The level of a union's political activity varies widely from local to local and state to state. In Alaska, however, lawmakers must have wanted to encourage a labor movement that would take political action seriously; decades ago, the Legislature passed an unusual law mandating that union contracts for public employees be funded annually--no matter the duration of the contract.

Thus, to secure this year's 2.6 percent across-the-board salary increase, the Alaska Community College Federation of Teachers brought 25 members of its executive board to Juneau. On Feb. 1, they met with every elected legislator or his or her staff representative. That evening, the federation held a dinner that was attended by one-third of the elected officials. Even the University of Alaska's chief lobbyist has to admit that the ACCFT's operation is the best show in town, says Bob Congdon, federation president. University management takes notice, because not only does the union advocate on behalf of its members and other unions, it also makes the pitch for full funding of the university's budget request.

The Alaska community colleges are part of the University of Alaska system. As a result of the consolidation that took place more than a decade ago, the college faculty say they must be vigilant and vocal to ensure that the community college mission is not lost. Carol Liberty, an associate professor of health information management who for the most part teaches distance education courses from her campus in Sitka, says there is a great need among Alaska residents for technical training in her field. Yet, despite the fact that members of the ACCFT teach a majority of the credit hours, the other programs were getting the lion's share of the resources. In fact, at one time, there had even been talk about getting rid of outlying campuses and restricting education to the Fairbanks and Anchorage campuses. The ACCFT makes sure that the voice of its members and the voice of the students they serve are heard by legislators.

On the day of lobbying, faculty travel up to 1,500 miles, from as far away as Nome, for the opportunity to bend the ears of their elected officials. Of special concern in these times, says Congdon, is an imbalance in the increasing use of term contract faculty, who are hired for one-year stints. Their use has nearly doubled in just three years, from 50 to more than 90. Today, they account for fully one-third of the unit.

Despite decades of practice in lobbying, the 27-year-old union had a close call last year. In April, the Legislature put forward a budget bill that included every pay raise--except the faculty's. Sitting in the holding room waiting to testify, Congdon bumped into the university president. "I looked him in the eye," he recalls, and reminded him that the union and management had negotiated those raises fair and square. The president agreed not to fight the union in getting the money reinstated in the budget bill.

This year, the union is back to its tradition of leaving nothing to chance. The reception and day of visits was the best ever.

AFT assails ruling against disabled public employees

The U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling on Feb. 21, which limits the ability of state employees to sue their employers when they believe they have been discriminated against on the basis of their disability, is "disappointing and misguided," says AFT president Sandra Feldman. The high court ruled in Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama vs. Garrett that Congress overstepped its authority in allowing individuals to sue state employers under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Alabama argued that the 11th Amendment gives states immunity from federal lawsuits filed by individuals.

The cased involved Patricia Garrett, a nurse at the state university hospital, who was assigned a lower-paying job after she returned to work following breast cancer treatment. The ruling also consolidated another case, that of a security guard at the Alabama Department of Youth Services. Milton Ash, who suffered from asthma, said that the state, among other things, failed to enforce its no-smoking policy at the gatehouse where he worked.

In its majority opinion, written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the Court maintained that Congress has the right to set public policy to eliminate discrimination against individuals with disabilities or, to put it another way, to ensure that people with disabilities are afforded equal protection of the laws. However, "in order to authorize private individuals to recover money damages against the states, there must be a pattern of discrimination by the state which violates the 14th Amendment, and the remedy imposed by Congress must be congruent and proportional to the targeted violation. Those requirements are not met here," said the Court.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer detailed the vast legislative record documenting "massive, society-wide discrimination" against persons with disabilities. This included testimony from 30,000 people and 300 examples of discrimination by state governments. Breyer said he failed to see how this evidence could "fall far short of suggesting a pattern of discrimination." Noting the distinctions between the powers awarded the branches of government, he wrote of Congress's ability to gather facts, assess the magnitude of a problem and find an appropriate remedy. Because Congress is elected, it is in a better position to assess the public beliefs about behaviors "so callous or unreasonable to the point of lacking constitutional justification." Breyer wrote that the Court majority had misapplied the "burden of proof" rule in requiring Congress to provide an unreasonable body of evidence to justify the ADA, and in so doing had stood the principle of judicial restraint on its head.

The Court ruling "singles out state employees as second-class citizens who do not have the same protections of federal law as their counterparts in the private sector," says Feldman. In passing the ADA, Congress was seeking to establish a uniform standing throughout the country for protecting disabled individuals from discrimination, she noted, and by applying an obscure legal rationale, "the Court has undermined that essential goal." More troubling, she adds, is that this decision fits into a pattern of recent rulings by the Court in which state employees have lost protections in a number of areas, including age discrimination, overtime compensation and copyright protection.