NEA Affiliates in Action

Organizing
P-fac, the NEA part-time faculty association, at Columbia College in Chicago has almost doubled the size of the Association's bargaining unit after the college voluntarily recognized the right of hundreds of adjunct faculty members to join the union.

The new union members will see their salaries increase dramatically and gain other union benefits.

"This agreement shows the strength of the collaborative relationship between the faculty and the college administration," notes negotiator Diane Davis.

The faculty of the Sage Colleges, in Troy and Albany, New York, have filed for a union representation election.

The Association, taking advantage of recent labor board rulings restoring collective bargaining rights to faculty in private institutions, presented the National Labor Relations Board a petition, signed by two-thirds of the college's 161 faculty, authorizing the Association to bargain for them.

Contracts
Faculty at Luzerne County Community College in Pennsylvania went back to work October 10, after a two-week strike produced a new contract.

The Association rejected an evaluation proposal from the college that would have allowed the administration to override a faculty member's choice of an evaluator. In the end, the parties agreed to largely continue with the existing evaluation system. Faculty also won an annual 4.7 percent salary increase for the next five years.

The Faculty Association at Butler County Community College in Kansas began the new semester with a contract firmly in place, thanks to two years of arduous but ultimately highly successful mutual gains bargaining.

Turning an adversarial relationship into a cooperative one required a demanding effort from both faculty and administrators, notes Faculty Association President Judy Strain. But the effort paid off with a positive process that produced significant gains for the faculty.

Campus Activities
The California legislature is considering a California Faculty Association-supported bill designed to protect California State University faculty's intellectual property.

The bill, introduced by Assembly member Romero, a former member of the Association, prohibits companies from paying students and professional note takers to record classroom presentations and post them on the Internet without the faculty member's permission.

The CFA is also continuing its hearings on the future of the state university.

Nearly 250 faculty and civil service NEA members marched at Southern Illinois University last month, in a joint effort to protest the lack of progress in negotiations for their respective contracts.

The faculty and administration reached impasse in September after they were unable to agree on a number of major issues, including the faculty's concern about the erosion of tenure track positions.

The union, negotiating its second contract following a successful initial organizing campaign in 1997, is asking for a 7 percent raise to bring salaries closer to those of peer institutions. The NEA affiliate is also demanding 36 more full-time tenure track faculty positions to prevent the erosion of full-time faculty.

The Keene State College Education Association has turned down an opportunity to compete for the NEA-AFT Saturn/UAW Partnership Award-because the University System of New Hampshire, of which Keene State is a component, is trying to avoid recognizing a brand new union of adjunct faculty at the college, also an NEA affiliate.

The award goes to educational institutions where cooperative union-management relationships have improved student learning.

The New Hampshire university system has appealed a lower court ruling that grants bargaining rights to part-time faculty.

Notes Association President Bob Sherry: "If the University System of New Hampshire and the KSCEA are to warrant recognition for their efforts to respect each other and work together, that respect and joint work should extend to all employees."