Imagine a health insurance plan that covers only three-quarters of your body: If anything breaks below the knees, tough luck! Sound ridiculous? Washington state adjuncts had to live under the strictures of a similar fraction until a June state Supreme Court ruling in Mader et al. v. The Health Care Authority.  Overturning two lower court decisions, the justices ruled that any part-timer who carries at least a half-time workload has the right to state-paid health insurance during the summer. The decision in this class action lawsuit makes amends to countless adjuncts.

In this case, AFT members have shown that equity can be sought through the judicial branch as well as the legislative. In 1999, a group of part-time faculty led by AFT member Eva Mader filed a health benefits claim through law firm Bendich, Stobaugh & Strong that led to the landmark ruling.

Before now, part-timers had been dropped from the state-paid health insurance plan during the summer unless they taught summer courses—a prize that many adjuncts did not receive. This inequity forced many adjuncts to either self-fund their health insurance during the summer—costing as much as several hundred dollars a month—or do without. Because most adjuncts barely scrape a living wage together as it is, additional money for health insurance was a high cost to bear.

About 1,000 part-timers were affected each summer by the unfair practice, says Stephen Strong, one of the attorneys on the case. The firm and state have yet to work out how many years of back compensation should be extended to those in the lawsuit and what should be covered.

“The law firm put tremendous time and resources into the effort,” said Sandra Schroeder, president of the Washington Federation of Teachers (WFT). “The lawsuit’s success is a tremendous benefit for part-timers.”

The WFT helped the effort as well, providing the attorneys with information throughout the proceedings and filing a friend-of-the-court brief with the state Supreme Court.

This win comes on top of another labor victory arising out of a different prong of the lawsuit. In 2000, a Washington state superior court judge ruled for the same plaintiffs that the state owed $12 million in retroactive retirement benefits to adjuncts. Full-time faculty had benefited from the state pension plan for years, while part-timers had been punished because the state failed to take working hours outside of the classroom into account.

--Mark Henson

NYSUT lobbying: One for the books

AFT affiliates certainly could be forgiven if they suffered mixed lobbying results in 2003, a year dominated by budget woes and a lackluster economy. But no apologies are needed for the New York State United Teachers/AFT, which mobilized against a tide of bad economic news and delivered a string of stellar legislative victories this year for public education, students and members.

New York law requires most districts outside the major metropolitan areas to cast votes on school budget proposals, and the results from 2003 could hardly have been more heartening. A groundbreaking 94 percent of almost 700 school districts won voter approval for school budgets that averaged above-inflation increases of 4.1 percent, The New York Times observed. “The passage rate is one of the highest on record, stunning many school officials who had expected far greater reluctance from a public already facing higher state and local taxes.”

The AFT’s higher education division was well represented in this successful battle for school funding. Fred Floss, a professor of economics and finance at Buffalo State College, teamed up with Don Benker, a high school math teacher and the Kenmore Teachers Association/AFT president, to spearhead a campaign urging their union colleagues to vote in support of strong school budgets. “If New York is to recover from the recession, it’s important that students get a quality K-12 education so they’re prepared for college,” explained Floss, a member of the executive board of the United University Professions /AFT (UUP).

Floss and Benker organized a push in western New York that included phone banking operations and letter writing to build support for the June 3 budget votes. UUP organized similar efforts in other regions of the state and reinforced the message through a mailing from union president William E. Scheuerman urging members to vote. “UUP is always interested in reinforcing the bridge that connects us to our sister locals in NYSUT,” says Scheuerman.

Phone banking and letter writing were only two elements of a multifaceted lobbying approach that NYSUT has honed over more than a decade. As in prior years, NYSUT also ran media ads in 2003 asking voters to support strong school budgets, and several AFT affiliates sponsored billboards carrying the same message. The campaign also built on momentum generated when thousands of NYSUT members participated in a massive rally on May 3 in Albany—an event which spurred the legislature to reject a devastating budget proposal from Gov. George Pataki and approve a plan that supports public education.

“The overwhelming support for school budgets across the state should send a clear, lasting message to Albany,” said NYSUT president and AFT vice president Thomas Y. Hobart Jr. “New Yorkers are willing to invest in public education—and even pay slightly higher taxes—but they expect an even greater investment from the state.”

Part-time faculty cheer labor victories in Illinois Legislature

“What a difference an election makes,” says Steve Preckwinkle, director of political activities for the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), as he discusses labor’s big success during the Illinois 2003 legislative session.

Organized labor reaped the benefits of campaigning for a pro-labor Democratic General Assembly: swift passage of three bills sure to benefit organizing efforts in the state, particularly those of part-time community college faculty. The governor has signed all three into law.

Senate Bill 19 restores collective bargaining rights to teachers unions in both the Chicago City College system and the city public schools. It also reinstates contract language destroyed in 1995 when Republicans held the Legislature and the governor’s office. State Senate president Emil Jones—who replaced anti-union state Sen. James “Pate” Philip as Senate leader—introduced SB 19 as his first piece of legislation.

House Bill 3396 forces employers to recognize unions after a majority of members sign union cards.

House Bill 1457 switched a single number in Illinois state law, changing the definition of those who qualify for union membership at community colleges from faculty who teach six semester hours to those who teach three. The IFT’s efforts to correct this restrictive language date to the mid-1990s.

Part-timers can thank IFT and local affiliates for their effective lobbying, the Democratic legislators for their pro-labor views, and community college employer groups for not standing in the way, says Preckwinkle.

Although they had bitterly opposed HB 1457 in past sessions, the employer groups decided not to take a position this time. Preckwinkle attributes their retreat to a sense of the bill’s inevitable passage and the employer groups’ desire to work with higher education unions on the Illinois budget.

Considering the pro-labor atmosphere created by the other labor legislation, HB 1457’s passage “breaks open organizing” for part-timers, says AFT vice president Norman Swenson, president of Cook County College Teachers’ Union. It nearly quadruples the number of part-time faculty eligible for union representation, he notes.

“This bill will enormously increase our strength at the bargaining table because the numbers will be there,” says Swenson. “The potential in our local alone is probably close to 6,000 faculty now eligible. Statewide, there would be more than double that.”

This new bargaining muscle will enable the IFT and all Illinois affiliates to fight harder for important issues like pay equity for part-time faculty.

--Mark Henson

California part-timers progress to election

Part-time faculty at the College of the Canyons finally have received a date for a long-awaited election to determine whether they will be a union represented by the California Federation of Teachers and the AFT.

Representatives of the Part-Time Faculty United/AFT (PTFU), which is attempting to organize 400 part-time faculty on the campus, signed an agreement Sept. 5 with the Santa Clarita Community College District, the local and state affiliates of the union representing the full-time faculty union on campus, and the California Public Employee Relations Board. The agreement allows the part-timers to hold an election and includes the full-time union’s representative on the ballot. According to the agreement, PERB will mail the ballots Oct. 27 and they will be counted about three weeks later.

PTFU first filed cards with PERB in summer 2002, requesting an election for collective bargaining. Since then, litigation has been the order of the day. The college tried to force the part-timers into the union that already existed on campus, the California Faculty Association (CFA)/NEA, which had repeatedly declined to represent or organize the part-timers. When PERB ruled that the college had interfered in the union question when the law requires the employer to remain neutral, the college turned to the California Court of Appeals. That court ruled in favor of the PTFU, upholding the view of the PERB. To stop the cycle of suits and appeals, PTFU agreed to let CFA on the ballot.

Part-timers at Victor Valley College, which is in the same district, are facing a similar battle. Organizing as the PTFU-AFT, they first began asking part-timers to sign cards seeking an election in September 2001. In February 2002, the administration tried to force them into the full-time union. Litigation followed. In July of this year, the PERB unanimously upheld a March 2003 administrative judge’s ruling that the college had illegally interfered with part-timers’ organizing. Now the PTFU-AFT is again circulating cards with the hope of holding an election in the spring, according to Linda Cushing, AFT national representative.

Organizers continue to build support for a union with local labor councils in Riverside and San Bernardino, and Cushing says the college has shown grudging signs of respect toward part-timers in the face of supportive citizens.

AFT state fed hits Sizemore for racketeering

The AFT’s state affiliate in Oregon has joined with its National Education Association counterpart to file a lawsuit against Bill Sizemore, the high-profile archconservative activist who has been a driving force behind several anti-union ballot initiatives in the state. The suit seeks to hold Sizemore personally liable for fraud and racketeering, which a jury last year found had been committed by two Sizemore organizations: Oregon Taxpayers United-Education Foundation (OTU-EF) and the OTU Political Action Committee (OTU-PAC).

A Multnomah County jury reached its decision in a widely watched court case, and the final court judgment totaling $2.5 million against OTU-EF and OTU-PAC was entered on July 25. The latest complaint alleges that Sizemore had full knowledge of and authorized the racketeering activities of the two organizations, making him personally liable for monetary judgment.

In May, a circuit court judge issued an injunction stating that Sizemore gained financially from racketeering. Judge Jerome LaBarre also held that Sizemore “manipulated and exploited these organizations for his own purposes—sometimes his own financial gain and sometimes to pursue his political objectives.”

“This is the next logical step to enforce Oregon’s racketeering laws and to protect the citizens of this state,” stated Gene Mechanic, attorney for AFT-Oregon. “We believe this action is well supported by the jury verdict and Judge Jerome LaBarre’s injunction against Sizemore and his entities.”