the cgeu weblog

Ruling lets graduate students form a union

2007-07-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

Labor activists at UAlbany cheer federal decision that reverses earlier finding by regional director

By MARC PARRY, Staff writer Thursday, July 12, 2007

ALBANY -- Labor activists broke out banners and balloons Wednesday to celebrate a ruling that allows some graduate student research assistants to unionize.

They rallied at the University at Albany to cheer a decision that directly affects about 2,000 employees of the Research Foundation of the State University of New York working in Albany, Buffalo and Syracuse.

The private nonprofit foundation administers outside grants for sponsored research programs at SUNY. The employees affected by the case are enrolled at SUNY but draw their paychecks from the foundation, a union leader said.

The ruling by the National Labor Relations Board focused on whether the student assistants have a fundamentally economic or educational relationship to their employer.

The board reversed the decision of a regional director who had ruled the research assistants are not employees of the foundation, meaning they would not qualify for collective-bargaining rights.

Graduate students have shouldered more and more of universities' day-to-day work over the past 20 years. The new ruling represents "a rare expansion of bargaining rights for graduate students under the current labor board, appointed by President Bush," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which closely tracks college labor issues.

"It's a victory for graduate students across the country," Arindam Mandal of Communications Workers of America Local 1104 said through a megaphone during a noon rally that drew fewer than 20 people.

The decision contrasts with a major ruling handed down by the NLRB in a related case three years ago. The board ruled then that graduate teaching assistants at Brown University lack collective-bargaining rights under the National Labor Relations Act because they are students rather than employees.

One Cornell University labor expert argued that the new development opens the door to an appeal of the original ruling and is "the kind of decision that the board will regret because they have muddied their own waters quite significantly."

"People might think it's a small decision, but I think it's an important decision because it lays bare the contradictions in the earlier decision," said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Shame on Quinnipiac University

2006-09-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

For years, collegial relations between the faculty and the administration contributed to Quinnipiac University's prestige, helping it to a secure a place on U.S. News & World Report's list of the nation's best institutions of higher education. This past spring, Quinnipiac president John Lahey, exploiting a loophole in federal labor law, stripped professors of their right to bargain a contract and busted their union. Effectively declaring war on the university's professors, Lahey erased Quinnipiac's more than thirty-year history of negotiating with its faculty and recognizing professors' right to a democratic say in the decisions that shape their working lives.

Diminishing the status of a university's faculty cannot improve the status of the university. By denying professors their fundamental rights and provoking a bitter labor dispute, Lahey has jeopardized the collegial environment that has made Quinnipiac such a great place to work and to learn. But it doesn't have to be this way. Tell President Lahey to keep Quinnipiac great by abandoning his program of union-busting and by restoring the rights of the faculty.

Decisive vote creates SIUC graduate employee union

2006-09-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

CARBONDALE, IL With a two to one show of force, Graduate Assistants United-IEA/NEA of Southern Illinois University Carbondale wound up a year-and-a-half long organizing campaign on Wednesday with a strong vote to unionize. Over 400 graduate assistants took part in the vote with a final count of 248 for representation and 112 opposed. Dozens of challenged ballots insufficient to affect the outcome of the vote were also cast. The total voting unit was 982 GAs although GAs at SIUC have ranged from 1,200 to 1,600 per semester by recent counts provided by the university through Freedom of Information Act requests by GA United.

Political Science Teaching Assistant Marinus van Kuilenburg co-chairs GA United with Shelly McGrath, a Research Assistant in Sociology. Van Kuilenburg was pleased with the turnout and strong support the vote represents.

"This is a great victory for the many grad employees who make this place work. That is why this is good for SIUC," van Kuilenburg said.

Graduate employees at SIUC are hardworking, motivated and care greatly about the work they do in service to our students. With the security of a collective bargaining agreement and representation from the IEA/NEA, they will be able to do even more.

McGrath said individual contacts were made over the last several semesters with most of the eligible voters by a large core of union activists on campus and through phone banks. "Through this campaign we found that GAs are tired of onerous fee increases, stipends and basic benefits that lag behind peer institutions, and less than desirable working conditions for many. We organized to gain a voice and put to stop to the unilateral decisions that make a hard job even harder."

While many of SIUC's graduate employees serve the university in non-academic areas, this vote follows the organizing trend across Illinois and the nation by contingent academic labor, now the majority of those teaching undergraduate students at American colleges and universities.

"Now we are now ready to work with the SIUC administration and SIU Board to begin to solve problems to the mutual benefit of everyone at SIUC," van Kuilenburg said. "We won our seat at the table, but this is only the first step. Now it's time for us to sign up members and continue with work in progress to develop bargaining proposals. All GAs can easily find and complete an electronic bargaining survey at our website: http://www.gaunited.org. We look forward to sitting down together to create a first rate contract that makes things better for all of us. Now is when the real work begins."

The Illinois Education Association/NEA has represented nearly 700 SIUC tenure-line faculty since 1996 and more than 450 civil service professionals dating back to the 1970s. Exactly one year ago, Non-Tenure Track Faculty at the campus voted in their own IEA affiliated union local.

State of the TA Unions

2006-08-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

Inside Higher Education

The video had the same amateur quality as those that circulate on YouTube and other Internet sites. Set to the lyrics of Were Not Going to Take It, a handheld camera followed friends of the graduate student unionization movement to a New York University alumni fund-raising event this past year that featured the unions public enemy of the moment, NYU President John Sexton.

The party crashers did their best to disrupt the function, and the roughly 100 labor organizers from around the country who watched the screening on Friday - some of whom appeared in the footage - cheered the effort. If that was'nt enough to stir the audience at the start of the 15th annual Coalition of Graduate Employees Union conference, in Philadelphia, former Yale University graduate student Carlos Aramayos challenge to his brothers and sisters set the tone.

"University administrators are trying to put together a national message, and we havent been good enough in pushing our movement," said Aramayo, a representative from Graduate Employees and Student Organization at Yale.

...

Student unions gather

2006-08-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

by Josh Cornfield
Metro Philadelphia
AUG 11, 2006

UNIVERSITY CITY The graduate students union at the University of Pennsylvania, which has long fought with the university for recognition, is co-hosting a conference of 30 grad unions from around North America this weekend.

The 15th-annual Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions (CGEU) conference begins today with workshops and seminars on topics including contract negotiation, lobbying and media relations. Organizer Bill Herman said the conference will draw some 100 union members from as far away as Vancouver.

Grad unions from Rutgers and Temple, both recognized by their universities in contract negotiations, are co-hosting the event. Penn's Graduate Employees Together-UPenn (GET-UP) is still trying to get the same from Penns administration.

"I think it would take a lot of things," Herman said of getting Penns recognition. "External political pressure is certainly beneficial...It takes sitting down with the administration and talking about what unionization would mean."

Herman said GET-UP takes some of the credit for salary increases for its grad student workers even though the union has never met as a group with Penn's administration.

"When students work together [the administration] will occasionally listen to what they have to say," Herman said.

Congress turns to NYU

2006-06-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

June 19, 2006
AFT Higher Education News

Some heavyweights in Congress have gotten behind New York University graduate workers who have been on strike for bargaining rights since November 2005. Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) are urging their colleagues to sign on to their letter of support for the workers, addressed to NYU's president. The letter urges the university to agree to reinstate its recognition of the graduate employees union, which it withdrew last year after an unfavorable National Labor Relations Board decision.

The AFT is helping to make sure the number of signers keeps growing. At the beginning of June, the AFT sent its own letter to members of Congress urging them to sign on to Congressional letters. In ignoring the NYU grad workers' request, the letter states, the university is "inconsistent with its educational mission." Moreover, "it has been soundly condemned by all stakeholders in the community: students, faculty, civil and human rights activists, the greater labor movement and a broad range of elected officials."

AFT locals are also raising the flag for their sister union. Recently the Teaching Assistants' Association/AFT at the University of Wisconsin capped a visit to Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) through the AFT's Activists for Congressional Education (ACE) program by securing their representatives' signatures.

Although universities are no longer required by law to do so, there is nothing in the NLRB decision that prevents them from recognizing bargaining units, AFT president Edward J. McElroy noted in a letter to NYU president John Sexton last November.

The Graduate Students Organizing Committee of the United Automobile Workers (GSOC/UAW) was recognized in 2000 as the collective bargaining agent for NYU graduate workers. Its collective bargaining agreement, initiated in 2002, improved wages, benefits and working conditions for employees. But when it expired in August 2005, the university withdrew the agreement and has refused to negotiate a second contract. The university's action followed a 2004 NLRB decision, reversing an earlier ruling that graduate assistants are primarily workers, not students, and entitled to collective bargaining rights.

While it is unlikely the NLRB decision will change until there is a change in the White House, the National Labor Relations Act does allow private employers to voluntarily recognize bargaining units. "The work of graduate employees is central to the educational mission of the University," writes Rep. Nadler. "These employees teach an estimated 85 percent of the undergraduate classes in the core curriculum. The work of graduate employees is valuable, and the University should value it by negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with their designated representative."

Book Prize Yanked From Yale Profs Over Role in Graduate-Student Labor Dispute

2006-05-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

By JENNIFER HOWARD
Chronicle of Higher Education
Friday, May 26, 2006

Two Yale University professors, Ian Shapiro and Michael J. Graetz, expected to receive a 2006 Sidney Hillman Award on Tuesday at a ceremony in New York City. Instead, they got phone calls on Tuesday morning telling them that the judges had reversed the decision to honor the professors' book on the repeal of the estate tax, Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight Over Taxing Inherited Wealth.

"I was stunned," said Mr. Shapiro, a professor of political science. "I'd been about to get in the car to go to the city to pick up the award."

Mr. Graetz echoed his co-author's shock. "It came out of the blue for me," he said. "Obviously, I was disappointed."

The telephone calls came from Bruce Raynor, president of the Sidney Hillman Foundation, which sponsors the awards. The foundation is a project of the labor union Unite Here, of which Mr. Raynor is general president. The awards and the foundation are named for Sidney Hillman, who was a leading worker-rights activist in the New Deal era and founding president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, a precursor of Unite Here.

First presented in 1950, the awards honor "journalists, writers, and public figures who pursue social justice and public policy for the common good," according to the foundation's Web site.

Mr. Raynor told the authors that the last-minute reversal had been based on information that came to light about Mr. Shapiro's dealings with members of GESO, the Graduate Employees and Students Organization, in its efforts to organize a graduate-student union at Yale in the 1990s. Unite Here has been involved with GESO's continuing union drive at Yale.

In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Raynor cited allegations of "unfair labor practices" and unspecified "threats against graduate students" by Mr. Shapiro.

"It flies in the face of Sidney Hillman's beliefs and his life," he said, "to present the award to someone who had been actively engaged in resisting union-organization attempts by graduate teaching assistants to join Sidney Hillman's union."

Mr. Raynor added, "We wish we had had this information before the award announcement went out. We regret it, and we certainly don't seek to embarrass Professor Shapiro."

...

NYU Strikers Take Summer Recess, But Pledge to Come Back in Fall

2006-05-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

AFL-CIO Weblog

May 11 was graduation day at New York University (NYU), and hundreds of striking graduate assistants and their supporters in the faculty and community rallied for the last time this school year. However, they promised to return next semester and again and again until the university recognizes their desire for a union.

"Graduate employees should take great pride in the students who are receiving their diplomas today, because you taught them most everything they learned here," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told the strikers. "It is a shame we can no longer take that same kind of pride in New York University, because when it comes to fairness and equality, the bosses at NYU have forgotten everything they learned."

NYU graduate workers, who have been on strike since November, voted to join Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC)/UAW Local 2110 in 2000 and negotiated a four-year contract with the university. That contract expired last August, and the university refused to negotiate a new one and ceased recognizing the union.

The May 11 rally followed a convention and demonstration by the group April 27 at which 57 students were arrested during a sit-in.

...

Trying to Raise the Stakes at NYU

2006-04-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

Graduate students at New York University — on strike for months in hopes of saving their union — got support Thursday from the outgoing and incoming presidents of the American Association of University Professors, who were arrested for disorderly conduct for blocking a street in front of NYU.

Cary Nelson, the incoming president and a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said in an interview before his arrest (and that of Jane Buck, the departing president) that he saw Thursday’s actions as a “ramping up of resistance” to NYU. More than 50 others were also arrested, most of them NYU graduate students, plus a few graduate students from other institutions.

While many leaders of faculty groups have backed the NYU grad students with resolutions and statements, Nelson said it was important to go beyond that. “We’re here to put our bodies where our words have been — to signal to our membership that this is a cause worthy of the long, honorable tradition of civil disobedience, that this is a fundamental issue of employee rights, and in truth this is the watershed academic labor crisis of our generation,” he added.

Nelson said that he was planning a “personal boycott” of NYU and that he would soon be encouraging other faculty members nationally to consider steps similar to those he will take, such as refusing to serve on NYU tenure review or publication review committees, refusing to speak on the campus, advising students against enrolling at graduate school or seeking employment there, and generally having “no active relationship” with the university. He said that the graduate students’ work stoppage alone — which is now rather modest as many of the students have returned to work — will not win the strike, but that a more unified effort could do so.

“People need to start making moral decisions about what to do,” said Nelson.

The conflict at NYU is over the right of graduate students at private institutions to unionize....

57 Teaching Assistants Arrested at N.Y.U. Sit-In for Union Rights

2006-04-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

April 28, 2006
By Steven Greenhouse
New York Times

Fifty-seven people were arrested at a sit-in at New York University yesterday as part of an effort to pressure the university to grant its graduate teaching and research assistants union recognition.

Graduate students and union supporters were arrested an hour after the Graduate Students Organizing Committee announced that a majority of graduate teaching assistants had signed a petition saying they wanted the group to be their union.

The group, which is affiliated with the United Auto Workers, has been on strike for six months and is searching for new ways to pressure the university to grant union recognition. N.Y.U. says the strike has fizzled, asserting that only two dozen graduate teaching and research assistants are still participating, while the organizing committee insists that 200 are still involved.

In 2000, shortly after the National Labor Relations Board reversed itself and ruled that graduate teaching and research assistants were essentially employees, not students, N.Y.U. became the first and only private university to grant union recognition to its graduate students.

In a contract, the group won substantial improvements in compensation and benefits, but last August, N.Y.U. stopped recognizing and negotiating with the union. It did so after the labor relations board, which had become dominated by Bush administration appointees, reversed itself again and ruled that graduate assistants were students, not workers, and had no right to unionize.

TAU @ Western Mich. Votes Yes

2006-04-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

KALAMAZOO – Teaching Assistants at Western Michigan University voted overwhelmingly today for union representation, giving themselves the right to negotiate health insurance, salary, tuition waivers, and other conditions of employment with the university administration. The vote, 290 in favor, 14 against, certifies the Teaching Assistants Union (TAU) as a collective bargaining agent affiliated with AFT Michigan, AFL-CIO. Eligible to vote were approximately 700 graduate students who work teaching, grading, and tutoring on the university's Kalamazoo campus. The election was conducted yesterday and today by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC).

Teaching Assistants teach many of the introductory courses and lab sections at the university while they simultaneously pursue graduate degrees. Many supported unionization because of the poor health insurance provided by the university. "Women's health care issues have been completely ignored," said Rebecca Hayes who teaches Criminal Justice at the University. Other cited salaries and tuition waivers. Overall, however, the central issue for these workers was recognition: "My department values who I am, but we need a union to have a voice within the larger university community," said Jason Trowbridge a TA in mathematics and a member of the union's organizing committee.

Like the graduate employee unions at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University, TAU is affiliated with AFT Michigan, AFT, AFL-CIO. Graduate employees have also formed unions at the University of Wisconsin -- Madison, the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, all University of California campuses, and the University of Kansas. Currently, graduate employees at New York University, affiliated with the United Auto Workers, are on strike to protest NYU's refusal to recognize their union.

15th Annual Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions Conference

2006-04-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

Philadelphia, August 11-13, 2006

GET-UP/AFT, Rutgers AAUP-AFT, and TUGSA/AFT are proud to announce the dates for the 15th annual CGEU conference, which will be held in Philadelphia on August 11-13, 2006.

We plan to build on the successes of past conferences but also to engage new challenges with this year's conference. Over the past year, the CGEU has engaged in unprecedented actions of solidarity and has moved toward greater coherency as a sector of the U.S. labor movement. In that spirit, this year's conference will host panels that will move us farther toward a national and North American agenda to achieve workplace, pay, and benefit standards for graduate labor. As members of powerful labor unions across North America, we should all seek the benefit of their organizing expertise to conceive our agenda and implement it. We plan to invite union experts in bargaining, media relations, corporate campaigns, labor law, etc. to share their knowledge with us. But we will not be passive learners, for we expect to these experts to take a better understanding of the grad. union movement agenda back to their respective unions. We will also invite the leaders of our respective unions to either attend the conference or to send a high-level representative in their stead, with the intention being to engage in a inter-union dialogue about how assets can be deployed best to assist the CGEU agenda.

More details to follow...Please mark your calendars now and plan on coming to Philadelphia the second weekend in August! We're very much looking forward to seeing you.

Why GSOC is winning

2005-12-10T10:45:00.000-08:00

By Gordon Lafer
December 09, 2005
Washington Square News

To an outside observer, the most dramatic fact about the current strike may be that all signs suggest that the Graduate Student Organizing Committee is on the verge of a huge victory. Since this fact seems to be counterintuitive to many people, it's worth laying out the reasons I think so.

First, the Draconian threats that the administration has made - every one of which is illegal under federal labor law - are impossible to carry out. The university claims that its intimidation tactics have succeeded in scaring three-quarters of GAs into giving up the strike. This number may or may not be real - they probably have no accurate way of knowing, and given the history of administrative hyper-spin, it's probably exaggerated. But even if just 250 GAs keep striking, the administration can't afford to enact its threats. If NYU President John Sexton were to ban 250 graduate students from teaching and cut all their funding for the spring semester, some of them would be forced to drop out, and some international students would be forced to leave the country. Departments with strong participation in the union might find their graduate programs hurt. There would be an enormous outcry of protest from both graduate students and faculty.

Normally, people on strike do not get paid. That was the "punishment" that GSOC members were prepared for. But NYU has kept paying strikers for a strategic reason. Everyone knows that the National Labor Relations Board case may be re-litigated under a Democratic president. Docking the pay of strikers would make it apparent that NYU is paying GAs for work and not giving them a stipend for scholarly training. The administration's strategic choice to keep paying strikers made it easier for people to stay out. But it certainly doesn't give the administration the right to turn to the thuggish tactic of blacklisting...

5,000 int'l faculty petition NYU

2005-12-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

by Adam Playford
December 07, 2005

About 5,000 international scholars have signed an open letter online protesting NYU’s decision to not recognize the graduate students’ union and punish those who continue striking past today’s administration-imposed deadline.

Starting with nine original signatories — including famous critical theorists and professors from Duke University, Columbia University, the University of London and several schools in the University of California system — the petition has become one of the most popular among the thousands of petitions circulating on Petitiononline.com, the website where it was posted last week. The letter harshly criticizes NYU for threatening to impose retaliatory actions against the union.

“Undermining the union itself is nothing more than Reagan-esque union-busting and so conveys and enacts hostility to student labor that can only heighten conflict and circulate a ruinous image for New York University as an unfair and indecent place of employment,” read the letter, which was conceived by University of California at Berkeley professor Judith Butler....

Grads in Baltimore slam Sexton

2005-12-06T10:17:00.000-08:00

by Melissa Saks
December 06, 2005
Washington Square News

Graduate assistants from the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University were joined by officials from the AFL-CIO to protest NYU President John Sextons stance against the graduate students union at a speaking engagement in Baltimore, Md., yesterday morning...

NYU: Listen and end this now

2005-12-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

by WSN editorial board
December 06, 2005
Washington Square News

Faculty Democracy held a funeral for faculty voice today, effectively mourning the fact that the administration does not care what faculty think about the struggle with GSOC. Were surprised that NYU doesnt seem to care that theyre distancing important, well-liked faculty (including heads of departments), who are probably going to be around far longer than the undergraduates both sides are striving to win over...

GSOC allies charge Bobst Administration Building

2005-12-01T11:38:00.000-08:00

Students enter library to deliver letter to Sexton, unfurl sign
by Bryan Pirolli
Washington Square News
December 01, 2005

About 150 students charged Bobst Library yesterday to deliver a letter to NYU President John Sexton demanding a resolution to the graduate assistants strike as part of a day of action intended to compel the university to negotiate with the graduate students union...

Prangstgrup of Columbia University

2005-11-29T19:58:00.000-08:00

Go to the Video Archive for "Subway Lectures"!

Day 10 on the Picket Line

2005-11-29T16:48:00.000-08:00

Inside Higher Education
November 22, 2005

Striking New York University graduate students trickled toward the picket line at 8 a.m. Monday, continuing the strike prompted by the universitys decision to end recognition of the graduate student union this summer. There has been no official contact between university and union officials, but strike supporters say their resolve is as strong as ever. Today will be their 10th day on strike...

GSOC supporters, stay true

2005-11-29T16:45:00.000-08:00

November 28, 2005
Washington Square News

Weve made it to the third week of chanting, whistles, honks and giant inflatable rats dominating the campus milieu. Were past Thanksgiving, and there are only about two and a half weeks of classes left. For those keeping track at home, there are only nine more issues of WSN left to be published in 2005...

G.O.P. Sees Opportunities Arising From Storm

2005-09-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

"On Thursday, Mr. Bush issued an order that exempts federal contractors working on disaster relief projects from a longstanding federal requirement that they pay workers 'prevailing wages,' which are usually pegged to union pay rates."

Saskatchewan: CUPE 1975 members hold strike vote

2005-09-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

"University workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 1975 are voting today and tomorrow on whether to support job action to achieve a fair collective agreement.

The union negotiating committee is seeking a strong strike mandate from its 2,400 members who work in food services, maintenance, clerical and many other areas at the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Regina."

Tell NYU to Stop Union Busting!

2005-08-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

Respect Academic Workers and their Freedom to Form Unions!

Join labor leaders, elected officials, faculty, undergraduates, campus staff and the graduate student employees of NYU.

Expose NYU’s attack on collective bargaining and union membership! The Bush Labor Board denied another group of workers the protections of federal labor law. First it was workers at the Dept. of Homeland Security, and then it was airport screeners, now its graduate employees. Who will be next?

These workers have fought for years for union protections. After a hard won battle for recognition and four years with a union contract, NYU is refusing to bargain. Join us on August 31 and demand that NYU respect democracy and the will of its graduate employees to form a union and bargain in good faith. Let’s send a strong message to NYU and every other employer that tramples on the freedom to form unions - that New York is a Union City.

Directions by Subway: Take the Lexington Avenue subway (No. 6 train) to Astor Place Station. Go west on Astor Place to Broadway. Walk south on Broadway to Waverly Place. Walk westward on Waverly Place until you reach Washington Square. OR Take the Broadway subway (N, R or W train) to Eighth Street Station. At Broadway walk south to Waverly Place. Walk westward on Waverly Place until you reach Washington Square. OR Take the Sixth Avenue subway to West Fourth Street-Washington Square Station (A, C, E, B, D, F, or V train). Walk east on West Fourth Street until you reach Washington Square. OR Take the Seventh Avenue subway to Christopher Street-Sheridan Square Station (1, 9 or 2). Walk east on Christopher Street to West Fourth Street. Continue east to Washington Square.

Sponsored by GSOC-UAW, UAW Region 9A, the New York City Central Labor Council, the New York State AFLCIO, and the New York Voice at Work Higher Education Committee--a coalition of unions representing the diverse workers in our state colleges, universities and research foundations. For further information contact Ed Ott at 212-604-9552 or Susan Borenstein at 212-661-1555 Ext. 12. http://www.2110uaw.org/gsoc/index.html

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 12-1pm, Bobst Library 70 Washington Square South (West 4th St. & LaGuardia Place)

Declaration of Principles For Collective Bargaining in Higher Education

We are higher education workers, joined by community members and elected offi cials, who believe that quality higher education and the right to collective bargaining are essential to building a more just, democratic and equal society. We support all those--teachers, graduate employees, researchers, technicians, support and service staff, construction, and building maintenance workers, whether they do full-time, part-time, temporary, or contract work—who seek to improve their lives and the institutions in which they work through collective bargaining. We are particularly alarmed that access to affordable, quality higher education has diminished and that the right of workers in higher education to unionize and bargain collectively for a living wage has eroded. We have fallen victim to a cost-cutting, corporate model of teaching and learning that denies education’s historic mission to enrich community life, advance social justice, guarantee academic freedom, and provide opportunities for individual fulfi llment.

We believe that all workers at institutions of higher education must have the right to organize and the right to bargain collectively. Freedom of association and the opportunity to act together to advance our lives and secure our futures are fi rmly established public policy and standards of international human rights. The National Labor Relations Board’s recent decision to strip graduate research and teaching assistants of their right to bargain is a striking example of the downward spiral in labor relations.

All higher education employers must remain neutral in unionization efforts and be prohibited from using tuition, tax dollars or research funds to fi ght unionization. Employees should be allowed to form unions through a simple and democratic majority verifi cation card check process. We cannot permit legal maneuvers or our own money to be used to undercut freedom of expression and association. Contracting and procurement by higher education institutions, both public and private, must adhere to human rights, prevailing wage and responsible contractor standards. We cannot permit higher education institutions, guardians of democratic principles and traditions, to circumvent laws that protect prevailing wages, community standards and the right to organize and bargain.

Steady employment in higher education is a precondition to providing quality education and services and to guaranteeing a reasonable quality of life to academic employees. Job instability leads to inconsistency of service to students. “Casualizing” employment has a heavy impact on women, immigrants, and people of color. We cannot accept jobs segregated by race and gender, jobs that carry little security and offer no voice.

We resolve to work together to achieve these principles to ensure quality higher education and the right to collective bargaining.

Hide the Republicans, the Christians, and the Women

2005-08-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

A Response to “Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty”

"Do conservatives suffer discrimination in academe? In “Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty,” Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte argue that “conservatives and Republicans teach at lower quality schools than do liberals and Democrats.” Using a survey of 1643 faculty members from 183 four-year colleges and universities, they conclude that their results are “consistent with the hypothesis that political conservatism confers a disadvantage in the competition for political advancement.” In this response, we show that Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte’s work is plagued by theoretical and methodological problems that render their conclusions unsustainable by the available evidence. Furthermore, we offer an alternative hypothesis theoretically consistent with their findings."

2005-08-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

U. of Wisconsin Suspended Primate Researcher After Animal-Care Violations "A professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison was suspended from doing animal research for two years after an investigation into deaths and illnesses among rhesus monkeys in her laboratory in 2001 and 2002, university officials acknowledged this week. Ei Terasawa, a professor of pediatrics who also works at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, was suspended from conducting animal research there after review boards at the university found that she and others in her research group had violated the protocols approved for an experiment she was conducting. A group critical of animal research, the Primate Freedom Project, this week released some of the university's internal memos that the organization had obtained detailing infractions by Ms. Terasawa and her staff. In the most serious violation, one rhesus monkey died in an experiment chair while a laboratory employee was at lunch, said Eric P. Sandgren, who heads a university committee that oversees experiments that involve animals. Researchers at the center are not allowed to leave animals unattended during experiments, he said. Some animals were given drugs that the protocol for Ms. Terasawa's experiment did not authorize, or dose levels higher than were allowed, the memos say."

2005-08-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

Princeton Gives Automatic Tenure Extension to New Parents "In an effort to improve the climate for female professors, Princeton University is giving new faculty parents of both sexes automatic one-year extensions on the tenure track. Before the policy change, which was recommended in a 2003 report on the status of female science-faculty members at the university, assistant professors had to ask for a one-year extension for each child born or adopted into their families. But professors worried that asking for the extensions would harm them in their tenure bids, the report warned."

2005-08-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

The University of Vermont was within its rights not to reappoint a visiting professor who had been a leader in the school's new faculty union, the Vermont Supreme Court has ruled.

Dawn Saunders taught economics as a visiting professor at UVM from 1995 to the spring of 2003. She was active in organizing the faculty to unionize and was a member of the negotiating team that hammered out the union's first contract in February 2000."

2005-08-11T18:33:00.001-07:00

FAMU faculty union may fight layoffs "Florida A&M University's faculty union is threatening to file a state complaint against interim President Castell Bryant following a round of layoffs last week that union officials said were the school's attempt to disguise more firings."

2005-08-11T18:33:00.000-07:00

Unions asking back-to-school shoppers to boycott Wal-Mart "Consumers shopping for back-to-school supplies are being asked to boycott Wal-Mart by the nations' biggest teachers unions and other labor leaders, who contend the company's pay and benefit policies cost taxpayers and hurt communities."

2005-08-11T18:26:00.000-07:00

CNW Group "Teaching Assistant Unions from across Canada will come together in Vancouver from August 12 - 13, 2005, to share information and strategies to improve their working conditions and position themselves to get better contracts. The inaugural meeting of the Canadian Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions (CCGEU) is set to include discussions of coordinated bargaining and organizing."

2005-08-11T18:25:00.002-07:00

Faculty, Cincinnati State at odds over contract "On campus Wednesday morning, faculty members in red union shirts handed out hundreds of leaflets describing the situation and listing some of what faculty members are seeking in their next contract. Union president Pam Ecker said that the faculty and administration have clashed on salary, benefits, workload and non-tenure-track faculty positions."

2005-08-11T18:25:00.001-07:00

Vindy.com - YSU faculty union sets date for strike "Youngstown State University's 380-member faculty union filed a notice to strike effective Aug. 23 if a new contract isn't ironed out by then. It could get quite crowded on the strike line. The YSU Association of Classified Employees union, which represents about 400 nonfaculty members, plans to strike Tuesday if it cannot get a new contract by then."

2005-08-11T18:25:00.000-07:00

Massive students’ protest in Sri Lanka "Tens of thousands on university students walked to the capital today to protest against President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s criticism against students’ bodies. As two demonstrations from Kelaniya and Jayawardanepura where the two universities in the suburbs situated, reached the capital in the afternoon, students of Colombo University joined them."

2005-08-11T18:23:00.001-07:00

SignOnSanDiego.com > Sports > Aztecs -- NCAA puts limited ban on Indian mascots "The NCAA Executive Committee yesterday announced a postseason ban of 'hostile and abusive' American Indian nicknames and imagery for college sports teams, including those with spears in their logos and mascots that pose as American Indian warriors. The 18 schools subject to the new policy, effective Feb. 1, include the Florida State Seminoles, Utah Utes and Illinois Fighting Illini."

2005-08-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

Ontario: College support staff could walk off job by September 7 "More than 6,000 support staff at 24 Ontario community colleges are being asked to turn down their employer's latest offer and support a strike mandate during a province-wide vote on Thursday. 'This vote is not about a strike, it's about the members standing united to get a contract that respects, recognizes and rewards the work we do at the Colleges,' said Rod Bemister, chair of the support staff bargaining team."

2005-08-11T18:22:00.000-07:00

Brandeis workers get new contract - The Boston Globe "A five-year contract ratified Aug. 3 by Service Employees Unternational Union Local 615, which represents both groups of custodial workers, includes an agreement between the university and two companies that it had subcontracted to clean on nights and weekends. Effective retroactively to July 1 of this year, workers for Hurley of America and SJD Inc. will now be paid a base rate of $14.63 per hour, up from $11.60 per hour"

2005-08-11T18:21:00.000-07:00

Minnesota Daily : Union workers, University still talk ‘livable wage’ "Among the chief rallying cries for union workers negotiating a new contract with the University this summer has been the call for “a livable wage.” American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 5 leaders point to a study conducted in 2003 by the JOBS NOW Coalition, a St. Paul-based labor advocacy group, which states that a single parent with two children in the Twin Cities metro area needs $19.64 per hour to get by."

2005-08-11T18:20:00.000-07:00

The Harvard Crimson Online :: News "Chanting spirited slogans and banging noisily on pots and pans, a crowd of approximately 25 janitors and union representatives traced a circle in front of the Holyoke Center last Friday to protest Harvard’s treatment of custodial workers."

2005-08-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

Inside Higher Ed :: Florida's Faculty Free-for-All "When Florida overhauled its higher education system to shift power from the State Board of Regents to boards of trustees at individual campuses in 2003, it invalidated the employment contract between the regents and the statewide union that represented 10,000 professors, throwing academic labor relations into disarray. Last week, Florida’s Supreme Court let stand a lower court’s ruling that found the state’s action to be illegal — a decision heralded by faculty labor leaders, who vowed to try to recoup what they believed professors had lost in the intervening years."

2005-08-11T18:18:00.001-07:00

Minnesota Daily : AFSCME proposes slidingscale health insurance system "To alleviate the strain placed on its workers by rapidly increasing health-care costs, AFSCME has proposed a sliding-scale insurance package in negotiations for a new contract. University officials began working on the terms of a new agreement in late June."

2005-08-11T18:18:00.000-07:00

WANE-TV Coverage You Can Count On: Kent State, faculty reach tentative contract agreement "The president of Kent State University's faculty union says a tentative contract agreement has been reached to avoid a possible walkout."

2005-08-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

Oregon Daily Emerald - University of Oregon news and sports - Classified workers, OUS reach agreement "After almost six months at the bargaining table with Oregon University System management, the Service Employees International Union reached an agreement on salary increases and benefits coverage."

2005-08-11T18:06:00.000-07:00

News from The National Guild of Hypnotists "Guild President, Dr. Dwight Damon of Merrimack, N.H. is the keynote speaker on Friday, August 12 spearheading a distinguished adjunct faculty of 200 presenters from the U.S. and such other countries as Canada, Great Britain, Pakistan, Switzerland, Taiwan, Italy and France. A report on the current legislative status of the profession will also be presented by the National Federation of Hypnotists 104, OPEIU AFL-CIO, a national union for hypnotism professionals."

2005-08-11T16:35:00.000-07:00

Organizers' Collaborative "Organizers' Collaborative is a membership organization of activists and technology consultants dedicated to providing social change groups with proven, easy-to-use technology and support that is specific to the needs of organizers. Organizers' Collaborative facilitates the use of low-cost, easy to use, and open source technologies in order to strengthen individual grassroots organizations and unify the progressive movement."

2005-08-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

Minnesota: Students Organize Against Coke at McCalester "Among the speakers present were Juan Figueroa and Gerardo Cajamarca who discussed their own personal experiences with Coca-Cola destroying unions in Colombia (Pulse reported Coca-Cola’s ties to the paramilitary in Colombia in its October issue). Also present was Sanat Mohanty from Jamshedpur, India, who discussed Coca-Cola’s depletion of his country’s water supply through its manufacturing plants. Cajamarca, who worked in Colombia as a human rights investigator for SINAL TRAINAL, is now in exile in the United States. “Sinal has seen union members drop from 5,000 to 2,100,” he said. “Coca-Cola has been successful in breaking up unions.” He also estimates that 14,000 union leaders have been killed by the paramilitary. Cajamarca points to the recent assassination of union leader Esido Hill in front of the other bottlers as a tactic that the paramilitary has used to discourage unions. As more and more bottlers become subcontractors instead of union members, Coca-Cola saves money, as they only have to pay subcontractors half of what union members make. While Spain and France have been quite receptive to the problems with the Coca-Cola corporation, even creating documentaries on the issue, America has yet to fully catch on. Cajamarca says that while getting the word out against Coke has been tricky with larger media outlets, students have been receptive to the cause."

2005-08-02T13:35:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain News: Education "Students at Metropolitan State College of Denver may notice some of their professors wearing armbands or stickers when classes resume Aug. 22. A movement is under way to try to organize the more than 710 part-time instructors at Metro around issues of pay, lack of health benefits and other working conditions." Union Website: http://www.denveradjuncts.org./

2005-08-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Florida A & M to see more changes happen "Florida A&M University President Castell Bryant wants to decrease the school's reliance on part-time faculty members and ensure those who have faculty contracts are teaching. Bryant, who has been interim president since January, said any new way of running the university will put students and faculty first. She blames the reliance on part-time faculty on past management decisions to place staff and administrative positions on faculty contracts. The practice dates back to the tenure of President Frederick Humphries, who left the university in 2001 after 16 years in the top post. 'This practice has mushroomed over the years into a policy that has resulted in the university having nearly twice as many contracts for nonteaching faculty lines as contracts for full-time teaching faculty members,' Bryant writes."

2005-08-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

Pennsylvania: Lack of same-sex benefits costly for state university professors "As more colleges and universities nationwide extend health care benefits to same-sex partners, the faculty union that represents 5,500 professors at Pennsylvania's 14 state-owned universities is still waiting for them - even though a contract ratified more than a year ago opened the door to same-sex benefits. That's because the pact doesn't require the State System of Higher Education to provide same-sex benefits unless the state extends similar 'domestic partner' benefits to other unionized state workers."

2005-08-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

Bangkok: Activist monk found hanged "The monk had played a key role in community development work. He set up a learning centre to encourage residents to learn local arts and culture and was pursuing his master's degree at Maha Chulalongkorn Ratchawitthayalai Buddhist College. Police said the monk might have been suffering from the stress of his studies as he often complained about his thesis proposal."

2005-08-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education: MIT Students Whose Phony Paper Brought a Conference Invitation Are Stars of Their Own Video "Three Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate students attracted a flurry of media attention in April after a questionable academic conference accepted their randomly-generated, nonsensical paper. Now the students are stars of a lighthearted video they made when they went to the conference even though their invitations had been withdrawn."

2005-08-02T13:28:00.000-07:00

Oregon: University system, classified staff accept pact - 2005-08-01 "Oregon University System and the Service Employees International Union Local 503 have settled contract negotiations for OUS classified staff. The settlement, which includes salary and 'step' increases and full coverage of benefits in the first year, will now be taken by SEIU to its membership for a ratification vote. Classified workers register new students, make sure they know about health services on campus, manage grant programs, maintain buildings and grounds, and many other jobs."

2005-08-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

Pennsylvania: College Coaches Threaten Strike "The start of the fall sports season may be in jeopardy for many Pennsylvania college and university students. Coaches at Pennsylvania's 14 state-run universities are threatening to strike over a contract dispute."

2005-08-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

China goes to college - in a big way | csmonitor.com "Several years ago, Chinese car manufacturer Geely grew concerned about a shortage of well-trained workers. Its solution: plunk down $800 million and start a private university. Even a decade ago, the idea would have been almost unimaginable. But in 2000, the sprawling campus of Beijing Geely University, with its Stanford-inspired quad, opened on the outskirts of Beijing - one of some 1,300 private universities that have sprung up in recent years. This September, Geely will enroll about 20,000 students, studying everything from engineering to character education to English."

2005-07-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

University of Oregon: An open letter to Chancellor Pernsteiner "However, after last week’s bargaining session, I wondered if you ever received the messages that were left by callers. I say this because I got the impression that the OUS team did not come prepared to settle, as there was no administrative expert present for costing work. We, on the other hand, have a costing staff person present during this stage of bargaining; because, even though major economics are out of the way, various decisions requiring financial expertise are likely to unfold."

2005-07-28T17:47:00.000-07:00

Ohio: KSU Professors Voting On Potential Strike "Kent State University faculty members who have been working without a contract for nearly a year are voting on whether to authorize a strike, NewsChannel5 reported. The voting by mail ends next Wednesday. Members of the Kent chapter of the American Association of University Professors rejected a tentative agreement reached in June."

2005-07-28T11:51:00.000-07:00

OrlandoSentinel.com: News "As many as five more Florida A&M University employees have lost their jobs at the beleaguered Tallahassee school, several workers said Tuesday. 'No warning or anything,' said Barbara Gainous, an associate in FAMU's Office of Research Services, who said she and four other workers had been laid off or fired in recent days. FAMU's interim president, Castell Bryant, had fired 41 employees since taking control of the university in January. Many were targeted after a payroll audit aimed at sweeping away employees who were not working or were holding other full-time jobs outside the city."

2005-07-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

The Albuquerque Tribune: Local "Teachers' aides, tutors, administrative assistants and other University of New Mexico union members have called an impasse on negotiations. They're asking for better wages, increased insurance coverage and access to university e-mail."

2005-07-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

Delaware; Black leaders protest DSU chief "The president of the Delaware NAACP was among a group of black leaders who spoke out Monday against Delaware State University President Allen Sessoms, saying he continues to chip away at the legacy of the historically black land-grant college."

2005-07-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

Chicago: Negotiatons at Harper College "The union represents some 300 of the college’s 500 part-time faculty. Union officials say the main issues are compensation and “fair share,” the practice of a union charging dues to nonunion members if those workers benefit from the negotiated contract. Arlene Bublick, president of the adjunct faculty association, could not be reached for comment Monday. She has said the union disagrees with the college’s position of giving each of the five separate unions at the college, including the adjunct faculty, the same percent increase in the coming year."

2005-07-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

New York: Approved NCC budget raises tuition "Lawmakers ended weeks of delay yesterday and unanimously approved the $173.5 million Nassau Community College budget, including an 8.3 percent tuition hike, after an influential union leader dropped his opposition. The budget, which increased spending by $11.1 million and raised annual tuition by $240 to $3,140, was approved after the county legislature had twice earlier this summer postponed the vote when Charles Loiacono, president of the Adjunct Faculty Association, said it was bloated with administrative salaries and was 'bilking' students."

2005-07-26T05:37:00.000-07:00

Kent State: Union Draws Line in the Sand "Professors at Kent State University aren’t thrilled about the offers the institution has put on the table with regard to salary increases over the next few years — increases that wouldn’t top 3 percent in any year. But the issue that has faculty members angry — perhaps angry enough to go on strike — isn’t salaries, but health insurance. The faculty union, an affiliate of the American Association of University Professors, is currently conducting a mail ballot of its members to seek the authority to strike, possibly as 36,000 students arrive next month for the fall semester."

2005-07-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

Wisconsin: Group plans protest site near UW lab "In June, a former middle school teacher turned primate defender signed a contract to purchase a cluster of buildings between the labs. He and other animal rights activists plan to create an exhibition hall on the site that will showcase what they say is the torturous reality of primate research."

2005-07-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

GW Still Refuses to Recognize Adjunct Union Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/29/05 ... George Washington announced that it would not negotiate with its part-time professors after all because it deemed the National Labor Relations Board's certification of the union election "flawed." In a union election that drew roughly 700 votes from the university's 1,200 adjunct professors, the university's bone of contention lay with the ballots cast by two law instructors....

2005-07-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

Fired Florida A&M employees strike back: "Bryant shut down the institute and terminated all of its roughly two-dozen full-time and contract workers, 'as a result of issues surrounding the payroll audit and accountability measures' required by FAMU, says one termination letter signed by the interim president in May."

2005-07-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

PlayLabs is the place to go to audition a new play "'Organizing Abraham Lincoln,' by Lonnie Carter and Rich Klimmer; 3:30 p.m. today This play was selected as winner of the 'Two-Headed Challenge,' an initiative co-sponsored by the Guthrie Theater. It is intended to team an established playwright -- in this case, Carter -- with a professional who is close to the subject matter. Klimmer is a longtime organizer for the American Federation of Teachers. The script features a character who is running his last campaign for teaching assistants at Abraham Lincoln University, a fictional land-grant college. Carter is a charter member of the Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble in Chicago. His writing is marked with staccato riffs. Klimmer's writing is more traditional, and in an excerpt read at the beginning of the festival, the styles could not have been more divergent."

2005-07-21T16:51:00.000-07:00

Life's labor staged "The play, called 'Organizing Abraham Lincoln,' takes place at fictional Abraham Lincoln University but is based on Mr. Klimmer's efforts to organize hundreds of graduate students at Temple University in Philadelphia. Graduate students there began a union drive in 1998 over frustration with low pay and substandard health care."

2005-07-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

07.21.2005 - Three College of Chemistry graduate students die in tragic freeway accident "Private campus memorial services are being planned for three University of California, Berkeley, graduate students in chemistry who were the apparent victims of a tragic freeway accident last Saturday morning on Interstate-80 in Berkeley."

2005-07-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

Oregon Daily Emerald - University of Oregon news and sports - UO classified workers union rallies to express need for better contracts "More than 50 supporters and University service workers gathered at the statue and then marched through Interim Chancellor George Pernsteiner’s office to send the message printed on the group’s fliers: “We Stand United for Fairness and Will Leave No Worker Behind!” Purple balloons surrounded the Pioneer Mother, as did protest signs that read: “Fair deal for all,” “United for fairness” and “Stop bully bosses!”"

2005-07-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

The Ball State Daily News - Sick leave benefit will be voted on "University officials want to remove the benefit of paid sick leave for service staff employees, citing abuse and tough economic times, while union officials say taking the benefit away will cause employees to come to work sick subjecting others, including students, to illness."

2005-07-21T08:55:00.001-07:00

.: Corvallis Gazette-Times :. News "This spring, 29 students earned Portland State University degrees without setting foot in Portland. It's the latest example of the university's mission to expand its global reach in the face of declining state support at home. It's a strategy that universities across the country are employing, as they try to boost their bottom line by tapping into emerging markets, such as China."

2005-07-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

Take Action: Stop NYU's Attack on Workers and Their Union "Take action right now and tell the NYU Administration to allow graduate workers the freedom to have a union and bargain collectively."

2005-07-20T15:36:00.000-07:00

Minnesota: Unions file labor suit against University "The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 5 is suing the University for unfair labor practices during its latest round of contract negotiations, officials announced Tuesday. Members of AFSCME Locals 3800, 3937 and 3260, representing 3,500 clerical, technical and health-care employees at the University, said they filed the suit because the institution is denying union leave to members of its bargaining committee."

2005-07-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

The Duke, union ink contract to boost worker pay "After 26 rounds of negotiations, a new three-year contract was finally ratified by Duke and the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees June 30. The contract provides a minimum base pay of $10 per hour and salary increases of 2.5 percent to University employees represented by the Local 77 chapter of the union for each of the next three years."

2005-07-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

California: Judge issues order stopping UC nurses' strike "UC nurses, who claim administrators haven't treated them fairly in contract talks, planned earlier this month to stage a one-day strike Thursday. But UC lawyers went to the state Public Employment Relations Board on Tuesday to argue against the strike, saying it's union officials, not UC administrators, who haven't been bargaining in good faith. The board found in UC's favor, filing a complaint in Sacramento Superior Court seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the strike, which was granted Wednesday by Judge Loren McMaster."

2005-07-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

ZNet: Remembering Herbert Marcuse "One of the jewels of the video section of the Marcuse website is the 1996 film, 'Herbert's Hippopotamus,' which recounts the controversy that swirled around Marcuse in the late '60s while he was teaching at the University of California's San Diego campus, at a time when he was considered the godfather of the New Left (a title and role he always rejected). The American Legion led a campaign to have Marcuse fired from the university, and even Ronald Reagan got into the act. You owe it to yourself to watch this captivating and revealing one-hour film, which captures Marcuse's personality brilliantly."

2005-07-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

Inside Higher Ed: A Bush Choice With College Ties "Judge John G. Roberts Jr., tapped Tuesday night by President Bush as his nominee to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court, has an unusual distinction among the jurists considered for the post: extensive experience representing colleges. In several of those cases, he tried to limit the ability of people to sue colleges. Roberts is known as a conservative legal thinker, but he also participated in discussions on preparing a brief, filed by a coalition of higher education associations, defending the use of affirmative action."

2005-07-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

AFT: Academic Freedom under Attack "The AFT vigorously opposes both state and federal bills that incorporate language of the so-called bills of rights. Such measures create unnecessary and inappropriate government interference to our academic institutions and impose an ideological litmus test on hiring, curriculum and teaching."

2005-07-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

AFT Higher Education News: Reports Show Many Part-Timers, Salary Disparities "National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) show an uneven landscape for staff and faculty at universities and colleges in the United States, with a growing number of part-time faculty, racial and gender disparities in rank and salary, and disadvantages at for-profit institutions."

2005-07-19T16:42:00.000-07:00

AFT: Take Action: Urge Congress to Strengthen and Protect the Integrity of Federal Student Aid "The Higher Education Act's mission always has been to open the doors to higher education for students regardless of their financial circumstances. During HEA reauthorization, Congress should not stray from this task and should continue to find ways to improve access to higher education."

2005-07-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

Cornell: Graduate Degree Programs in Labor Relations "The collective representation concentration focuses on industrial relations, including the past, present and future of the labor movement. In addition to the core courses, students choosing this concentration can take classes on the history of unions, the modern workforce, international and comparative political economy, theories of the labor movement and practical skills to apply to jobs in unions, labor relations and related areas. This program is ideal for students just finishing undergraduate studies who are interested in social justice, or professionals in the labor movement who are looking for a change of pace."

2005-07-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Times: Opinion: Time for community colleges to step up for pay equity "It's no secret that our state's community and technical colleges deliver high-quality education critical to expanding our work force, in particular in high-demand fields such as nursing. A hidden fact in that success is that colleges depend on an overly high ratio of part-time faculty. In fact, over 75 percent of the instructors in Washington's community and technical colleges are part-timers."

2005-07-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

California University Nurses Set to Strike "Nurses working for the California University medical system overwhelmingly rejected a contract offer and announced a one-day job action for Thursday to protest what the union considers the state’s failure to deal fairly, the California Nurses Association (CNA) announced earlier this month."

2005-07-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

After Protest, Cornell and Students Reach Accord in Parking Lot Dispute - New York Times "A stalemate over the preservation of a patch of redbud trees at Cornell University ended yesterday after a group of student protesters reached an agreement that allows the university to build a parking lot in exchange for a pledge to pursue other environmental initiatives. Although at least four protesters refused to sign the agreement with the interim Cornell president, Hunter R. Rawlings III, and insisted that they would continue their resistance, most of the students who had chained themselves to pipes and tethered themselves to trees agreed to leave the woods."

2005-07-11T20:13:00.000-07:00

American Federation of Teachers Membership on the Rise Union of Professionals Gains Nearly 40,000 New Members

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Federation of Teachers, one of the fastest growing unions in the United States, comprising five divisions of professional workers employed in schools, colleges and universities, healthcare and government, continued its record of strong membership growth over the past year. The union experienced growth in every region of the nation and in the wide range of professions it represents, adding 38,788 members to its ranks between the AFT convention last year and this week's QuEST conference.

The AFT has gained 750,695 members since 1985, more than doubling in size during that time. The union's numbers have increased every year for more than 20 years. The union's membership now stands at 1,361,485. The AFT's organizing successes over the past year, in a broad range of professions, included:

The addition of nearly 5,400 full- and part-time faculty and graduate employees at Rutgers University;
The selection of AFT by 2,062 paraprofessionals and school-related personnel in Douglas County, Colo.;
Election victories for public charter school faculties in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania;
An election victory for preschool teachers at the Cherry Hill, N.J., Jewish Community Center; AFT also won elections to represent other preschool teachers, including Head Start teachers in Wayne County, Mich., and in Paterson, N.J.;
Voluntary recognition by the University of Illinois/Chicago for AFT's graduate employee local, representing 1,261 teaching and research assistants;
In New York, 694 adjunct professors employed at Pace University, a private institution, voted to affiliate with the AFT;
Only two weeks ago, workers employed as teachers, educational assistants and school clinicians at Natchaug Hospital in Mansfield Center, Conn., voted to join the AFT. These workers provide rehabilitation, mental health and drug intervention services to local school districts;
In Washington state, more than 1,000 professors at Central and Eastern Washington universities voted to join the union.

"It takes a lot of hard work and resources to grow the union. These numbers show that workers from a wide spectrum of employment want and need union representation where they work," said AFT president Edward J. McElroy. "We're proud to have a culture of organizing. These numbers are especially impressive when you consider that to maintain our current level of membership, we must sign up 3,000 workers every week because of membership loss due to retirements, resignations and other factors." Much of the union's growth came from signing up members in existing bargaining units. Florida, for example, gained 9,515 members; Texas, 2,761; and New York state added 17,458 new members. In terms of percentage growth, Vermont boosted its ranks by 15 percent and Alabama by 10 percent.

The union gained members in its divisions representing teachers, school-related personnel, higher education and healthcare. The division that represents public employees in local, state and federal government suffered a loss as a result of recently elected Indiana governor Mitch Daniels' unilateral decision to eliminate worker rights and collective bargaining for state workers. The AFT, in conjunction with the United Auto Workers, jointly represented 15,500 Indiana state employees.

# # # #

The AFT represents 1.3 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers, paraprofessionals and other school support employees, higher education faculty, nurses and other healthcare workers, and state and local government employees.

2005-06-24T13:35:00.000-07:00

Right To Bargain/ Intellectual Property "The Professional Staff Congress/CUNY (PSC) struck a blow for the right of public employees to have a say in their working conditions when, on June 7, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, 1st Department, unanimously held that City University of New York violated New York State law by refusing to negotiate with the union over a new policy governing faculty members’ ownership rights of their intellectual property. The court’s decision overturned a ruling by the State Public Employment Relations Board (“PERB”). The case now returns to PERB for the agency to formulate a remedy for CUNY’s violations."

2005-06-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

Oregon: Ways to fight against recruiting for Iraq war "Controversial professor Ward Churchill will headline a local forum billed as a chance to support conscientious objectors in the Iraqi war, and to counter military recruiting pitches targeting students. One of the forum organizers, Marla Benoist, says the event Thursday at North Portland's Mississippi Ballroom is an important opportunity for war-resistance groups to share strategy and organize counter-recruiting in Portland."

2005-06-23T05:53:00.000-07:00

KRQE News 13 - UNMH begins no confidence vote "Health care workers at the University of New Mexico Hospital have started a vote of no confidence against hospital CEO Steve McKernan....National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees staff representative Eleanor Chavez says results should be available early next week."

2005-06-23T05:50:00.000-07:00

Reason: Science, Not Secrecy: Impeding research doesn't enhance homeland security "New restrictions on foreign students and researchers are also harming the American scientific enterprise. The ACLU report notes that more than half of the students enrolled in science and engineering programs in the U.S. are foreigners. Also, 40 percent of U.S. engineering faculty and engineering, math and computer science graduate students are foreign-born. American scientific research and our economy have benefited tremendously from this openness to foreign scholars. More than one-third of U.S. Nobel laureates are foreign-born; 38 percent of science and engineering doctorates in the workforce are foreign-born; and nearly 30 percent of the scientific and medical professionals at the National Institutes of Health are foreign nationals. Now various restrictive visa programs based on the notion that potential terrorists can be successfully profiled are choking off this source of future scientists. In 2003, foreign student enrollment fell by 2.4 percent, the first decrease in more than 30 years. In 2004, foreign applications to American graduate schools declined by 28 percent, and admissions fell by 18 percent."

2005-06-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

Beacon Journal | 06/21/2005 | KSU union leaders rip contract "Leaders of Kent State's faculty union are advising their members to reject a proposed three-year contract....Cheryl Casper, president of the Kent chapter of the American Association of University Professors and an economics professor, declined to discuss the chance that faculty would strike."

2005-06-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

Alaska: In protest of School of Engineering staff firings "We are students in the School of Engineering who are troubled that the school has decided to fire six staff members under the guise of “restructuring.” Because we care deeply about the quality of the university, the School of Engineering, and our education, we strongly object to this deliberate, unnecessary action."

2005-06-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

Florida: Seminole Community College STUDENT GRABS PETA AWARD FOR DEFENDING FREE SPEECH "Eliana was initially forbidden by school administrators to set up an information table outside the school cafeteria and distribute information about cruelty to animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses. She was told that she could only address the issue in a 'free speech zone' -- a deserted area of campus far away from academic buildings. After Eliana enlisted the support of PETA and the educational group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the school sent Eliana a letter acknowledging her right to set up an informational table and distribute PETA literature in a more central location."

2005-06-20T16:19:00.000-07:00

ZNet |U.S. | A new battleground on campuses "The increasingly polarized political climate on U.S. campuses was driven home to me in the last few weeks of the semester at my school, New York University (NYU) -- which saw an outpouring of activity at both ends of the political spectrum. The remarkably diverse array of progressive activism included a serious anti-racism campaign; a protest that resulted in the cancellation of a CIA recruiting event; a campaign to kick Coca-Cola off campus for its complicity in the murder of union activists in Colombia; a teaching assistants' union campaign; and protests against right-wing speakers, including a protest against Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that received national attention when a law student asked Scalia (who supports anti-sodomy laws against homosexual sex), 'Do you sodomize your wife?'"

2005-06-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

California: Palomar's part-time teachers get space "Thanks to a contract negotiated last year with the part-timers, known as the adjunct faculty, Palomar officials have spent $50,000 to renovate and furnish the former campus police building into a facility where [adjunct faculty] can work and meet with students."

2005-06-20T16:10:00.000-07:00

Michigan: U-M committee recommends short-term extension of contracts pending followup by Coca-Cola "The University of Michigan's Vendor Code of Conduct Dispute Review Board has recommended that the University's contracts with Coca-Cola be extended on a short-term, conditional basis while the company is given an opportunity to respond to alleged violations of the University's Vendor Code of Conduct. On Nov. 30, 2004, Students Organized for Labor and Economic Equality (SOLE) submitted formal complaints in four areas of concern..."

2005-06-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

Tampabay: Suit says missing smile cost job at Sam's Club "Molly Beavers lost her smile early on in her 19-year career of pushing food samples and collecting grocery carts she could barely see over. Her scowl may have cost her the job. A Sam's Club manager fired her in December 2003 for not smiling enough, she says. Beavers' face is partially paralyzed from surgery related to her condition as an achondroplastic dwarf. Beavers, 49, filed an Americans With Disabilities Act complaint in federal court Friday, alleging that Sam's Club and parent company Wal-Mart discriminated against her when they fired her. She claims they knew about her health problems and failed to accommodate her."

2005-06-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

The Duke: Grad students take turn as professors in summer "Typically, the graduate students have served as teaching assistants for faculty members during the fall or spring semesters or previously taught summer classes, Baker said. The more-experienced TAs are given priority to teach in the summer in the psychology and economics departments to gain experience as the sole instructors in classroom settings."

2005-06-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

Ohio: Kent State and faculty reach contract deal | wkyc.com "The settlement would provide a two percent raise in the first year, retroactive to last September, and three percent in each of the last two years. If university revenue increases, faculty members could claim an extra two percent in each of the last two years. The faculty members would pay more for health care."

2005-06-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

California: UC clerical workers end strike on boisterous note "Striking University of California clerical workers wrapped up their three-day walkout Wednesday with a rowdy protest in front of UC headquarters in downtown Oakland, forcing police to block off traffic when picketers surged into Franklin Street."

2005-06-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

Debunking myths about professional & scientific unionization "Many of us were new to the labor movement when we organized in 1998. Most of us were surprised that so many of our issues were the same, but we discovered that they really could be addressed in a contract. Protecting workers from exploitation and unsafe working conditions is not a thing of the past. We hear from many unorganized UI staff that they are exploited, required to work many hours of overtime or to be on call 24 hours per day and seven days per week, with no additional compensation."

2005-06-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

Lakehead University strikers have contract "About 60 grounds, maintenance and other workers at Lakehead University have reached a three-year contract to conclude a nine-week strike. CAW Local 229 president Andy Savela said a tentative agreement had been reached late Friday afternoon and a ratification vote was being held in the evening."