Advocate Online

NEA Affiliates in Action

Organizing
After an overwhelmingly successful organizing effort by the United Faculty of Florida (UFF) and the Florida Education Association—with support from the groups’ parent organizations NEA and the AFT—a two-thirds, super majority, of Florida State University System faculty members have named the UFF as the organization they want representing them in collective bargaining.

Authorization cards pledging support for UFF were filed by the union with the Florida Public Employee Relations Commission in December.

“One reason we have seen such an overwhelming response in the card signing is that faculty know Florida is a danger zone when it comes to faculty rights,” said UFF President Tom Auxter of the University of Florida.

“Faculty want a contract guaranteeing that the political agendas of Board members and the personal agendas of ambitious administrators do not define the horizons of their professional lives.”

Contracts
The Southern Illinois University Carbondale Faculty Association has reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with the university's Board of Trustees, avoiding a strike scheduled to begin February 4. The Faculty Association's Departmental Representative Council has sent the Board's “last and best package proposal” to the Association membership for a formal ratification vote, recommending approval.

“We have gained much, such as a fixed faculty-student ratio, job security, and non-contingent salary increases,” said Association President Morteza Daneshdoost. “But we are not satisfied. There is much more to be done. We must now work to achieve workload definitions, administrative accountability, and faculty involvement in programmatic changes.”

The Association's membership had ratified an intent to strike motion late last year by an 88 percent majority. “It is time now for the faculty to make a decision about whether they want to take what we've been offered, or reject it,” said Daneshdoost.

Campus Activities
A fourth equity study in the last two decades has found continuing systemic discrimination against female employees in the University of Maine System. The report, Personal Economies: Living on the Edge with Nothing Left to Give, conducted for the Associated Clerical, Office, Laboratory, and Technical (C0LT) staff of the University of Maine system (ACSUM) details the University’s failure to pay a living wage to its primarily pink-collar clerical-support workers.

The unit is 85 percent female and the average wage of $22,578 is well below Maine’s 2001 Living Wage Benchmarks for a single parent with child ($26,739) and fair market rent ($25,730).

This 17-page paper was presented to the University’s trustees at their meeting on December 12 and is available online at www.maine.nea.org.

Stephen R. Keeler, an NEA higher education member at Cayuga County Community College in New York, has been named Educator of the Year by the Society of Broadcast Engineers. At the same time, two groups of his students were selected as finalists for the 2002 national student production awards, the only community college students to be chosen.

Another New York NEA higher education member, Ann Catalano, a member of the Niagara County Community College Faculty Association, has received a $1,000 NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education grant. Find out more at www.nfie.org/programs/howtoapply.htm.

In a case involving overtime pay for part-time faculty at community colleges in Washington state, the Supreme Court has ruled that part-time instructors in the state’s community colleges are salaried professionals and therefore aren’t entitled to overtime.

The attorney for the state argued that the number of hours adjuncts work is completely up to them and suggested an instructor can save time by giving students electronically scanned multiple-choice tests instead of essay exams. The Washington Education Association filed a brief with the Court in support of the part-time instructors.