The Employment Relations Board of Oregon has ruled that the University of Oregon committed an unfair labor practice when it suddenly stopped providing the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation/AFT with membership information two years ago.

The federation, which has been representing graduate employees at the university for more than 20 years, also administers the health insurance plan of its 1,200 members. Since the collective bargaining agreement of 1978, the university has complied with the contract by providing the names of all graduate teaching fellows--unit and non-unit members alike--to the union at the start of each term.

At the beginning of 2000, however, the university stopped providing complete lists to the union, saying that doing so would be in violation of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). This federal law was created to protect students from the release of educational records, such as grades, to third parties without the student's permission. The university was relying on a letter the University of California had received from the U.S. Department of Education that related to the organizing campaign of graduate employees in the University of California system. As part of its unsuccessful bid to prevent graduate employee unionization at the University of California, management said it could not turn over graduate student information to UAW organizers because of FERPA.

While the University of Oregon expressed a fear that it would be in violation of federal laws in complying with the union contract, the labor board ruled that it was the union contract that the university was violating. In addition, the board ruled, the university erred in directly contacting graduate employees telling them they had to sign a waiver of their privacy rights before the university would provide their name to the union. Finally, in not bargaining with the union about the change in terms which the university had perceived, the university was violating a section of the contract that stipulated that procedure.

AFT counsel David Strom notes that the board's decision will be enlightening to other university administrations suddenly worried that FERPA would hold similar implications for graduate employee unions on their campuses.

Strengthening organized labor's political clout, increasing its organizing efforts and stimulating the economy were key topics for delegates to the AFL-CIO convention in Las Vegas in December. The 1,000 delegates also re-elected Sandra Feldman and elected AFT secretary-treasurer Edward J. McElroy to the 54-member executive council.

In his opening remarks, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney asked affiliates to commit at least 30 percent of their resources to bringing new members into the house of labor; the convention then highlighted successful union organizing campaigns over the past year, including the AFT's campaigns to organize graduate employees at Temple University and Michigan State University.

In her remarks before the convention, AFT president Sandra Feldman, described the exploitation that takes places on campuses like the University of Illinois, the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State, where our grad employees are waging campaigns against aggressive union-busting administrations. At the U of I, graduate employees teach 30 percent of undergraduate credit hours, she said. "Many graduate employees earn less than $10,000 a year, and there had been a trend in the past year or two to hit them with the double whammy of higher healthcare premiums and lower benefits," she noted. "In other words, university administrators like to think of graduate students as cheap labor when they fill their classes but deny that they are employees--call them students instead--when they seek decent pay and benefits and the right to unionize."

The labor delegates also emphasized political action, passing a resolution that stresses, among other things, increasing the number of union voters and educating and mobilizing union households. Another resolution focused on the need to foster renewed and sustained economic growth by addressing the industrial and manufacturing crisis, reducing unemployment and achieving tax fairness for working families. It also calls for opposing privatization and valuing the public sector and its employees.

McElroy's election to the AFL-CIO executive council is an important recognition of his role as a national labor leader. He was elected secretary-treasurer of the AFT in 1992. In addition to his AFT position, McElroy serves as chairman of the AFL-CIO's Department for Professional Employees. He previously served as an AFT vice president; as president of the Warwick, R.I., Teachers Union; as president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers; and as president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO. A leader in many community, civic and labor organizations, McElroy was elected in 1999 to serve on the United Way board of governors. He also serves on the boards of the Union Label Service Trades Department and the Food and Allied Service Trades Department of the AFL-CIO.

Unions nip unseemly raises

University of California instructors, staff, faculty and mid-level administrators are looking at raises of from 0.5 percent to 2 percent next year. Yet at a meeting of the system's board of regents this past fall, top university officials were seeking raises of up to 25 percent. Many of them must scrape by on salaries that barely break $200,000.

The unions made sure such a request didn't slip under the public's radar screen. Members of the University Council-AFT, representing lecturers and librarians at the UC system, and of the Coalition of University Employees, demonstrated and handed out information as the regents were breaking for lunch Nov. 14. Earlier, the unions had laid out the situation before the media. UC-AFT president Jeremy Elkin complained that the raises represented a skewed sense of priorities, part of the administration's direction toward "a new corporate model."

Members of the UC have not had a pay increase in the past two years. The unions have done an analysis showing that the state has enough money to provide adequate raises. They have pressed the Legislature to conduct a state audit to determine if the university is managing its budget legally. A state assembly member has questioned if UC is using funds earmarked for instruction to pay for administrative costs, according to the Daily Californian.

In an editorial published in the San Francisco Chronicle on the day of the unions' demonstration, the editors called the raises "outrageous" and complained that inflated administrator salaries have long siphoned off funds that should be used for research and instruction:

"UC officials insist that they must pay these salaries in order to attract the best talent and to remain competitive with other educational institutions. But they offer no such incentives to their distinguished faculty, whose salaries are expected to increase 2 percent, and even less to their staff and clerical workers, whose average salaries hover at $33,921," the editors wrote.

The raises were not approved.

At the AFL-CIO December convention in Las Vegas, the labor movement paid tribute to the 633 members killed in the terrorist attacks last September. Those honored included three Washington Teachers Union members who were on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, 34 New York State Public Employees Federation members and three members of the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York.

The PSC members: Andrew Fredericks, 40, was an alumnus and adjunct lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who taught in the Department of Public Management. He was also a firefighter with Squad 18 of the New York City Fire Department. He was one of seven lost from that squad at the World Trade Center.

Andrew Zucker, 28, was employed at Baruch College in the Continuing Education Division as an instructor in the paralegal program. Zucker, an attorney, was one of the most recent hires in the law firm of Harris Beach in the World Trade Center.

Charles Mauro, 38, was an alumnus and adjunct lecturer at New York City Technical College in the Hospitality Department. He was director of purchasing for Windows on the World, the restaurant located on the top floor of the World Trade Center.