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NEA Bipartisanship Pays Off for Higher Education in
Illinois
Illinois Deputy Governor Hazel Loucks (left), formerly the
higher education director for the Illinois Education Association, joins IEA
President Anne Davis and Illinois Republican Governor George Ryan, who
appointed her to her post, at this year's NEA Representative Assembly in
Chicago.
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NEA Affiliates in Action
Some 105 of the full-time teaching and library faculty of the colleges have already signed up with the new organization. The main issues for Sage faculty: first, "resisting and reversing administrative encroachment on the faculty's rightful control over instruction, curriculum, and program." Next, pursuing collective bargaining. Clerical and technical staff at Detroit's Oakland University have also joined the ranks of NEA's higher education members, thanks to a successful organizing effort by the Michigan Education Association. The 279-member unit joins a unit of 203 part-time faculty at Lansing Community College that voted for MEA representation earlier this year, bringing NEA 482 new higher ed members in Michigan this year.
"The contract's good for younger faculty and those who are thinking about retiring," said Association president Jim Newman. For the first time in seven years, the Iowa Central Community College Education Association has negotiated a new contract with the college without a protracted battle. Past bargaining was characterized by adversarial positioning and a slew of prohibited practice charges on each side. This time, the faculty went public with its initial proposals. The result: a 4.7 percent salary increase and a commitment from the college to work more collegially in dealing with issues surrounding distance-based learning.
The study examined salary and merit-pay differentials in 1998 and 1999 on 17 Cal State campuses. At seven of these institutions, there were significant gender inequities in merit-pay raises. Last year, 64 percent of Cal State's male professors received merit increases of $900 or more, compared to only 36 percent of women. And lecturers, the majority of whom are women, received far fewer merit raises than tenure-track faculty, the report said. Over all, the study revealed that after five years of merit pay, male professors in the Cal State system earn approximately 12.8 percent more than their female counterparts. There is also preliminary evidence that the system disadvantages African-American and Latino professors, who received 8 to 10 percent less in merit pay than white professors on some campuses. The NEA-affiliated CFA has declared impasse in current contract negotiations and is seeking a moratorium on merit-pay. The United Faculty of Central Washington University, a joint NEA-AFT affiliate that operates without collective bargaining rights has won a $5,000 annual pay hike for a faculty member who complained that using higher salaries to attract new faculty was unfair to veteran employees. The union showed that Andrew Jenkins was one of the most productive researchers in his department, an exemplary teacher, and an active provider of service to the university and the community. Yet he was the lowest-paid associate professor in his department. The finding that the university was required by its own rules "to maintain the relative salary advantage of persons already serving the university" will now be sent to the Board of Trustees for action. Because the Association doesn't yet have a union contract, the Board could overturn the award. |
