When all else fails, union tries silence

After months of trying to get Alabama State University to focus on issues of priority to the faculty, staff and students of the university, the community tried a new tack. On Dec. 13, they staged a silent protest near the president's office. They held signs reading "Fair Pay, Fair Play" and "I am a Man," evoking slogans from the struggle for civil rights.

The demonstration was sponsored by the Faculty-Staff Alliance (the nonbargaining AFT local representing faculty and staff at the university) and the Student Government Association. Their grievances include lack of respect, wages that leave some employees and their families living below the poverty level, and an ineffective means of participating in collective bargaining.

The most pressing issue of all is the staff's right to earn a livable wage. "The president makes $14,000 a month, and we have full-time people here who earn $15,000 a year," says Derryn Moten, chairman of the ASU faculty senate and co-president of the FSA/AFT.

In September, Moten addressed the ASU board of trustees. The community reaction, he says, "has been Ôright on!' The trustees have been put in the position of having to answer questions they don't like."

The FSA is seeking the university's voluntary recognition of the union because there is no collective bargaining law in Alabama. Since its inception, the union has grown in numbers and strength, especially because it now shares its leaders with the faculty senate. In addition to trying to improve the working conditions of the employees on campus, the union is seeking to play a greater role in academics. The university's current graduation rate is less than 25 percent. The faculty would like to see tougher admissions standards.

"Ultimately, our goal is to move the university forward," says Moten. In early January, the president agreed to talk.

Executive council condemns Iraq

The AFT executive council met in Hollywood, Fla., Jan. 21-24, just as the military and political showdown on Iraq was heating up, and as the Bush administration was considering its position on the affirmative action case now before the Supreme Court. By that week's end, AFT leaders had approved numerous resolutions, three among them dealing with higher education concerns. In addition, they approved a comprehensive resolution recognizing the threat of Saddam Hussein to the region and the world and the need for action to force him to give up his weapons of mass destruction.

Following a presentation by a representative of the Iraq Foundation and an extensive discussion among council members, the council overwhelmingly passed a resolution that condemns Saddam Hussein's regime of terror, torture and systematic murder against his own people and the threat he poses to stability in the Middle East and the national security interests of the United States.

The resolution was critical of how President Bush has handled the crisis in Iraq, noting that the union is "gravely concerned" the president "is pursuing a deeply partisan domestic agenda at a time of prospective war." The country "needs leadership that rises above partisanship," it says.

Nevertheless, "we know that our position on national security issues must be taken in response to security threats and not from our disagreement with the administration on other issues."

Acknowledging that the U.S. may at times have to act unilaterally in defense of its national security, the council emphasized that it is "strongly preferable" that in this instance military action in Iraq should be taken in concert with an international coalition of allies or the United Nations.

In the debate, council members noted that if military action in Iraq is necessary, a program to promote democratic institutions--and not just a change in regime--must be created in the aftermath.

The council also called on the U.S. and the U.N. Security Council to "materially support" those Iraqis, both within and outside Iraq, who are committed to developing a free, open and pluralistic society after the fall of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship.
 

Resolutions on higher education

In keeping with past practice, the AFT has come out in strong support of affirmative action and policies that have as their goal diversity and access. At the meeting, the council passed a resolution directing the AFT to file an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the University of Michigan's affirmative action plan. It approved a resolution supporting equitable tuition practices in regard to immigrants. Finally, it affirmed the union's core belief in the importance of a liberal education for all college students.

The AFT resolution on affirmative action notes that Michigan's policy adheres to the guidelines laid out in University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court decision that has shaped affirmative action policy in the United States since 1978 and which the AFT has endorsed. The "AFT believes that meaningful diversity in the student body in our nation's colleges and universities provides a richer educational environment for all students," the resolution states. It supports the UM policy, in which an applicant's race is considered as just one of many factors, but gets extra weight in order to help the university achieve its goal of a diverse student body. Just before the AFT leaders took this action, the Bush administration came out against the plan.

The AFT executive council also passed a resolution supporting equitable treatment in setting tuition for immigrant students. It calls for legislative efforts to ensure that state policies allow immigrants who reside in the state to pay the same in-state tuition rate as other residents.

The resolution notes that the rate of immigration to the United States is at its highest since the influx of the early 1900s. Many of those immigrants came as children to our shores and have spent almost their entire lives here. Even the immigrants who are more recent arrivals seek to participate fully in the economic, cultural and political life here as legal U.S. residents.

Recently, states with high immigrant populations--such as California, New York and Texas--have created policies or passed legislation that allow them to waive the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 so as to charge immigrant residents at the lower state-resident tuition.

The AFT is now on record as supporting that approach, particularly in states with high numbers of immigrants who are here legally, are in the process of legalizing their status or who have expressed willingness to go through the process when they are able.

The last resolution the executive council passed affirms the value and goals of a liberal education. It speaks of the sometimes differing ends of preparing people for the intellectual, ethical, cultural, social and scientific demands of a democratic society and preparing people to go into the work force. It notes that currently, public attention is focused on work force preparation--a trend reinforced by calling students, "customers." It calls upon the AFT to remind all of its constituents of the purposes and benefits of a liberal education, to ensure that all of its own educational programs address these aims and to advance a dialogue in the educational community about ways of strengthening the quality of liberal education.

Full copies of these resolutions are available online in the "About AFT" section of our Web site. 

Reserve now for Atlanta!

AFT members can shape the future direction of their unions, institutions and national organization at the annual AFT higher education issues conference, April 11-13 in Atlanta. The theme of the conference is "Strategic Planning: What Kind of Academy? What Kind of Union?" Preceding the conference will be a one-day AFT Graduate Employee Locals (AGEL) seminar on best teaching practices in undergraduate education.

Keynote speaker is Gary Rhoades, author of Managed Professionals: Unionized Faculty and Restructuring Academic Labor. In addition to workshops on building union activism, contingent faculty issues and various professional issues, the conference also will feature a tour of historic civil rights sites in Atlanta.

Please note: The Hyatt Regency Atlanta hotel registration deadline is March 12, so please proceed quickly if you plan to attend. For more information, check AFT online at www.aft.org/higher_ed  or call 202/879-4426.

The AFT executive council has authorized the national union to take over the day-to-day operations of the Washington (D.C.) Teachers Union and appointed former AFT executive council member George Springer to serve as the administrator of the local.

The council took action in January after the national AFT discovered apparent misuse of union funds by several officials and employees of the WTU last summer. An independent forensic audit of the financial records of the local released by the AFT revealed that more than $5 million in union funds had been misappropriated.

The union turned over its preliminary findings to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in early fall 2002; the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office have subsequently launched their own investigations.

The AFT has also filed a lawsuit seeking restitution on behalf of the nearly 5,000 members of the local, alleging that eight individuals, including former WTU president Barbara Bullock; former WTU treasurer James Baxter; and Gwendolyn Hemphill, the former assistant to Bullock, "aided and abetted, participated in, and used" the WTU as part of their conspiracy to embezzle union funds.

"The massive misappropriation of union funds and the betrayal of the members that are outlined in our audit are reprehensible and sickening," said AFT president Sandra Feldman in a statement.

Under the administratorship, the WTU Constitution is suspended, and the authority of the WTU executive board (which supported the move to appoint an administrator) is set aside. The administratorship is permitted under the AFT Constitution when it appears that a local cannot remediate a serious crisis on its own, but this is the first time the provision has been invoked.

An AFT council committee conducted an investigatory hearing before the council vote, and noted that the AFT has had a long history of local autonomy. However, "the independence of our locals is not unqualified, particularly when the rights of the members are in jeopardy," noted the committee's report.

Springer, who for more than 20 years headed the AFT-affiliated Connecticut Federation of Educational and Professional Employees, left the AFT executive council in May 2001 to accept a position as director of the AFT Northeast region.

"What happened to the WTU and its 5,000 hard-working members is simply appalling," Springer told reporters attending a news conference at AFT headquarters in Washington, D.C. "In my 44 years in the teacher union movement, I've never seen anything like the situation that has occurred here." As administrator, Springer said, "my role will be to restore and ensure the smooth operation and the integrity of the Washington Teachers Union."