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NEA
Affiliates in Action
Organizing
Full-time faculty at Umpqua Community College in Oregon voted overwhelmingly in March in favor of union representation by the Oregon Education Association/NEA. The vote tally was 48 to 6 in a full-time unit of 64.
“The bottom line is we love this school,” said fine arts instructor Susan Rochester. “This will make it possible for the students to get the best education they can. That’s why we’re here.”
In April, the college’s classified employees joined the faculty, voting 97 to 15 in favor of collective bargaining with OEA/NEA. The classified bargaining unit has 139 members.
The staff of Columbia College in Chicago finally has a union, after waiting more than a year for a decision on a disputed election held in October 2004. The National Labor Relations Board ruled in April that 42 disputed ballots must be counted. The result: a win for the Illinois Education Association/NEA, which will now begin negotiations for a contract covering the college’s 450 full- and part-time staff.
Contracts
Despite ongoing contract talks, the California Faculty Association and the California State University have reached agreement on summer pay and working conditions for the system’s faculty for 2006.
For the first time, summer extension pay rates will be based on academic year faculty pay rates, reducing the incentive for the university to move summer teaching to extension classes. The pact provides, also for the first time, pay for indirect instruction during summer, while allowing for a small reduction in salary for under-enrolled courses.
The agreement came when the negotiators from CSU’s chancellor’s office withdrew a proposal that would have taken away significant summer salary gains won in a CFA arbitration case.
“The CSU bargaining team was responsive to our demand that the newly won higher pay rates also replace lower extension pay rates,” said CFA president John Travis. “This is a notable achievement.”
More bargaining news at www.calfac.org.
Campus
Activities
A report on academic freedom in Florida’s universities and community colleges, which was requested by members of the state legislature concerned about students’ academic freedom in the classroom, found no basis for the concern.
An analysis by the state’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) found that “less than 1 percent of all formal student grievances” filed against faculty by students in the state’s 28 community colleges and 11 universities had anything to do with academic freedom.
“Not only is there no smoking gun,” said United Faculty of Florida president Tom Auxter, “the gun never went off.”
About 250 California Faculty Association members and CSU students picketed a California State University trustee’s Sacramento office building in early May to make it known that the trustee, a business lobbyist, is not advocating for the best interest of the university.
Waving large red “F” signs and a huge puppet-caricature of trustee Bill Hauck, president of the California Business Roundtable, the demonstrators pressed their demands that trustees put the interests of CSU and its students first and criticized Hauck for lobbying for budget cuts to public education and increases in student fees at the state’s universities.
The Long Beach City College chapter of the California Community College Association CTA/NEA has high hopes for better relations with the college’s trustees after mobilizing its members this spring to elect a faculty-friendly candidate to the board.
“It has been 18 years since the faculty were mobilized to change the board and we made a great first step,” said chapter President Charlotte Joseph, a political science professor. Members had been angered when trustees refused to implement their salary agreement.
The chapter relied on volunteers, paid student workers, and help from the California Teachers Association. |
