On the Road
with Rachel Hendrickson

Recently, I visited two of our NEA affiliates in Florida, Edison Community College and Hillsborough Community College.

First, a big welcome to the Edison Association and its president, Ellie Bunting. Edison joins the NEA family with the merger of the NEA and AFT affiliates in Florida.

Next, another welcome to Vicki Schnurr, new president of Hillsborough Faculty Association. Both these local presidents have their work cut out for them.

Under the rubric of all administrators going to the same summer camp, both locals are facing the same disturbing trend on their campuses. Faculty members are being removed from the bargaining unit and given superficial titles as administrators, and administrators hired to replace retiring faculty are not being assigned to the bargaining unit.

In both cases, the so-called administrators continue to do faculty work with a layer of administrative activities over that work.

Neither NEA affiliate plans to stand still for this subterfuge. Both are preparing for bargaining and ready to fight to keep faculty positions and, where appropriate, for the inclusion of those new workers into the bargaining units.

Ellie and Vicki see the replacement of faculty as attempts to weaken the bargaining units by manipulating a group of employees who don't have a union behind them.

Vicki's local has developed a membership plan to increase bargaining unit strength. Already, as a result of careful planning, membership had increased 17 percent. Not bad, huh? I expect to hear more good things from those two active locals in Florida.

—Rachel Hendrickson coordinates NEA higher ed activities.