Advocate Online

NEA Affiliates in Action

Organizing
The Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Non-Tenure Track Faculty Association-IEA/NEA wound up a year-and-a-half long organizing campaign on September 13 with a strong vote to unionize. The non-tenure track (NTT) faculty voted 137 for unionization to 30 opposed.

"This is a great victory for the non-tenure track faculty, the students, our tenure-track colleagues and even for the administration of SIUC," said Aviation Management & Flight Department instructor Keith Wilson, co-chair of the SIUC NTT FA. Diane Muzio, the other Association co-chair, said individual contact was made over the last three semesters with most of the eligible voters by a large core of union activists on campus and through phone banks.

Campus Activities
The United Faculty of Florida has reached agreement on contracts at Florida State University and the University of West Florida.

The new agreement at FSU calls for raises of about 6 percent, a 3.6 percent across the board increase, another 2 percent in merit pay, 2 percent of the salary pool for a one-time bonus, and other money for market equity raises. The FSU pact also includes language protecting tenure, academic freedom, and other faculty rights.

Contracts
Two NEA affiliates at Youngstown State University went on strike to begin the new school year. But both unions were back on the job when classes began on August 29.

The 390-member faculty union, the Youngstown State University Ohio Education Association, ratified a new three-year contract the Sunday evening before classes were to begin, and the 400-member YSU Association of Classified Employees (ACE) reached a tentative agreement on Monday morning as classes began. ACE had been on strike since August 16, the faculty since August 23.

Both pacts call for faculty and staff to contribute to health insurance for the first time, 0.75 percent to 1.5 percent of salary in the second year of the contract. Youngstown State was the only public university where employees did not pay some of the cost of health insurance premiums.

The contracts provide raises of 3 percent for the first two years and 3.25 percent in the third year for classified employees and 3 percent in the first year and 3.5 percent in the two years following for faculty.

Faculty and staff voiced dissatisraction because their contracts didn't keep up with inflation due to increased health care costs. "We're very angry we were treated so dismissively," chief faculty negotiator Stanley Guzell said. Classified chief negotiator Christine Domhoff agreed.

On July 27, the Florida Supreme Court officially restored collective bargaining rights to the United Faculty of Florida by refusing to hear an appeal of a district court's decision that the state could not unilaterally terminate its obligations under a collective bargaining agreement by reorganizing the Executive Branch, as Jeb Bush attempted.

The governor eliminated the state board of regents, the body that United Faculty of Florida negotiated with for faculty at all 11 state institutions, in 2003. The board of governors, which replaced the board of regents, argued that they were not bound by the UFF contract. But the court decided differently.