Organizing

Campus Activities

Contracts

Organizing

Washtenaw Community College higher ed support staffers have voted to join the Michigan Education Association.

This group of 97 clerical, technical, and office personnel rejected their former bargaining agent after also rejecting three tentative agreements negotiated in their behalf and chose representation by MEA. They are now getting ready to return to the bargaining table.

Three NEA units at Youngstown State University have joined forces to promote their shared interests.

Separate NEA locals at this Ohio university represent faculty, classified staff, and professional staff. A union representing the campus police has also joined the coalition Bargaining Unit Members Solidarity or BUMS.

The unions began by discussing common concerns about downsizing, negotiating strategies, and staffing trends, among other issues.

One ominous trend that came to light at the meeting is the practice by the university of asking current employees to volunteer to do work formerly performed by union members.

Campus Activities

Faculty at Southern Illinois University are turning up the heat in their campaign for a first contract.

Faculty at SIU voted to make the Southern Illinois University Faculty Association their bargaining agent in a 1996 election. Since then, the university's administration has been dragging its feet in negotiations.

Association members are using a variety of tactics to increase the pressure on the university's president and Board of Trustees to reach an agreement, including informational picketing and leafleting held March 23.

Members have authorized their leaders to file a strike notice with the state, if that becomes necessary.

NEA and AFT will jointly host a reception for delegates to the Education International World Congress this summer.

Twenty-five higher education affiliates of EI will also be invited to send a delegate to the UNESCO World Congress on Higher Education in Paris in October. Because the United States no longer belongs to UNESCO, U.S. educators won't be able to participate.

Contracts

The United Faculty of Florida has resolved a bargaining impasse with the university system over tenure.

The two sides declared an impasse in December over a demand that the university be permitted to offer multi-year contracts, in lieu of tenure, to all new hires at the system's 10 campuses.

Under the proposed agreement, an experiment with multi-year contracts as a supplement to tenure will continue at Florida Gulf Coast University. But, at the other campuses, multi-year contracts can only be offered to a list of employment categories agreed to by the union---mostly those currently using one-year contracts.

If the UFF had not been able to reach agreement with the university system's chancellor and Board of Regents, the impasse would have been decided by the Florida legislature, where there is significant anti-tenure sentiment.

Contract talks between the California Faculty Association and the state university may define CSU's future.

CFA is concerned that the commitment the trustees and many campus presidents have made to a corporate ideology would fundamentally alter the mission of the university.

Fallout from this corporate mentality: megadeals with private corporations that view students and faculty as markets, excessive use of part-time faculty, marginalization of shared governance and collegial relationships.

Negotiators for CFA expect that other difficult issues in bargaining will include salary and the CSU merit pay system.

Organizers plan actions on campuses throughout the state to highlight the faculty commitment to gaining fair treatment for lecturers, hiring more tenure-track faculty, and reducing class size. Notes CFA: "This campaign is about preserving the role of faculty in the governance of the university."