Category Archives: EMU-AAUP

“Faculty Labor Divorce”

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….

Meanwhile, at Southern Illinois…

Via a Facebook “friend” (really, just someone I kinda know) comes this piece in stltoday.com, “Impending strike at SIUC could disrupt classes for 20,000.”  That’s Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and as far as I can tell, the threatened strike comes after sluggish negotiations and after working without a contract for over a year.

I’m sure there are very different issues there than there are here, but I thought there were a couple of passages that are interesting to think about as the faculty head into a negotiation year.  First, there’s this:

If they do strike, it’s unclear just how effective they’ll be. The school, like others around the nation, faces financial difficulties at a time when states are cutting back on higher education funding. And unlike many schools in the region, SIUC has not seen significant increases in enrollment and tuition dollars.

While campus strikes aren’t seen all that frequently, several strikes or threats of strikes have taken place recently at schools around the nation, including Rider University in New Jersey, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College and Central Michigan University.

And this:

Yet even when a work stoppage happens, it doesn’t tend to last long, said Richard Boris, director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College in New York.

“Faculty strikes are mostly symbolic and very short-lived and exist to jump-start conversations that have stalled,” Boris said. “The brake on every faculty strike is the harm that lost classes will bring to students.”

I’ve always been for whatever other options for a labor action rather than a strike. I think strikes are an early 20th century approach to 21st century problems, they tend to be more about symbolism than anything else, and I’m not sure how much we’ve gotten at EMU as a result of walking out versus working without a contract.  On the other hand, sometimes the number of available tactics are pretty slim.

Congrats to the “superior” Beta Alpha Psi accountants and their leader Howard Bunsis

A loyal EMUTalk.org reader and PR guy forwarded me this link to an EMU press release, “Dandy dozen: EMU chapter of Beta Alpha Psi recognized as “superior” by national accounting honors organization for 12th year in a row under the leadership of professor Howard Bunsis.”  Here’s a quote:

The Eastern Michigan University chapter of Beta Alpha Psi, a national accounting honors organization, has been recognized internationally as a superior chapter for the past academic year.

In a letter announcing the honor, Beta Alpha Psi president Mary Stone cited the leadership of accounting professor Howard Bunsis, faculty advisor of the EMU chapter.

“Recognition as a superior chapter is a significant accomplishment,” said Stone. “Under the leadership of Howard Bunsis, the Epsilon Omega Chapter has far exceeded the minimum requirements of Beta Alpha Psi, and has excelled in the areas of academics, professionalism and leadership.”

Dang, that Bunsis is a busy dude.  Congrats to him and his accounting student charges!

“Part-time lecturers at EMU vote on first-ever union contract”

I heard this story on Michigan Public Radio too, and here’s a link to the annarbor.com story about the EMU administration coming to agreement with part-timers on a union and a contract.  Here’s a quote:

The contract, [Sonya Alvarado, a full-time lecturer in the English Department,] said, does three very important things for adjunct faculty: Creates an official pay scale, sets an evaluation process and mandates that contingent faculty be given longer terms of employment under certain circumstances. EMUFT secretary and part-time lecturer Zachary Jones says the new pay scale “is the strongest part of the contract.”

“Before, there was some contingent faculty getting $600 a credit hour and now the floor has been raised to $1,125 a credit hour,” Jones said. “It makes us more competitive and helps us keep talent here.”

It’s actually something they agreed to over the summer, though it is a deal/contract that I hadn’t heard much about, and I like to think I keep in touch with these things.   Anyway, I’m glad they got a deal, but it raises three questions for me:

  • What’s the difference between the lecturer’s union and this union?  Even the people are in the same group (for example, Alvarado is not a part-timer but a full time lecturer).  Have full-time lecturers (who have all kinds of things as full-time employees– TIAA/CREF, benefits, better pay, better job security, etc.) and part-time lecturers (folks who teach a class at a time here and there for a flat rate and have few benefits even under this contract) become one union?
  • How did this group get this administration (and this board) to agree to a union deal in this economic climate and with seemingly no strife with the contract?  Maybe it’s just because it is the first deal this group has formed, but it sure looks like this group has pulled off a big win.  Maybe there are things the EMU-AAUP can learn from all this.
  • And finally, what are the implications here for full-time lecturers and tenure-track faculty?  Is this a group that is fighting against the presumed wisdom that faculty-types have traditionally had, that universities ought to hire fewer part-timers and more full-time and tenure-track faculty?  Now that there will be a union that gives part-timers some rights and benefits (though nothing even close to what faculty have), will the administration use that as an excuse to not make a similar deal with the EMU-AAUP?

I think I’m all for part-timers unionizing, but I worry that this has the potential to hurt the faculty union.  Which is perhaps why the administration seemed to have raised no fuss over this deal.

I think an indoor picnic is called “lunch”

From Geoff Larcom:

Students, staff and faculty are invited to the President’s Annual All-Campus Picnic, today, (Sept. 8 ) 11:30 a.m to 1 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom. The event has been moved to the ballroom because of the rainy weather.  Enjoy free hot dogs, veggie dogs, chips, dessert and a beverage, and say hi to your classmates and colleagues. The event is also sponsored by the EMU Federation of Teachers.

“EMU Federation of Teachers is happy to co-sponsor this picnic, and we welcome all new and returning students to our campus,” said Sonya Alvarado, president of the EMU Federation of Teachers. The event will also feature special guest DJ Darrius, from WMXD Mix 92.3 FM.

I probably won’t be able to make it in part because of my new and improved interest in dieting, but I’d encourage everyone else to get a free picnic lunch.  And it’s nice that the lecturer’s union is co-sponsoring this; wouldn’t be a bad PR move for the EMU-AAUP to imitate….

EMU strike in 2006 similar to CMU Faculty Association strike now

Or that’s what the headline is in Central Michigan Life, which I assume is a student newspaper at CMU.  It’s actually quite different in that the EMU strike in 2006 went on for 14 days, wasn’t stopped by a judge, and it all went to the fact finding process, which, as Geoff Larcom is quoted as saying in the story, the EMU-AAUP won.

There are a couple of kind of other interesting little quotes from other EMU folks like Susan Moeller and Howard Bunsis, and it kind of sounds like the CMU president isn’t exactly going to be popular with the faculty when this is all done.

Judge orders CMU faculty to end strike

As I heard on the radio and read in this Detroit News piece, a judge has ordered the CMU faculty back to work.  For those of you new to the whole faculty strike thing, this is not the way it usually works.  When EMU faculty has gone on strike in the past, the administration has gone to court to get faculty back to work, but the court has always stayed out of it.

So, what’s the difference here?

CMU out on strike, somehow looks both like the past and the future at EMU

I heard it first on the radio this morning, but as the freep put it, “CMU faculty strike begins as college e-mails students to show up at classes.”  I think these opening paragraphs say a lot:

A flurry of activity Sunday night left Central Michigan University professors out on strike, administrators readying a court case against the union and students bewildered about who would teach their classes today.

The strike was being closely watched by universities across the state because it could foreshadow next year, when faculty contracts at several other Michigan universities — including Wayne State University and Oakland University — are set to expire. The last faculty strike in Michigan was in 2009 at OU.

And the rest of the article outlines the familiar bickering and court cases, some students in support others not, no one is really a winner, etc., etc.  Add EMU to that list of universities watching how this turns out, and I hope we can learn our lessons from this and avoid it next fall.  I kind of doubt it though.

“What Every Central Michigan University Student Needs to Know”

I did a search just now on “Central Michigan Faculty Strike,” and while I didn’t quickly come across any news on the current status of things (anyone know?), I did come across this from a site called Voice X Change.  It’s a nice piece and I hope it is one that someone at the EMU-AAUP reads and considers writing something like it.

It’s all about audience, folks.  Most faculty will read this kind of article and scoff, thinking “well, duh, everybody knows that faculty work a lot more than 9 hours a week and have to do all this service and scholarship and such.”  But that’s the common writerly mistake of thinking that an audience has the same assumptions about a topic as writer/rhetor.  For the faculty to best represent its interests, we have to reach audiences who are most definitely not faculty and audiences (students, staff, and administrators, but also everyday people, voters, and legislatures who have nothing to do with higher education) and do our best to explain to non-insiders what it is that we do.  You can’t always persuade audiences with the facts– the current tea party movement in American politics is evidence of that– but you can try.

CMU faculty on verge of strike (or a preview of fall 2012 at EMU)

While sitting through some rain at my undisclosed northern retreat this morning, I came across news that “CMU faculty contract bargaining at standstill as classes start Aug. 22″ (via mLive) and “Start of school year at Central Michigan University in jeopardy as contract talks drag” (via the Detroit Freep). It’s a pretty predictable situation in that the union is asking more than what the administration wants to give, though it sure doesn’t seem like the faculty is asking for much.

What is perhaps a little more interesting is that there are no talks scheduled and it would seem that the administration is allowing the faculty to work without a contract right now– or I guess under the terms of the old contract– and the administration is apparently not willing to come back to the table.  I guess my question is “what’s the catch?”  The CMU administration has a deal on the table that is clearly worse than the conditions that the faculty are working under right now, the faculty are willing to continue working under the old contract, and (presumably) the administration is not going to lock faculty out.  Why would the faculty settle for a worse deal, especially if they can keep working on the old one?

Of course, that’s all based on a pretty cursory reading of the situation.  I’m sure there’s more to it.  But I will say this:  both the administration and the EMU-AAUP ought to keep a close eye on this one because it is what our August 2012 is almost certainly going to look like.