April 15th, at last some progress at the table

So today at the table was a landslide of Tentative Agreements (T.A.s). We reached 12 T.A.s! (for the most part, still agreeing on the tweaking of a word or two). The signing of these T.A.s marks the end of non-economic issues. You can now breath a sigh of relief.

...sigh...

Alright, now that you have rested, it is time to get down to business. We start negotiating economic issues on Monday, and these promise to be…difficult…at best. Imagine that you walk into your chair’s office and asked they give you a raise and a multiple year contract. The response that you would get is similar to what we will probably get.

Regardless of how articulate or logical we are, we will get nowhere without your support and participation. One of the main reasons we organized was the fact we are more powerful as a group than as an individual. As a group, we can demand that based on favorable evaluations we gain increased security. As a group, we can demand that we be paid what is equitable for our training. As individuals we can ask for these things, and we will be denied.
How can you participate in the group you ask?

Tomorrow, Friday the 16th, 8:45am Rally at the Board of Trustees Meeting, Hannah Administration Building

Write a letter to Lou Anna Simon telling her you support the UNTF

Write a letter to the Lansing State Journal or the State News, saying that UNTF supports high-quality education

Thursday, April 22nd, 1pm, attend the Bargaining Presentation on Security Provisions and Wages, Nisbet Bldg 125

Demonstrate, Wednesday May 5th, location and time TBD, Our last chance for a contract this term

These actions may seem small, but they tell the University that we are a cohesive group that means business. Today’s agreements are significant, but what happens in the next 3 weeks could have profound implications on your career (group), or not (individual). Your choice.

Not quite time for Kumbaya (Bargaining on 3/15)

This last Monday’s bargaining session is not what you would call radical or highly successful, but for me it represented a shift in thinking about our bargaining experience. Even though we did reach a tentative agreement on medical disputes and came close to a couple of others, for me, the progress was in the interactions between the union and the administration. More than once we had discussions about the issues, what we were attempting to achieve with our language and what the administration was attempting with theirs. We did not sit around and sing Kumbaya together, but I think it did foster some indication that we are all interested in helping to strengthen the university.

It strengthen was during one of these explanations of viewpoint that I realized one of the difficulties we are wrestling with at the table is with the level of organization. Anyone who has been at MSU long can tell you that it has a very strong decentralized approach to many of its academic policies. This approach allows departments to have a lot of freedom for how they approach education, which can be a good thing. However, this approach has allowed for some departments to exploit non-tenure track faculty. Many of the things the union is asking for is a centralizing and standardizing of some academic policies, which may go against MSU’s institutional “grain”.

So, I guess the epiphany for me this week was that institutional structure may be one of the bigger hurdles we have to overcome to reach our goals for this contract…and it isn’t just a greedy, power-hungry administration trying to keep the little guy down (I think).

--A Bargain

From the Table 3/11

At the table today, March 11, 2010, Penny Gardner, Bargaining Committee reporting!

Sometimes I am a Rachel Madow wannabe..

Anyway, at the negotiating table today, we made progress through testy moments provided by those across the table from the UNTF bargaining committee. Proposals and counter proposals were presented by both sides, and hallelujah even three tentative agreements were signed. It is a chipping away process to come to agreement and our chief negotiator keeps strong presence in light of hostility and negativity that erupts from the other side. The last thing today was our words "without penalty" in the medical dispute section being replaced by them with the words "without termination" counter proposed by us with the words "without discipline" countered by them, "without discipline and/or discharge". We agreed. Of course there was much more to this than meets the eye, but I couldn't resist sharing this little moment of progress....

Come join us. There is lots to learn. Contact us to sign-up and be caught up! Penny

Thoughts from an Observer

I was mostly aware of the energy flows in the room. It was interesting to observe the ritual of gauging the opposing side by
their demeanor, their tone of voice, eye contact, sense of humor, and ability to articulate points in a logically convincing way. On one level, it seemed there was a lot of straight forward stuff, given that there are precedents for many of the contract points discussed, so that the process became more of a reasonable exchange (compromise) on both parts to arrive at the middle, where some things may be granted and others withheld given the particular atmosphere in the room that day. By that I mean that, everything else being equal (the precedent of other contracts), our presence in the room or the perception of it by management may tip the scale. So, while some things did seem more difficult to pass and were deferred, others seemed to respond more easily to the atmosphere and presence that we may have in the room either as articulate, intelligent, and able to counter back arguments or as an incompetent and easily tricked bunch of people. Alyssa--our lead negotiator--seems to handle them (and their egos) beautifully. So, it seems that, at least on one level, management?s perception of a strong will (ours) and controlled egos (ours) does play a role in our favor.

Editorial: Raises for MSU Administrators

The following editorial was among the several letters submitted by UNTF members in response to a Lansing State Journal Article reporting that MSU administrators are accepting big raises in years when the faculty and the many of the unions on campus are receiving very little or no adjustments.

Read the article at http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20102280561

Dear Editor:
I was astounded to read the State News editorial justifying raises for William Strampel, dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine (58%), Marsha Rappley, dean of the College of Human Medicine (26%), and Provost Kim Wilcox (20%)—all within a 3-year period.

This comes at a time when the University is demanding that non-tenured track teachers pay 50% of their health care and that ALL MSU unions agree to cancel post-retirement health care for new employees. This comes at a time when many people at MSU have lost jobs, when programs are being cut, and when many students have to take on crippling debt in order to pay tuition.
Yes, while some employees make enormous sums, the University is trying to take health care away from other employees. By what possible system of ethics, morality or social planning can this possibly make sense?

In truth, it doesn't make sense. We cannot have a healthy society when some people live like royalty and others cannot get health care.

The rational that both your editorial and that the administration give is shocking, frankly. Are we to believe that these deans have so little dedication to their work that they have to be bribed with great sums of money in order to stay at MSU? Are we to believe that in this great nation of ours there are no other people qualified for these jobs?

When our country was founded, we chose not to create a King and aristocracy. However, the exorbitant pay for corporate and academic administrators in this country convinces me that we have created a financial aristocracy, which rules with the same blindness and lack of compassion, as did aristocracies of yore.

RS

Layoffs at MSU: the best of times and the worst of times...

Though continuing MSU layoffs (through Spring 2011 and possibly beyond!) are likely in this economic climate, a strong UNTF can advocate for its members regarding layoff decisions and provisions, and work to avoid situations where somebody is laid off only to be eventually replaced with cheaper labor. A strong UNTF can also push so that our members don't bear the brunt of these budget cuts and layoffs (whereas with no union, the pattern will continue of administrators giving themselves raises while cutting budgets and laying off staff, as was documented in a recent Lansing State Journal article.

Layoff provisions will be part of the contract we are currently negotiating, and will surely be a top priority and contested item. The contract should be in place in time to affect layoffs in Fall 2010 and afterwards. So it is vital that we secure good layoff terms in our first contract given that this issue is very real. For example, widespread in many faculty contracts is "layoff status" which in part determines if and how laid off workers will have "first dibs" should the employer once again require somebody to do the work they were doing. For example, if you are laid off because the course you are teaching is cancelled, you would want your contract to specify that you have certain rights if that course (or a similar one) is offered a semester or year later. How favorable this and other UNTF contract items end up depends a lot on the MSU Administration's perceptions of UNTF member support. We know we have a strong group of supporters but the Administration doesn't know this and so must see signs of this. Therefore, your support in upcoming UNTF events (which includes showing up as a guest observer at one of our bargaining sessions) is ESSENTIAL to visibly show the Administration we are a strong union.

Signs are not good, with Michigan facing a serious budget deficit next year. The MSU administration clearly anticipates layoffs, and without a strong contract and union, non-tenure track folks at MSU are particularly vulnerable. You may be aware the Administration has recently asked unit heads to prepare budget scenarios for next year that respond to 3 levels of budget cuts. Another round of program (and maybe even department) cuts is inevitable. All of this comes only a few weeks after Academic Human Resources and Human Resources presented a LEAD workshop in early February, "Being Prepared: What Administrators Need to Know in the Event of Personnel Reductions". Documents were distributed with detailed instructions for layoffs and position elimination for both faculty and academic staff positions, and for support staff positions ("Layoff Summary Chart and Process"; "Elimination of faculty academic staff 2010"; "Involuntary Reduction in Percent Employed").

This is truly the best of times and worst of times to be negotiating a faculty union contract at MSU!

Coffee Talk

Today’s session at the bargaining table, as far as they go, was quite congenial. We were able to sign a couple of tentative agreements and got closer to two or three more. Right now we are looking at non-economic issues, with today’s main attraction being the resources fixed-term faculty have to carry out their jobs (office space, mailboxes, textbooks, access to classrooms, etc.).

The administration thought some of our language was taken from other contracts and that it did not represent the situation on MSU’s campus. For example, they thought that all faculty had office space and resources that accompany an office. We told them that is not the case and gave examples of fixed-term faculty who share one desk with 10 other faculty. To gain access to this office, administrative assistants have to unlock the door for the faculty, and they only have two hours in that space for each class they teach. Other fixed-term faculty have to hold office hours in coffee shops because they don’t have an office. Although this improve drink options, it makes it hard to set the proper tone to discuss issues such as student grades with mocha lattes surrounding you. The administration seemed to take the examples to heart.

In general the tone was better than I had seen to date. There were a few times where the two sides seemed to be cooperatively working on creating a formal system of recognition and rights for nontenure-track faculty. It was very warming...not like having your own barista in your “office”, but a definite start.

Unions and nontenure-track faculty?

There's a stereotype of unions as creatures of heavy industry: steelworkers, miners, garment workers, construction workers—and it's certainly true that the historical roots of organized labor are the factories and foundries of the early twentieth century. Working-class men and women struggled to forge the basic concepts of fair employment: freedom from discrimination & arbitrary treatment, the 40-hour work-week, and paid heath insurance. Like most stereotypes, however, this characterization of unions falls short of the truth—especially now, in the early 21st century, when professional and technical workers are the fastest growing occupational groups in the country. Musicians, engineers, airline pilots, doctors, nurses, social workers, researchers, and teachers have all turned to unions to advocate for themselves in the new service-driven economy.

There's a stereotype of higher education, too: the ivory tower set aside from the getting and spending of the real world, a place where reason rules and rational argument wins the day! Even if many of us still want to hold onto this image as an ideal, it's hard to do as colleges and universities move increasingly to corporate models to maintain their bottom lines.

Unions of university and college faculty are nothing new; tenure-track faculty—especially at public institutions—began organizing in the 1960's following huge nationwide increases in undergraduate enrollment and the exponential growth of what University of California president Clark Kerr famously dubbed "the knowledge industry." Here in Michigan, tenure-track faculty unions won certification elections at a regular pace: 5 in 1965; 16 by 1975; and 37 by 1980.

The union movement among nontenure-track faculty is thus a second wave in higher education, one that follows an equally radical change in the structure of our industry. Between 1970 and 1995, the number of full-time faculty grew modestly—49%—while the number of part-time faculty grew an astonishing 266%. This surge (which does not even count the growth of full-time nontenure-track faculty) was partially an effect of declining state funding for higher education, but other factors—such as the overproduction of Ph.D.'s for the academic market—contributed as well.

In the Fall of 2007, there were more than 1.5 million people working in post-secondary instruction; of these, less than 430,000 were so-called regular faculty, tenured or tenure-track. 330,000 were graduate student employees—meaning that over half of the total number are full and part-time nontenure-track faculty.

Nontenure-track faculty earn less too; in 2003-2004, full-time nontenure-track faculty at public research institutions—such as Michigan State—earned on average half as much per class as their tenured and tenure-track counterparts. Part-timers earned less than half of that, making their per class salary less than 25% of that of tenure-stream professors.

Unionization is one of the clear ways in which nontenure-track have been able to improve their working conditions in the face of these trends. Lecturers of the University of California system organized early in the 1980’s, and in the 1988 the nontenure-track instructors at the State University of New Jersey at Rutgers voted to join a union. Other notable locals include the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF), which represents nontenure-track faculty at many of the campuses of the State University System of Pennsylvania (though not PSU), United University Professions (UUP), which represents some part-time and full-time faculty as part of 34,000 unionized employees of the State University of New York system.

Here in Michigan, nontenure-track faculty unions have been successful as well; they are either currently represented or currently struggling to unionize at Eastern, Western, Wayne State, at all three campuses of the University of Michigan, as well as numerous community colleges. Locals at Michigan, Wayne, and Eastern, with support from the AFT, have made significant gains in the areas of greatest concern to nontenure-track faculty: job security, health care for low fraction employees, and in progress towards salary parity.