Advocate Online

Organizing
NEA graduate assistant leaders from the United Faculty of Florida joined their counterparts from around the country at the annual Coalition of Graduate Student Unions conference in August to compare notes on the burgeoning grad student unionization movement.

Campus leaders from the University of Florida, Florida A&M, and the University of South Florida met with about 100 other grad assistant leaders from California, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and other states at New York University.

NYU grad assistants recently became, after an historic National Labor Relations Board decision, the first private sector grad assistants granted the legal right to unionize.

The meeting drew representatives from both unionized campuses and campuses still fighting to gain the legal right to organize.

The UFF delegation will also be attending the annual conference of the American Federation of Teachers' Alliance of Graduate Employee Locals this fall.

Contracts
The Association of Term Faculty, a brand new NEA part-time unit at John A. Logan College in Illinois, has won pay increases ranging from 11.8 percent to 17.3 percent in its first contract negotiations. The talks were completed at the end of the summer.

Other highlights of the first contract include recognition of length of service as a factor in making class assignments, contractually protected academic freedom and faculty evaluation procedures, and improved sick leave benefits.

The Youngstown State University Association of Professional Administrative Staff has ratified a new three-year contract that provides annual 3 percent pay increases, a $500 increase to the base salary for completing a degree, and a $600 increase to the base for service awards.

The new contract adds vacation, tuition remission and pay grade increases for part-time staff, and retains the current, fully paid health care plan.

Campus Activities
A West Virginia circuit court has granted a permanent injunction against West Virginia University's continued use of its sick leave policies.

The decision stems from a lawsuit filed last year by the West Virginia University Association of Concerned Employees, an NEA higher ed affiliate, over how sick leave guidelines were administered at WVU.

The permanent injunction means that WVU must abide by sick leave as defined in state policy and may not devise its own version of a sick leave policy. The decision also mandates that disciplinary letters and negative performance appraisals based on sick leave use be removed from all employee files.

In addition, one Association member who was fired for alleged sick leave abuse has been reinstated and another, denied a promotion based on sick leave use, has received a promotion as part of the resolution to the lawsuit.

"We are pleased that our members have been vindicated," says Mark Kemp-Rye, WVU-ACE president.

It took months of negotiations, a one-week strike, an unfair labor practice charge, and a suit by some of the college's students, but tenacity pays off. The faculty union at Gogebic Community College in Michigan finally has a tentative agreement on a new contract.

The main sticking point for the faculty union, an NEA higher ed affiliate, was the college's insistence that it would have sole discretion in choosing an insurance plan for the faculty.

After avoiding a strike last year by paying a portion of the health insurance themselves-and this year by offering to settle for a lower salary increase than the college was offering to pay for the insurance-the faculty finally said enough, walking out on strike the day after Labor Day.

Students then filed suit, against the college and union, demanding an end to the strike.

"I don't blame the students one bit," says James Halverson, president of the Gogebic Faculty Association. "This dispute could have been settled a long time ago if the college had bargained in good faith."