ALASKA AFFILIATE WINS BARGAINING BATTLE

The Alaska Public Employees Association (APEA), an affiliate of AFT Public Employees, won an important battle in March when a state Senate committee postponed hearings indefinitely on a proposal to revoke the collective bargaining rights of nearly 1,000 state employees.

No doubt, legislators were responding to their constituents—APEA members—who have been vocal in the union’s campaign to thwart the measure.

The proposal, submitted by Gov. Frank Murkowski’s administration, would eliminate union protection for supervisors and employees who work in personnel management. APEA counts both groups of employees among its membership.

“The war is far from over,” says Dennis Geary, APEA’s assistant business manager. “We’ve been told that it is the governor’s No. 1 priority.”

THE ‘GOVINATOR’ ATTACKS CALIF. LABOR INSTITUTE

Labor activists in California, including AFT affiliates there, are fighting what they assert is the politically motivated elimination of the Institute for Labor and Employment (ILE) at the University of California Berkeley and at UCLA.

Last November, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger halved the institute’s 2003-04 budget, to $2 million. In December, he proposed zero funding for 2004-05. The ILE was the only program specifically identified in the governor’s list of $150 million in program cuts. In a letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger, AFT president Sandra Feldman asked why labor research would be eliminated while much bigger business and management programs would hardly be touched. For more information on ILE, visit www.ucop.edu/ile.

PEF HOLDS THE LINE IN CONTRACT TALKS

The New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) may not be the biggest of the nine unions representing state employees, but it is the union that has established contract settlement standards during the latest wave of negotiations. The reason: members are engaged.

Earlier this year, PEF, an affiliate of AFT Public Employees, launched the Take the Contract Pledge campaign. “I will not accept a contract that does not have a base wage increase in each year and that has significant health concessions including increases in premium percentages,” were among the pledge vows. More than 7,000 pledges have been delivered to Gov. George Pataki.

“PEF has directly impacted the final form of what may be the [settlement] pattern without actually being the first union” to reach a tentative agreement, said PEF president Roger Benson about the tentative contract settlement in March between the state and the largest state employee union. “We have done that by clearly creating pressure on the bargaining parties with the pledge campaign to enhance a settlement that is now significantly stronger than the original agreement.”

At press time, negotiations between PEF and the state were ongoing.