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NEA
Affiliates in Action
Organizing
The United Faculty of Washington State, affiliated
with—and strongly supported by—NEA, AFT, and their
state organizations, the WEA and AFT Washington, has won its first victory
in a campaign to represent nearly 8,000 faculty at six public, four-year
higher education institutions in the state.
In June, full- and part-time faculty at
Central Washington University voted nearly 2-1 for United Faculty of Central.
The bargaining unit includes 563 full- and part-time faculty, librarians,
and coaches.
“This marks a new era,” said
Susan Donohoe, president of the United Faculty of Central. “Now
we can work with the administration to help improve our wages and working
conditions.”
Faculty union activists are spreading
the message of “campus clout, statewide strength” to campuses
across the state as they organize.
Bargaining elections at Eastern Washington
University and Western Washington University will be next.
Campus
Activities
An arbitrator from the California Public Employment
Relations Board (PERB) has agreed with the California Faculty Association
(CFA) and another union representing California State University employees
that the CSU was wrong to raise parking fees and to bar entry to some
to new parking facilities.
CFA accused the CSU of violating the state
bargaining law by making a change in campus parking practices without
bargaining with the unions, refusing to divulge information about campus
parking operations necessary for the unions to bargain intelligently about
parking fees, and illegally bypassing the unions in negotiating the parking
issues.
CSU was ordered to remove barriers to
faculty and staff use of the new parking facilities. PERB also sustained
the right of unions to look at the university’s books so parking
consumers can discern the real needs and costs of campus parking operations.
The CSU is appealing this decision, while
CFA is offering to work with all parking consumers to develop a fair system.
Contracts
The Illinois State University Non-Tenure Track
Faculty Association, an affiliate of NEA and the Illinois Education
Association, recently approved a historic first union contract bringing
hundreds of contingent faculty at ISU increased job security, due process,
and pay.
The new agreement provides nearly all
of Illinois State’s non-tenure-track faculty pay increases of nearly
6 percent. The parties also agreed that the university and the new union
will form a joint committee that will begin meeting in October to study
salary issues affecting non-tenure-track teachers. The pact provides also
for seniority in layoffs and recall.
The Camden
County College (NJ) Faculty Association recently ratified a new two-year
agreement that provides for the highest across-the-board salary
increases of any two- or four-year public institution in New Jersey. The
increases will be 4.9 percent in 2004 and 4.7 percent in 2005. The Association’s
last salary increase was 5 percent in 2003, also the highest in New Jersey
during that year.
In addition, the Association turned aside
an attempt by the college for them to start contributing to the cost of
their medical insurance premiums. No NJEA higher education unit contributes
to the cost of insurance premiums.
Effective political
action, plus determination at the bargaining table, has produced
a breakthrough agreement for the Junior College District NEA (JCDNEA)
in negotiations with St. Louis (MO) Community College.
First, the JCDNEA, an affiliate of NEA
and Missouri NEA, helped elect a new member of the college’s Board
of Trustees. This ultimately helped change the stance of the Board, which
took an active role in negotiations for the first time.
As a result, the Association, which functions
without the benefits or protections of a collective bargaining law, has
won a 10 percent salary increase over the life of a three-year contract.
The increase applies to overload and summer school pay as well as regular
salaries. The pact also strengthens the grievance and arbitration process
and improves the bargaining process.
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