Oregon wins case against ballot racketeer
Harper College faculty settle their contract
New York pledges labor neutrality
Fighting bloat in Illinois
Tuitions up by 10 percent
AFT scores big at Cerritos
Part-timers file cards in Chicago

Oregon wins case against ballot racketeer

A state circuit court jury awarded more than $800,000 in damages to AFT-Oregon and the Oregon Education Association in September. The jury found an anti-union taxpayer group guilty on three counts of fraud and racketeering for activities surrounding the 2000 general election.

Specifically, the jury found affiliates of Oregon Taxpayers United (OTU), headed by executive director Bill Sizemore, liable for damages in counts of forgery on statements of sponsorship petitions and filing false tax returns and campaign finance reports. AFT-Oregon was awarded $170,000 and the OEA was awarded $671,658 in damages--the amount the unions respectively spent fighting two Sizemore-sponsored ballot measures in the 2000 election. The ballot measures, numbered 92 and 98, would have limited or banned payroll deduction for union dues. Voters rejected the measures.

"The jury agreed that in the course of qualifying Measures 92 and 98 for the 2000 general election ballot, [Sizemore's group] violated the Oregon anti-racketeering statute by forging signatures on sponsorship petitions, forging signatures on initiative petitions, and filing false reports with Oregon government agencies" regarding money raised and spent in placing the measures on the ballot, says Gene Mechanic, the attorney representing AFT-Oregon. The jury chose not to award damages for the forged petition signatures.

Under the Oregon RICO statute, the damages could be tripled to $2.5 million. At press time, this possibility was pending.

"Oregon's initiative system is a venue for well-meaning, law-abiding citizens to bring their ideas to enhance our great state," says Debbi Covert, president of AFT-Oregon. "With their verdict, jurors sent a message that violation of Oregon's election and tax laws will not be tolerated."

While the verdict marks an important victory for the labor movement nationally and for Oregon unions' efforts to end abuse of the state's initiative process, it also reaffirms the decision by delegates to the national AFT convention last July to set aside a portion of a dues increase for a Solidarity Fund. (See September 2002 AFT On Campus.) The fund was established to boost the union's political action in the states and enable the union to better respond to the growing number of state ballot initiatives and referendums that are designed to weaken, if not eliminate, public services, worker rights and union rights.

For more information about the trial, visit AFT-Oregon's Web site at www.aft-oregon.org.

Harper College faculty settle their contract

Faculty at William Rainey Harper College, in Palatine, Ill., ended an 11-day strike Oct. 20, after voting 158-12 to ratify a new contract. The strike was the first in the history of the Harper College Faculty Senate, a union of full-time faculty affiliated with the Cook County College Teachers Union/IFT/AFT.

"Not one of the 206 faculty crossed a picket line," says Norman Swenson, CCCTU president and AFT vice president. Early into the strike, Swenson and two others were arrested for trespassing. They were in the midst of persuading electrical workers, bricklayers, ironworkers and crane operators--more than 20 construction locals in all--to stop work on the college's $90 million building project. That shutdown, along with the union's clear solidarity, were the elements that caught the administration off-guard and were crucial in reaching settlement, says HCFS secretary Jim Edstrom.

Picket line support from students, fellow unionists from the Cook County College Teachers Union, Illinois Federation of Teachers president James Dougherty and Illinois AFL-CIO president Margaret Blackshire was a great solidarity booster. In addition, says HCFS chief negotiator Julie Fleenor, the union was helped by the administration's "hideous" decision to cancel everyone's health insurance when the strike began. This prompted the union to file an unfair labor practice.

Salaries and health insurance costs were the biggest issues in the negotiations. Initially, the college offered raises that sounded generous, but at the same time demanded that faculty absorb higher health insurance costs. This consumed much of the "raise." In the end, faculty got a four-year contract with raises of about 5 percent each year and a reasonable structure for paying health insurance that benefits all college staff.

New York pledges labor neutrality

New York state taxpayers' money won't be used to bankroll union-busting attorneys, consultants or other anti-labor contractors thanks to a bill approved by the state Legislature and signed into law this fall by Gov. George Pataki.

Dubbed the New York "neutrality law," the new statute is aimed at hospitals, nonprofits and other employers that receive state funding. The legislation moved through both houses of the New York state Assembly earlier this year, thanks in large measure to heavy support from organized labor across the state.

The law will guarantee that public funds will not be used to interfere with workers' constitutional right to join a union, explains Thomas Y. Hobart Jr., president of the New York State United Teachers and an AFT vice president.

"This new law will protect taxpayers by ensuring that state tax dollars are used for their intended purpose," Pataki said.

Under the neutrality law, which goes into effect in December, employers who receive state funds will be subject to audits of records to show the money was not used to pay for anti-union activities. It empowers the state attorney general to obtain restraining orders against such practices, and it allows the courts to order the return of taxpayer money used for such activities.

New York state AFL-CIO president Denis Hughes says, "This historic legislation not only protects the rights and interests of working men and women, but all New Yorkers."

Fighting bloat in Illinois

In the decade between fiscal years 1993 and 2003, the size of administration in the public universities of Illinois increased at 10 times the rate that teaching positions did. After adjusting for inflation, the administrative increase was nearly 49 percent during that period, while the teaching budget increase was 27 percent. In contrast, student enrollment numbers actually showed a small decline--2.7 percent.

The data are part of a study released by the University Professionals of Illinois, the statewide AFT union that represents faculty and staff in seven of the state's public universities. It is the first-ever comparative study of administrative and teaching staff levels and is based on a review of budgets submitted by the governor's office during the 10-year period.

The union commissioned the study, conducted by Robert Ginsburg of the Chicago-based Center on Work and Community Development, because it was concerned about university priorities, says Sue Kaufman, UPI president. In 1992, the state General Assembly passed a resolution, SJR 141, which the union backed, calling for reduced administrative costs and a greater emphasis on classroom instruction.

Instead, over the next 10 years while the number of students enrolled dropped by 2.7 percent (from 195,095 to 189,841), the total teaching staff grew by 3.6 percent (from 13,247 to 13,722) and the total administrative staff grew by 33.7 percent (from 4,028 to 5,386).

These overall percentages play out differently at each of the seven campuses where UPI represents staff. At Eastern Illinois University, for example, where the UPI chapter is in the midst of negotiating a new contract, chapter president David Radavich notes that the growth of administration has come at the expense of instruction. "We now have one administrator at EIU for every three faculty members," he recently told the university's board of trustees.

Yet, "with the influx of 600 new students this year, many faculty have been required to teach more classes with more students in them." This leads to burnout and exhaustion, he pointed out, and less time for faculty to give individual attention to students--a hallmark of an EIU education. "Some administrators are pushing to replace faculty with graduate students, further diminishing academic quality."

Illinois, like so many other states, is dealing with massive tax revenue shortfalls by cutting higher education budgets and raising tuition. The UPI survey suggests another approach. Had the ratio of administrative staff to teachers remained constant from 1993 to 2003, the universities would have saved $75 million. "If the university system had heeded the Legislature's mandate, we could have eased the impact of the present budget crisis in Illinois' higher education system and avoided some tuition increases and program cuts," comments John Murphy, UPI vice president. "We need to bring our focus back to teaching students."

Tuitions up by 10 percent

Public college tuition and fees increased an average of 10 percent for the current academic year, the College Board announced in October. While the Consumer Price Index rose only 1.5 percent during the period ending Sept. 30, 2002, no one is suggesting that tuition hikes are related to inflation. State budgets have been awash in red ink for more than a year. In most cases, states are responding by pulling back support for public higher education and relying on families and various aid sources to fill the hole.

According to the College Board:

• At four-year public institutions, tuition and fees average $4,081. This is a 9.6 percent increase--or $356 more than last year's average.

• For private four-years, tuition and fees average $18,273, a 5.8 percent increase over last year's $17,272.

• Tuition and fees at two-year public colleges averaged $1,735, a 7.9 percent increase over last year's $1,608.

• Private two-year college tuition went up 7.5 percent from an average of $9,200 to $9,890.

In another report released at the same time as the tuition survey, the College Board announced that $90 billion was available in student financial aid in 2001-02--a record. Total aid during the past decade has increased by 117 percent in constant dollars.

Trends in how the aid is awarded are an ongoing concern, as federal policy has caused a shift in aid from grants (which mostly benefit students in need) to loans (which are most helpful to the middle- and upper-income families). For example, in 1991-92, loans accounted for 47 percent of aid, and grants accounted for 50 percent. A decade later, loans accounted for 54 percent of aid, and grants accounted for 39 percent.

Despite adjustments to the Pell grant program, the maximum grant covers only 42 percent of the tuition, fees, and room and board of average four-year public colleges. Twenty years ago, says the College Board, the maximum covered 84 percent.

Large tuition increases are being made nationwide as states cut back on their funding, just as they did during recessions in the early 1980s, and again in the early 1990s. Lately, however, tuition has not been going up as fast as state appropriations have been going down, says Tom Mortenson, a higher education policy analyst who studies the effect of funding on students' opportunity to attend college. "Some of us think this is somewhat like shooting yourself in the head.

"For the second half of the 1990s," he explains, "higher education has represented a shrinking share of the gross national product. At a time when higher education is seen as more important than ever before, to see it being cut back is dumbfounding."

AFT scores big at Cerritos

A unit of both full- and part-time faculty sent a clear message to Cerritos Community College District in early November: They want to share a union. By a vote of 527 to 216 (for no agent), the Cerritos Faculty Federation/AFT won the right to represent a unit of more than 1,000 credit and noncredit, part-time and full-time faculty. Cerritos was the last community college district in California where faculty lacked union representation.

The college tried to split the full-time faculty, who number about 285, from the part-timers, suggesting that part-time faculty gains could come only at the expense of full-time prerogatives. That message failed spectacularly, says AFT national representative Linda Cushing. The AFT and the California Federation of Teachers have been racking up major organizing gains in the state over the past two years, bringing into the AFT more than 6,000 community college faculty since 2000.

Part-timers file cards in Chicago

A unit of nearly 200 part-time faculty who teach in the Chicago City Colleges filed with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board on Nov. 1 to seek a collective bargaining election. The unit is called the City Colleges Adjunct Faculty Organization (CCAFO), and it is a chapter of the Cook County College Teachers Union/AFT.

Part-time faculty teaching in the public two-year colleges in the Chicago region have had an uphill battle to win the right to organize. Until recently, the labor law governing part-time faculty was so restrictive it made organizing almost impossible. Last year, the law was changed to stipulate that adjunct faculty who have taught six or more hours for two consecutive semesters, and who have a reasonable expectation of teaching in the following semester, are eligible to be represented by a union.

There are 655 part-time faculty teaching in the seven colleges of the system, says Perry Buckley with the CCCTU. Of those, 196 had taught the requisite hours to qualify for unionization last semester. But the number is growing all the time, Buckley adds. The union filed with signatures from 80 percent of the 196 part-timers.

More than 700 full-time faculty teach in the City Colleges and are represented by the CCCTU. Until about 15 years ago, 90 percent of the teachers were full time, says Buckley, but slowly, the colleges stopped replacing full-time faculty when they left. Three years ago, it got critical, says Buckley. In his department, English, at Wilbur Wright College, the number of classes taught by full-time faculty dipped below 50 percent.

The adjuncts have no benefits and are paid as little as $1,300 per course. In comparison with the average full-time faculty salary of $70,000, the adjuncts might make $15,000. "These are the migrant workers of the 21st century, and it's got to stop," Buckley exclaims.

The CCAFO hopes to get an election date by late winter or early spring, says Buckley, with a contract by the beginning of next school year.