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Wisconsin faculty push for bargaining
Could it be that collective bargaining rights are finally within reach for Wisconsin’s four-year faculty? As legislative tides shift and the public reacts to news of faculty salaries well below the national average, prospects for a law that would guarantee University of Wisconsin academics the right to bargain collectively for fair pay and decent working conditions seem better than they have in years.
Many factors have contributed to hope among faculty and professional staff mem-bers of The Association of University of Wis-consin Professionals/AFT (-TAUWP), the 90-year-old nonbargaining local that first lobbied for a collective bargaining bill in 1975. Not least among them is members’ own diligent work meeting with legislators increasingly supportive of collective bargaining rights. Also, 14 of 15 faculty senates at University of Wisconsin campuses have declared support for collective bargaining rights, and at the 15th, UW-Madison, faculty are attending to details that indicate a favorable outcome. The UW board of trustees has turned over and now has more members who favor collective bargaining rights, and new UW system president Kevin Reilly spent much of his career at the State University of New York where collective bargaining is an accepted part of the landscape.
In the capital, lawmakers are working with Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat who stated his support for collective bargaining rights during his 2002 campaign. And things look good in the Legislature, as well. Majority Leader Dale Schultz has promised a hearing for the collective bargaining rights bill in the Senate, says Bob Beglinger, president of AFT-Wisconsin. In the Assembly, the co-chair of the joint finance committee has agreed to sponsor the bill, and meetings around the state continue to influence his colleagues.
The last time a collective bargaining bill came up in Wisconsin was in 2001, when it made it through Senate committee but never came to the floor of the chamber. This time, says Beglinger, “It’s not going to be pigeonholed somewhere and not see the light of day.”
Marder tenure case Is a catalyst
Some faculty members have worked particularly hard for bargaining rights since John Marder was fired from UW-Superior in the 1990s, putting other faculty on alert that tenure provides no guarantees. The case became a cause célèbre when the tenured faculty member lost his job after questionable charges were made against him. Marder was accused of sexual harassment and uncollegial behavior, but two faculty committees and the personnel committee for the board of regents found insufficient evidence for dismissal. The chancellor fired him anyway, without proper dismissal proceedings. AFT-Wisconsin helped Marder sue UW. A circuit court action recently ordered the release of a board of regents report that recommended dismissing the charges against Marder, and the state Supreme Court will hear the case in September.
Also of note is a resolution calling for an investigation of UW’s use of the Safransky Standard, the result of a court ruling involving the dismissal of a state employee. The ruling, used to rationalize the action against Marder, makes it possible to dismiss faculty members if “some deficiency has been demonstrated which can reasonably be said to have a tendency to impair the performance of the duties of his position or the efficiency of the group with which he works.” The vague language makes abuse of this standard all too possible.
“If Safransky holds, we might as well let all faculty and future faculty know that we don’t have tenure at the University of Wisconsin,” says Ray Spoto, past president of TAUWP. “People can be fired for anything. That’s why we need collective bargaining.”
Montana approaches 100 percent union
Using solid backing from existing locals in Montana this year, the MEA-MFT (the merged AFT-NEA state federation) has brought two more colleges into the fold, leaving it just one institution shy of having blanket membership among its state institutions.
First in January, faculty at Miles Community College voted 15-3 in favor of the AFT, establishing the MCC Faculty Association as its bargaining agent. MCCFA represents 20 faculty at the small college. On May 23, faculty at Montana Tech of the University of Montana in Butte voted in favor of union representation. Both locals are MEA-MFT affiliates.
In the Montana Tech election, where faculty voted 31-25 for the union, the bargaining unit includes all faculty who work more than half time with the exception of registered nurses, professional engineers and engineers in training, who are excluded by definition. The success was largely due to help from MEA-MFT members across the state, who visited and called faculty at Montana Tech to explain the campaign and encourage them to unionize, says Melissa Case, organizing director of MEA-MFT.
The campaign centered around what Case calls traditional respect and dignity issues, as well as salary equity, tenure-track positions for lab directors, and funding in general. As the state cuts further into education allotments, tuition has skyrocketed.
After winning the union election, the Miles Community College FA is already tackling its first big challenge: one of its primary faculty organizers, Earl Kiddie, did not have his contract renewed. The board of trustees has refused to give a reason why, but organizers suspect it is because Kiddie brought the union to campus.
Kiddie says he had approached the MEA-MFT after a dispute regarding course overload pay. Now Kiddie is paying. His was the only nonrenewed contract, he says. Scott McCulloch, MCC’s MEA-MFT field consultant, says the state federation is filing an unfair labor practice suit.
