From Inside Higher Ed, “Faculty Labor Divorce,” which is about the State University of New York union, United University Professions, have parted ways with the American Association of University Professors. To quote:
The Delegate Assembly of the UUP — which has for several years been debating the wisdom of maintaining AAUP ties — voted 100 to 98 on Saturday to disaffiliate from the AAUP. The UUP retains its affiliations with the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. (The AAUP, best known for its work as a professional association, also acts as a union for collective bargaining at some campuses, and it was in that context that UUP has been affiliated with the AAUP.)
The resolution pushing for disaffiliation set out a number of criticisms of the AAUP, saying that it had “not addressed the concerns of our professionals,” had “failed to coordinate government relations” efforts, had failed to always recognize UUP’s status in collective bargaining at SUNY, had been too slow to fix communications and elections problems, and had provided “no return” on UUP funds sent to the AAUP. According to the resolution, spending by the SUNY union on the AAUP was $190,000 this fiscal year, and more than $1.5 million since the affiliation agreement was made.
Frankly, I’ve always wondered why the EMU-AAUP needs a national affiliation at all, why we can’t be our own and completely local union, keeping all those dues close to campus and in the community where it can do the most good. But maybe that’s just me….
Some members of the PT union looked into disassociating itself with the UAW. To do so, we would have had to give ALL the local’s money back to the UAW. We also would have had to spend a dangerous amount of time as a standalone local before we could join with another national organization.
Dunno how having no external resources/affiliation would work with the AAUP, but with the anti-union/union-busting attitudes to prevalent here at The Magic Kingdom, we would have been all outsourced in the blink of an eye.
It’s kinda like having our (for all intents/purposes and based upon historical “stances” of the different wings of our modified one-party political system) ineffective moderate Republican US president. He sucks less than the alternatives.
I can’t say for sure what AAUP provides to you, or what UAW provides to aginghippie’s local. I know that my affiliated union, AFT, provides many things that we could not duplicate at the local level, and that these may not be entirely visible to those who aren’t very involved. Among them: access to (excellent) training, AFT staff, and legal support. You might want to talk with your union leadership to find out what sorts of things your dues pay for.
At the state and national level, AFT (and probably AAUP & UAW, too) works toward shielding and shoring up labor rights in all sorts of places and employment sectors. This matters a lot to me, both because I see the current attacks on labor as a broad phenomenon that I oppose, and because those attacks will come to us eventually (and indeed, they already are). This is true not only in terms of changes to labor law, but also in terms of attacks on the very notion of a sustainable system of high quality, accessible, public education. In public higher ed, somebody needs to be able to speak with a unified voice about the problems created by public defunding of the system and the dismantling of tenure. AFT and AAUP can do that in ways that we, as a handful of individuals on just one campus in the corner of just one state, cannot.
Given the UAW is down the street it seems the PTs have a better relationship with them than perhaps others who are not Michigan-based.
ROI? It’s safe to say MOST of the dues go towards getting democrats elected; but it’s like that with all the unions, especially big ones like UAW and AFSCME and Teamsters.
I never liked that my dues went to candidates – whether or not I voted for them.
I agree with the last sentence. I found it very cumbersome to recoup some money from my old union (not EMU-related). Given how small the amount of money was, it really wasn’t worth the time I later found out.
Is anybody contending that EMU-AAUP dues money goes for political elections? I believe that is false.
But I would strongly support having a political action committee run by EMU faculty members, aimed at influencing politicians’ views of education.
Again, I speak only from my experience with my own academic union (AFT, not AAUP). But I think that what my union does is extremely common. And I think there are a lot of misunderstandings of how this works.
Dues money does not generally go directly to candidates, though a very (very, very) small portion of it might go to political action in general (ex: phone banking for get-out-the-vote campaigns, participating in lobby day in Lansing, etc.). It is possible to request a refund of the portion of one’s dues that are used in this manner, and the rules governing that refund are tied to federal law (and are strictly enforced – it isn’t a matter of guesstimating. There’s a formula involved that the union doesn’t get to create.) But as Jim noted, you shouldn’t make big plans to spend that money because it is usually a very small percentage of your dues. For most unions, most of the dues go to things like the day-to-day operation, training, office supplies, etc.
What unions and other groups CAN do, especially after last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court decision, is to collect VOLUNTARY, NON-DUES donations for political action, which might be spent on supporting certain candidates over others (or on other political actions). And if you don’t like the idea that money (from these voluntary, non-dues contributions) may go to a candidate , I ask: Do you like and agree with the folks who are currently passing a slew of anti-education laws? Because I guarantee you, they are getting all kinds of money from those who would continue to destroy public education in Michigan (and then blame educators for its demise). So if you want to see a more balanced policy, then a practical option is to help support candidates who understand the importance of a functional public education system in this state.
I should point out that I am very much in favor of a faculty union and other unions on campus. There are of course disadvantages to the way that unions work/don’t work, but on the whole and especially in the economy we’ve been in for quite some time, I’d rather be in a union than not.
That said, I often wonder if the dues we paid to EMU-AAUP just stayed here and did not go to a national organization if that would be a better option. I’m not suggesting we switch affiliations to the AFT or something like that; I just sometimes wonder if being an AAUP “franchise” is worth what we pay.
Steve,
I write about AFT only because I’m a member of an AFT union on our campus – not because I’m trying to encourage you to explore changing affiliations. But as I said earlier, I know what my AFT dues pay for, and what we get from our state and national affiliates in exchange for our dues. The things we get back are critically important to our work on this campus, and would be difficult to replace at the local level. And yet, I suppose many people who aren’t very active and/or who haven’t asked, don’t know what those things are or why it would be difficult for us to replace them locally, or why we need them.
So I’m suggesting that, in general, people who are curious about what their state or national affiliations provide, ought to seek answers to those questions before talking about disaffiliation. Otherwise, people may be advocating for something without knowing the consequences. (sort of a “be careful what you wish for” situation) Just saying.
And the UUP situation in the SUNY system is quite extraordinary, on a bunch of levels.
UAW unions are actually told they should vote democratic and the magazines received echo that sentiment. Is it really a secret that unions subsidize most democratic election wins (national)???
Good point – that is why I thought that the southern GOP legislators tried to block the bailout of the auto industry years ago … it was their attempt to B-Slap the unions for working against them for decades.
For those who want to know what the AAUP does, here is a link to a 2007 piece from the AAUP website:
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2007/MA/Col/ftp.htm