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Hundreds Turned Out in Los Angeles to Plan the Future of
Cal State-LA.
Elizabeth Hoffman, a lecturer at California State University
and a member of the California Faculty Association Board of Directors,
addresses some of the 500 faculty, students, staff, and supporters at the
recent "Future of California State University" hearings held in Los
Angeles.
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NEA Affiliates in Action
Keene's part-timers become the first part-time faculty in the state to be certified as a union, following their full-time colleagues who organized the first full-time faculty union in the state more than 20 years ago. With more than 60 percent of the unit voting—and many other part-timer supporters unable to get to the on-campus voting—the faculty voted 50-7 to become part of NEA. An internal organizing campaign at St. Louis Community College has increased the membership of the NEA affiliate there by 20 percent—to well over 50 percent—on a campus without collective bargaining rights. As part of the campaign, NEA affiliate staff in Missouri ran workshops on protecting teacher rights in an anti-union state. The faculty realized that, even without collective bargaining, the union is important.
The Association is protesting attempts by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education to gut the tenure provisions of the collective bargaining agreement and weaken the faculty's role in governance. The stalemate has lasted for 26 months. "We have been enduring this negotiations process for over two years," the leaflet reads in part, "because we believe there is something vital at stake: the continuing strength and excellence of our colleges and the education we offer our students." MSCA activists plan to stage the protest at each of the state's nine campuses. Visit the Massachusetts State College Association Web page at www.gis.net/~kiml/ to offer support.
The Los Angeles hearing was the second in a series. The first "Future of the CSU" hearing was held at San Jose State University in March. More hearings will be held this coming fall and winter on campuses across the state. The event's keynote speaker, David Noble, stressed the importance of preserving high-quality teaching institutions like CSU, particularly for working families. Others testifying called for open access, remedial education, and more funding for the CSU. The hearings will culminate in a statewide conference. Meanwhile, testimony may be submitted at any time by email to Future@calfac.org. More information at www.calfac.org. What might have been a disastrous legislative year for University of Hawaii faculty has ended up as a successful legislative session, after considerable work by the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly. An attempt by Hawaii's governor to initiate "draconian" labor law reform that would have gutted the island's public employment labor law was thwarted by a massive lobbying effort and mobilization by UHPA and the state's other public employee unions. "Thanks in large part to research work done by UHPA, a hugely successful 'We're All in This Together' rally, and months of intense, persistent lobbying, the legislature enacted a new law that was better than the old one," notes UHPA, NEA's Hawaii higher ed affiliate. The Texas Faculty Association—using this anti-union state's employer-dominated nonbinding grievance procedure—has won a salary equity grievance for a history professor at Texas A&M-Galveston. The grievance process took 28 months, but, in the end, TFA persuaded the university that the professor received lower merit pay increases than a less-productive colleague and that some A&M files used for making salary decisions contained falsifications. |
