Organizing

Campus Activities

Contracts

Organizing

Administrators at Waukesha County Technical College are sparing no expense in their efforts to deny their part-time faculty bargaining rights.

During the last school year, the college hired a $250 an hour anti-union consulting firm to help thwart the unionization of the part-timers. They also laid off a full-time faculty member who was working with the part-timers organizing committee.

But this year, the situation has changed dramatically: The high-priced union buster is gone and the faculty member is back at his job.

The magic potion? Labor solidarity in Wisconsin. WCTC got rid of the consulting firm after the 60,000 member Milwaukee County Labor Council made public the firm's anti-union track record.

The faculty member was rehired after his firing was revealed in an on-campus "worker's rights hearing, sponsored by the Wisconsin Education Association Council and the labor council.

Visit the WCTC organizing campaign or send a message of support at: www.weac.org/constit/WTCS/PTUF/home.htm.

Campus Activities

The South Dakota Supreme Court tells the state university system it must bargain salaries with faculty.

The court declared unconstitutional language inserted in the state's appropriations bill that would have given the university the right to decide pay raises for faculty members.

The Council of Higher Education, the NEA affiliate representing faculty employed by the University of South Dakota system, filed suit after the state legislature enacted the language that would have prevented the union from bargaining salaries.

A federal appeals court finds in favor of the Texas Faculty Association in a First Amendment suit.

The ruling blocks the state from barring public employees---including faculty members---from serving as expert witnesses against the state.

"The notion that the State may silence the testimony of state employees simply because that testimony is contrary to the interests of the State in litigation or otherwise, is antithetical to the protection extended by the First Amendment," said the court.

Contracts

The California Faculty Association has signed an extension of the collective bargaining agreement that the California State University bargaining team let expire during the summer.

Under the extension, the 1995-1998 contract will remain in force until the parties reach agreement on a new contract, or one of the parties serves a 30-day notice to terminate the extension.

Keeping the agreement in place protects the binding arbitration rights of CFA and the faculty involved in grievance and discipline procedures. CFA notes that this was an important reason to sign a contract extension at this time.

Outstanding issues include CFA's demand for a salary plan based on a fair Retention, Promotion, and Tenure process, centered in the departments.

Productivity issues have lead to a breakdown in negotiations for the Cowley County Community College Education Association in Kansas.

Faculty balked at a college proposal which would require instructors to teach an extra course without compensation if the number of credit hours they generate drops below 315 for two semesters in a row. The Association is taking the matter to factfinding.

Washtenaw Community College's higher education ESP unit has settled its first contract with the help of its new bargaining agent, the Michigan Education Association.

The college's professional and technical staff came to MEA after rejecting two contracts negotiated by the union that previously represented them---then, ultimately, rejecting the union itself in a representation election last winter.

The agreement provides for a retroactive $1 across-the-board hourly increase for the 1997-98 academic year and another $1 raise in two installments for the 1998-99 academic year.