PrintStates face a chasm of cuts
Against a backdrop of red--budget deficits compounded by continuing revenue shortfalls--states are engaged in an act of take-back and renege. Public services, health and welfare benefits, quality education at all levels, even corrections programs, all are feeling the blade. Frequently, higher education leads the pack of most vulnerable programs.
At the beginning of February, 36 states were looking to close a total $25.7 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2003, according to a January survey of the National Conference of State Legislatures. The gap was over and above the $49.1 billion in reductions states had made in preparing their 2003 budgets in the first place. And 30 states report continued apprehension about the need to close further holes before the end of the fiscal year.
The actions states are taking to bring their budgets into balance include across-the-board cuts (29 states) and cuts in state programs, such as higher education (13 states), Medicaid (13 states), elementary-secondary education (nine states), corrections (nine states) and local revenue sharing (nine states). Eight states have made layoffs, and five states have furloughed public employees.
Two states have gone so far as to ignore negotiated agreements with their public employee unions. First it was Massachusetts, where last summer, former Gov. Jane Swift vetoed all the raises that had been negotiated by the eight unions representing staff and faculty in the University of Massachusetts system. Those unions have organized a coalition, Higher Education Unions United, that is fighting for funding with rallies, lobbying, picketing and public education campaigns. The latest news from the commonwealth is that Gov. Mitt Romney is floating a plan to reorganize public higher education in the state and find a savings of $150 million through more layoffs, tuition hikes and budget cuts. Most of the unions see the reorganization as an elaborate cover for a "$150 million cut, not a 'savings,'" says Dan Georgianna, president of the University of Massachusetts Faculty Federation at Dartmouth.
In Wisconsin, certain political leaders are trying to renege on the contracts negotiated for more than 30,000 public employees over the last two years, including the Teaching Assistants Association/AFT at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In mid-February, the Joint Committee on Employment Relations of the state Legislature voted to reject six contracts negotiated for the 2001-03 period. The committee, made up of six Republicans and two Democrats, refused to allow the contracts to move to the floor of the Legislature, "where we know they would pass," says Robert Beglinger, president of the Wisconsin Federation of Teachers. Wisconsin is looking at a $3.2 billion deficit for 2003-05. The university system has been cut by 25 percent. Gov. Jim Doyle is proposing a massive downsizing of government, closing tax loopholes, but not adding new taxes as the solution to revenue shortfalls.
In New York, the unions and communities at the two major university systems--the State University of New York and the City University of New York--are responding to budget cuts and tuition hikes with rallies and repeated forays to the Statehouse in Albany. Gov. George Pataki's plan would cut 4,000 SUNY jobs and many programs, says United University Professions/AFT president William Scheuerman, who is also an AFT vice president. The union maintains that the system is underfunded and has been for years. Tuition increases are not a substitute for state support.
Gov. Gray Davis and the California Legislature are looking for a way to close a $35 billion deficit. The California Federation of Teachers and its locals are dealing with "truly staggering" proposed cuts, says the CFT. The community colleges would be cut by $179.4 million. In January, Local 2121--the San Francisco Community College Federation of Teachers--negotiated an 18-month deferral on 2 percent salary increases until June 30, 2004. And the state is proposing furloughing administrators in the Los Angeles Community College District for up to three weeks. All the college districts are making massive cuts in programs, classes, summer school, staff and student support; and the districts are raising student fees, which also raises concerns that tens of thousands of students will be kept out of school.
Montana is planning to raise public university tuition by 10 percent in each of the next two years and cut higher education funding by more than $40 million. At a Feb. 14 press conference protesting the measures, University of Montana political science professor Paul Haber called for the application of "intelligent revenue increases" to address a problem that has been in the making for a decade. "In 1992, the state appropriated about $3 for every $1 paid by students for higher education," he noted. "By 2002, the situation had reversed, with students now paying $3 dollars for every $1 dollar the state pays." The Montana Education Association-Montana Federation of Teachers--a merged state federation--held rallies across the state in March.
Florida faculty find strength in numbers
The phenomenal membership growth of the United Faculty of Florida/AFT has helped the union preserve and protect the rights of faculty as the Florida state university system turned an administrative corner this winter. Jan. 6 was the date that a politically mandated reorganization of the 11 universities in the system put the status of the statewide UFF contract in jeopardy. UFF, which is affiliated through a merger with both the AFT and the National Education Association, has been representing faculty for more than 25 years.
An intensive internal organizing campaign, however, boosted membership by 25 percent in the 10,000-person unit. That, combined with the union's filing of cards with the state labor board from more than two-thirds of the unit (see "Florida faculty renew their union vows," News & Trends, February 2003) has guaranteed the union's survival, says Tom Auxter, UFF president.
"The UFF now has a statewide organizing committee with over 600 members" on 11 campuses, he notes. They continue to sign up members, with the hope of bringing the total to over 6,000 in short order. The growth has provided the resources "to defend our legal rights--which is a very expensive thing to do right now--and it has generated a wave of activism resulting in new leadership and new bargaining teams on every campus."
Since January, when the system decentralized into 11 universities with 11 separate boards of trustees, four have voted to voluntarily recognize chapters of the UFF as the faculty bargaining agent, and four more were likely to follow suit as AFT On Campus went to press. On the remaining campuses, faculty were preparing to hold new elections if necessary. But the thinking of many of the university presidents, Auxter says, could be summed up this way: "Look, the union has already got 70 percent of the cards. They've had an established contract for 25 years. We know what it's been like. We know what it will be. Might as well just recognize them."
Gov. Jeb Bush has proposed cutting higher education by $111 million in his next budget, notes Auxter, which underscores the need to keep increasing membership. "It will take a strong union to negotiate contracts protecting faculty rights in a state as turbulent, unpredictable and potentially hostile to faculty concerns as this one is," he says.
District played fast and loose with part-timers, PERB rules
The California Public Employment Relations Board ruled Jan. 8 that an administrative law judge erred when he said a college could force a unit of part-time faculty that was actively preparing for a collective bargaining election to become part of a pre-existing full-time unit on the campus.
The part-timers' battle to determine who would be their bargaining agent has been escalating in the past year but, as summarized in the PERB decision, the struggle began almost five years ago. That was when some of the 375 part-time faculty who teach at the College of the Canyons in the Santa Clarita Community College District decided to earnestly pursue unionization.
In 1998, some members of a group called Part-time Faculty United (PFU), went to the leaders of the 150-member full-time faculty union (the College of the Canyons Faculty Association) and to the state affiliate (the California Teachers Association) asking that COCFA organize the adjuncts as a union. COCFA declined, and the CTA said it might be willing if the adjuncts could offer a show of interest. The PFU called back when it collected 100 signed cards. Still COCFA and CTU did not respond to repeated requests, and at a faculty meeting some leaders expressed the opinion that the part-timers would dilute the vote of the full-time faculty.
In fall 2001, the PFU called the AFT. The affiliation soon was established and a card drive under way. pfu filed for an election the following spring.
Meanwhile, in November 2001, cocfa changed its mind about the part-timers and asked the district to modify the union contract to include part-timers in the unit.
When part-timers received a letter notifying them that they had been folded into the full-time unit, unbeknownst to any, they cried foul and the organizing committee of pfu/aft filed an unfair labor practice (ulp) case with the perb.
In November 2002, an administrative law judge proposed a ruling on the ULP that the district was within its rights to make the modification. But the Jan. 8 decision overturns that proposed ruling, finding that the district acted to modify the full-time unit despite no indication from the cocfa or the pfu of majority support for the change. In fact, the ruling says:
"The District was on notice of PFU's efforts to organize the part-time faculty when it chose to enter into the unit modification with cocfa. In so doing, the District demonstrated support for cocfa, conduct that unlawfully tends to influence employee selection, in violation of eera [the Educational Employment Relations Act]."
Chuck Whitten is a vice president of the PFU organizing committee and a plaintiff in the pfu suit. The decision of what union will represent him, he says, "is my choice. It's a democratic choice."
Chicago part-time professionals have a union
Administrators' reliance on contingent labor in higher education is not limited to faculty, the Cook County College Teachers Union has found. In the City Colleges of Chicago, where CCCTU has represented full-time faculty and professional staff (as well as paraprofessionals) for years, leaders have seen a small boom in the number of part-time professionals on staff.
In fact, says Bob Breving, an organizer with the union, since 1987 when the full-time professionals first voted for CCCTU representation, the number of part-timers has grown from none to 220--about the same number as full-timers. The professionals have job titles like computer technician, coordinator of grant programs, special needs specialist, interpreter or child care provider. The big difference between the full- and part-time employees, however, is in the way they are treated. Part-time professionals receive no benefits of any kind, lower hourly pay and few raises, a limited number of work hours and no sense of security from semester to semester.
In February, these workers voted 116 to 3 for union representation by CCCTU. Now, they are working on negotiating an interim contract, with their own salary, benefits and fair share provisions, as they are folded in under the full-time professionals' contract, which expires July 15, 2004. After that date, the part-timers will be merged into the full-time unit and will negotiate one contract together.
