 2009 and introducing four more in September 2009. Further expansion may be on the way. Drexel’s announcement noted that a group in Sacramento has offered the university 1,100 acres to build an undergraduate campus in nearby Placer County. While Drexel called that offer “outstanding,” it said that the graduate programs are designed to “introduce” the university to the region.
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Posted in Corporate University
Inside Higher Ed: 21 Years as Adjunct and Out
Margaret West has taught part-time for 21 years at Edmonds Community College, in Washington State, gaining good reviews and annual contract renewals. The FACE blog — part of the Faculty and College Excellence Campaign to get more tenure-track faculty slots and improve the treatment of adjuncts — reported that West was told recently that her services would no longer be needed and that a dean, asked why, told her “because I can.” This came shortly after West started running, unopposed, to serve as president of the faculty union — where she would be the first part-timer to lead the American Federation of Teachers unit at her college. “There is no excuse for what happened to Margaret. The administration at Edmonds Community College should be ashamed of themselves,” said the blog. A spokeswoman for the college, asked about the blog posting, released a statement that did not name West. The statement said: “Edmonds Community College values its longstanding relationship with part-time faculty…. Faculty assignments are determined through the appropriate deans in accordance with the negotiated faculty contract. We resolve all contract related disagreements through established processes.”
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Posted in Contingent labor
Plain Dealer: State grants over $143 million to get top researchers
— Ohio took a bold step Tuesday in its efforts to bolster its economy and the research at its universities, granting more than $143 million to attract world-class scholars.
The state’s Third Frontier Commission and University System of Ohio want 10 university collaborations to get the money so they can woo researchers and their federal research grants and staff members to Ohio.
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Posted in Academics
The Chronicle News Blog: Washington State U. Proposes Slashing Its Course Offerings
Washington State University has proposed a universitywide audit of all courses and degree programs with the goal of cutting its course offerings by 20 percent, reducing the number of majors and minors, and concentrating university resources on areas of academic strength.
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Posted in Academics
The New York Times: At One University, Tobacco Money Is a Secret
On campuses nationwide, professors and administrators have passionately debated whether their universities should accept money for research from tobacco companies. But not at Virginia Commonwealth University, a public institution in Richmond, Va.
That is largely because hardly any faculty members or students there know that there is something to debate — a contract with extremely restrictive terms that the university signed in 2006 to do research for Philip Morris USA, the nation’s largest tobacco company and a unit of Altria Group.
The contract bars professors from publishing the results of their studies, or even talking about them, without Philip Morris’s permission. If “a third party,” including news organizations, asks about the agreement, university officials have to decline to comment and tell the company. Nearly all patent and other intellectual property rights go to the company, not the university or its professors.
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Posted in Corporate University
The Chronicle News Blog: Complaints Force Company to Retreat From Selling Scholarly Papers Online
Surprised. Disappointed. Violated.
Those are some of the words that scholars have used over the past few days when told that their work was being sold online without their knowledge. The scholarly papers and presentations have been available for a fee through All Academic, a Web site hired by academic associations to handle submissions for conferences.
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Posted in Intellectual property
The Chronicle: Top Candidate for Louisiana State Post Is Used to Courting Controversy
Mike Martin, the only candidate for chancellor of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, has impressed trustees and business leaders as president of New Mexico State University. The faculty is less enamored.
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Posted in Administration
ABC News: Teachers ramp up wage campaign
Striking teachers have voted to up the ante in their wage claim against the Government, with a full day’s strike now planned for later this month as well as rolling stop work meetings.
The gulf between the union and the Government is now wider than ever.
Striking teachers today clarified they want 20 per cent over three years compared to the Government offer of 11 per over three years.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Radio New Zealand: French Polynesia urged to join French teacher strike this week
Posted at 03:24 on 14 May, 2008 UTC
Teachers in French Polynesia have been urged to join a French national one-day strike against possible job cuts outlined in the budget.
The FSU union has called on Tahiti’s teachers to meet outside a Papeete high school the day after tomorrow to show their opposition to the planned elimination of 11,000 education jobs later this year.
It says the consequences for the territory will be serious as the running of schools is to become, from next year, a matter for the territorial government.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Socialist Worker: Striking against academies
It is now official. Any proposal by an employer to transfer staff to a new employer can be the subject of a trade dispute and strike action.
That’s the message coming out of Bolton after last week’s strike at Withins School.
The picket line saw an absolutely solid turnout from NUT teachers’ union members at the school, and delegations of teachers from other schools, trade unionists and pupils and parents.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Foster’s Daily Democrat: National unions to help UNH workers organize
DURHAM — Two national unions are going to help University of New Hampshire employees organize, creating a level of representation the institution has tried to avoid in the past.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the United Auto Workers announced plans to coordinate efforts on behalf of the UNH public employees and support negotiating teams of all university employees.
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Posted in Unions
Daily Progress: Staff union opens up to faculty
As some University of Virginia workers rally for better wages and benefits, they believe existing problems will only get worse, employees said Friday.
They said they worry about pressure to reduce employees’ salaries, a prestigious university becoming a place only for the richest students and an expensive area becoming increasingly out of reach for some employees.
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Posted in Unions
Wilmington News Journal: SSCC works to end dispute
Southern State Community College maintains a tentative agreement signed Dec. 17 between the college and the faculty will stand, despite assertions by the faculty union further clarifications to the agreement are needed.
According to Southern State Education Association President Ken Holliday, a meeting was held Friday morning by the executive committee of the faculty. However, no immediate decisions came from the meeting.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
HowTheUniversityWorks.com: McGill Dubs Grads Naughty Children
Counseled by a major union-busting law firm, McGill is playing hardball with AGSEM , the union of its striking grad employees. It’s employing what some faculty are describing as “pressure tactics” and erratic behavior at the bargaining table in an effort to stall bargaining, break the strike, and get individual students to sign workload agreements that repudiate some of their rights under Quebec law.
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Posted in Unions
Knoxville News Sentinel: UT professor indicted by grand jury
Man accused of giving sensitive technology to foreign students
A University of Tennessee professor emeritus is accused of giving two graduate research assistants – one from Iran and another from the People’s Republic of China – unfettered and unauthorized access to sensitive military arms information and lying about it.
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Posted in Legal issues
