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Rutgers president agrees to neutrality
University will stop union-busting intimidation tactics
Months of intimidation for midlevel administrators seeking to form a union at Rutgers University came to an end on Jan. 26, when Rutgers University president Richard McCormick e-mailed over 3,000 employees to “clarify the University’s position on employees’ freedom to choose union representation.” “Rutgers employees should feel free to engage in the process of gaining union representation,” he wrote. “No member of the Rutgers staff should feel reticent about speaking openly about the union at work or displaying union paraphernalia in an appropriate way.”
That clarification came as a result of a neutrality agreement between the AFT and the university, negotiated under the direction of the New Jersey Department of Labor (acting on behalf of Gov. Jon Corzine) and with key assistance from N.J. AFL-CIO president Charles Wowkanech.
The employees, organizing under the banner of the Union of Rutgers Administrators-AFT, have been trying to form a union under the state’s card-check law since spring 2006. The URA would be the largest union to form since the Legislature passed the card-check law in 2005.
On a campus where 70 percent of the employees are unionized—including full- and part-time faculty and graduate employees who are represented jointly by the AFT and the American Association of University Professors—bringing in a group of administrative professionals and staff would seem like an easy sweep. But not so: An environment of fear had carried over from the previous organizing attempts and had been perpetuated by the central administration conveying the message in myriad ways that employees would be better off not talking about or considering a union.
In October, November and December of 2006, the university human resources department sent three anti-union e-mails to the employees, which had a “chilling effect,” says Nat Bender, a URA organizing committee member who works in the New Jersey Small Business Development Center at Rutgers. The first one characterized union supporters as similar to “outside vendors or solicitors” who have “disrupted and interfered with your job duties and your work site, and have not respected your privacy at home.” Later e-mails promised employees they would get a better deal from the university without a union.
Julia Zapcic, director of development for the Rutgers Libraries, had an unnerving experience when she agreed to show her support for the union by providing a testimonial in a URA flier. The day after it came out, she recounted, “Someone commented, ‘it’s not in your job description to be a dissident.’ I was shocked.” But she held fast to her values.
At a rally held Jan. 31, Zapcic introduced Gov. Corzine, who came to campus to reinforce every employee’s right to fully evaluate the benefits of forming a union.
“People ought to have the ability to make a decision based on the free flow of information, especially on a college campus,” he said. “That’s what neutrality agreements are all about.”
Also at the rally were 200 Rutgers professionals; state Rep. Linda Stender; United University Professions president William Scheuerman, who is also an AFT vice president; and state Rep. Patrick Diegnan, chair of the Assembly higher education committee. Before the neutrality agreement was signed, many members of the Legislature wrote stinging letters of rebuke to McCormick for his use of taxpayer dollars to hire a union-busting consultant and to threaten employees.
The agreement is “a credit to the governor, who rose to the occasion,” says Wowkanech, “and to the Assembly speaker and Senate president, and legislators on both sides of the aisle. It’s proof positive that politics and organizing go hand in hand.”
AFT members rally against Iraq War
Counted among the thousands of Americans who mobilized in Washington, D.C., for a late January rally against the Iraq war were hundreds of AFT members—many of whom crossed several states with their families and friends to participate in the demonstration on the National Mall.More than 300 AFT members in New York City boarded five buses in the cold, early hours of Jan. 27. In Washington, they joined thousands of other trade unionists who streamed toward the U.S. Capitol. Many AFT members carried “Money for Education, Not War” signs as they joined in support of a speedy end to the Iraq conflict. The United Federation of Teachers and the Professional Staff Congress, both AFT affiliates, provided buses for members who wanted to participate in the demonstration. Also represented were the United University Professions, the Michigan StateGraduate Employees Union, the Faculty and Staff Federation of the Community College of Pennsylvania, the Northern Montana College Federation of Teachers and the Community College Council of the California Federation of Teachers.
A few days earlier, the UFT Delegate Assembly voted for a union resolution that backed the anti-war demonstration and provided bus transportation to the event, New York Teacher reports. Jonathan Lessuck, chapter leader of the New York City Museum School, was one of those who spoke for the resolution. At a time when lives are being lost and billions are being spent on the Iraq conflict, “there is no way that we can meet the needs of our members and our students without bringing this war to an end,” he said.
CUNY passes policy that erodes academic freedom
Despite faculty outcry, the City University of New York board of trustees has adopted new policies on faculty conduct and computer use that violate the contract and erode academic freedom, say the union and the faculty senate.
The administration proposed the policies late last fall and, with minor changes, the board adopted them Jan. 29.
Viewed in a national context, the policy changes are one more alarming example of a trend to monitor and limit expression in the classroom. (For more examples, see Academic Freedom Forum, page 17.)
The first, “Procedures for Handling Student Complaints about Faculty Conduct in Academic Settings,” sets up a new mechanism for students to complain “about conduct that is not protected by academic freedom and not addressed in other procedures,” such as the existing policies for dealing with grade and academic integrity appeals, harassment and discrimination.
The mechanism establishes a “Fact Finder”—usually the department chair—who is designated to receive complaints in writing and rule on them within 30 days. Should either party appeal, the chief academic officer forms and heads an appeals committee, which includes the chief student affairs officer, two elected faculty members and one elected student. If found guilty, the faculty member would receive a letter in his or her file or be subject to other disciplinary action.
At the hearing, PSC member Frank Kirkland, chair of the philosophy department at Hunter College, noted that a procedure already exists for students to complain under a provision of the PSC contract. Later, when the board adopted its policy, it picked up language directly from the Professional Staff Congress collective bargaining agreement: “Examples might include incompetent or inefficient service, neglect of duty, physical or mental incapacity and conduct unbecoming a member of the staff.”
The union commented on the change the next day: “Since there is already an established disciplinary procedure in place in dealing with such conduct—the disciplinary procedure spelled out in the contract—it’s unclear (as it has been all along) why this new procedure is needed at all. Moreover...by policy fiat, the Board of Trustees is taking away the due process rights of faculty long established through a negotiated, mutually agreed upon and contractually binding disciplinary procedure.”
In an open letter to colleagues, CUNY University Faculty Senate chair Manfred Philipp said the policy was “inimical to the best interests of the university.” As a former department chair himself, he wrote, he was concerned about the dangerous power the procedure would give to chairs.
Part-time faculty would be particularly vulnerable under the policy, notes the union. Speaking to the PSC Clarion newspaper, PSC vice president for part-time personnel Marcia Neufield asked, “What will happen when a student complains about an adjunct? For many chairs, the simplest thing will simply be to not rehire that adjunct. Who is protecting that adjunct’s academic freedom?”
The second policy the board adopted on Jan. 31 relates to computer use. Lengthier than the student complaint policy, it updates a policy last modified in 1995.
While some of the changes are necessary and commendable, says Joan Greenbaum, professor of interactive technology and pedagogy at the CUNY Graduate Center, at a five-hour board hearing on the policy proposals, she complained that overall the policy is “a muddleheaded hodgepodge and an embarrassment from technical and political points of view.”
One ill-defined provision contradicts university principles of academic freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry, testified Bonnie Nelson, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The provision gives CUNY the right to inspect and monitor any aspect of any faculty member’s e-mail, Internet or classroom use with no notice, “when an account appears to be engaged in unusual or unusually excessive activity.”
“Article 4 of the Bill of Rights—search and seizure—gives us more rights than this policy,” notes Greenbaum. “This directly affects union issues. An employee could lose their access to the computer, which means losing their livelihood, which means losing their job. ”
The fact that the new policies come at a time when the campaign of conservative ideologue David Horowitz is politicizing the climate on campus does not escape the CUNY faculty. “For the past ten years, far-right groups outside the academy have been organizing to police higher education and discredit progressive thought,” PSC president Barbara Bowen wrote in a Clarion editorial. The new policy provides “an opening for such groups to intensify their activity at CUNY.”
Although the computer use and student complaint proposals are now official policy, the union says the issues raised are not closed. “We will take steps to address that this violates the contract,” says Bowen, who is also an AFT vice president. “We will do it very forcefully, because we need to defend our members.”
