NEA: Higher Education Advocate OnLine - NEA Affiliates in Action

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Section: November 1997

Front Page

Lead Story

They're talking on campus...

On the Road
NEA

ActionLine
NEA

In The Know

From Capital to Campus...

NEA Affilitates in Action

Higher Education News

Money Savvy

The Dialogue

Thriving in Academe

Previous Issues

NEA Affiliates in Action

Higher education staff and leaders, as well as our members, are interested in what happens on the local level. Telling The Advocate about your organizing, contracts, lawsuits, and grievances activities can introduce your colleagues to new concepts in bargaining, warn them of pitfalls you've encountered, or begin a discussion around an issue of importance to a number of campuses. Join the discussion now!

Organizing

Contracts

Lawsuits & Grievances

NEA New Mexico and the New Mexico Federation of Teachers have joined forces to help the 116 faculty members at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico gain union representation.

Campus organizers there say they need a union to preserve the quality of the institution. They re also concerned about the erosion of faculty rights and threats to shared governance, as well as ongoing problems with lagging salaries.

Columbia College of Chicago part-time instructors are launching a drive for unionization with NEA's Illinois affiliate, the 93,000-member Illinois Education Association (IEA).Organizers began the campaign at faculty orientation on September 27 by asking part-time faculty members to sign authorization cards calling for an election to determine whether the union will represent them in negotiations with the college.
Nearly 900 part-time faculty members comprise 80 percent of the faculty and teach 70 percent of Columbia s courses.
A part-time instructor receives no benefits and is paid less than $1,500 per course. The union seeks pay equity, medical and other benefits, job security and seniority rights. Also important, say the organizers, is greater input on Columbia College's policy decisions.

Goddard College faculty and staff continue their long trek toward representation by the Vermont Education Association.
The organizing committee has asked the Board of Trustees to recognize a single unit of about 100 faculty and staff, including part-timers.

Support staff at Warren County College voted to joint the NEA's New Jersey affiliate this summer.
They become the first unionized employees at the brand new college.

The University Education Association and the University of Minnesota Duluth are attempting to negotiate a three-year agreement that would address the issues raised by the university's upcoming switch from a quarter system to a semester system before 2000.

One of the main issues in the talks is workload. The University is claiming the issue is an inherent managerial right while the UEA claims it is negotiable. The issue may end up in the courts.

The University of Hawaii Professional Asssembly is currently trying to negotiate "teaching equivalencies" under the provisions of a contract reopener.
The main goal is to reduce the base at the community colleges from 15 credit hours per semester to 12. Over the years, teaching equivalencies had actually reduced the overall teaching load. Now, as a result of a one-third cut in appropriations, the colleges are granting few "teaching equivalencies" especially for scholarship and faculty development. More information can be found at the new UHPA home page.

The Texas Faculty Association has filed lawsuits in federal court charging that Prairie View A&M University violated the First Amendment rights of two TFA campus faculty leaders.

NEA's Texas higher ed affiliate said in the suit that the two faculty members, who had been leading organizers of the chapter at Prairie View, were terminated by the university s president, angered by their outspoken activities as advocates for the faculty.

Texas law does not recognize unions of faculty or any public employee, nor does it allow faculty to engage in collective bargaining. Nonetheless, the TFA represents 1,500 members in higher education across the state.

The Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville Professional Staff Association has won an arbitration award reinstating a lecturer in a science education program there.
The university had terminated the employee for alleged misuse of sick leave in what appeared to be a campaign of harassment. The arbitrator found no intent to defraud the college.