Day: June 8, 2015

UUP has long advocated for paid family leave at SUNY, so union members were glad to add their voices to a Moral Mondays vigil in the Capitol to help extend that right to workers throughout the state.

Vice President for Academics Jamie Dangler, Secretary Eileen Landy and members from the Oneonta and Albany chapters joined with dozens of other supporters May 18 to push for a bill that would provide 12 weeks of paid family leave to workers after the birth or adoption of a child, or to care for a seriously ill loved one. Advocates gathered in the second floor War Room of the Capitol to pray, sing and share stories of how family leave helped them after the birth of a child, or during a parent’s illness.

The bill is before both houses, and advocates recently spent a day meeting with lawmakers asking for their support in moving the bill before the session ends. The Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State, Citizen Action and the Albany County Federation of Labor were among the groups that joined UUP and NYSUT at the vigil.

UUP, which has supported paid family leave for years, has kept the push for paid family leave at SUNY at the forefront of their concerns, Dangler said.

“We have members organizing efforts to raise awareness of family leave on many campuses, and some have actually established family leave committees,” said Dangler, who spoke to the supporters at the vigil about the importance of such a benefit. “A number of campus senates have passed resolutions to support paid family leave. And UUP has tried to get a uniform paid family leave policy at SUNY through contract negotiations for many years.”

Landy, above, with Kyle Britton, the Oneonta Chapter’s outreach/legislative director, called statewide paid family leave “an idea whose time has come.”

“It’s unconscionable that we don’t have this,” she said. For people who have children, or family to take care of, it’s a necessity. Not everyone can afford to take time off without pay.”

Bill Simons, president of the Oneonta UUP chapter, called families “the greatest investment this country can make.” He and Rob Compton, Oneonta’s vice president for academics, noted that paid family leave would increase productivity, by not forcing employees to fit care giving for a sick family member around their full-time work responsibilities.

Said Simons, “This is an investment in our future, our children and in America.”

The United States is one of the few industrialized nations that does not provide paid family leave. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act protects a worker’s job during a leave for specified family and medical reasons, but does not require employers to pay employees during the leave.

UUP advocates from five Western New York chapters pushed lawmakers June 1 to adopt a true Maintenance of Effort and create a permanent endowment for public higher education.

The event, which drew members from Alfred, Buffalo State, Buffalo Center, Brockport, and Fredonia chapters, is the second in a series of five spring regional advocacy days at the Capitol. VP for Academics Jamie Dangler, a Cortland Chapter member, and other members from Cortland also took part.

“SUNY ensures access to a public higher education, but New York state seems to want to turn its back on that promise,” Alfred Chapter VP for Professionals William Schultze, left, told Assemblyman Bill Nojay (R-Pittsford). Also pictured are Alfred Chapter President Joe Petrick, right, shaking hands with Nojay, and statewide Executive Board member Ray Gleason of Alfred.

Advocates visited the offices of 17 Western New York lawmakers and urged them to change the current MOE definition to include SUNY’s hospitals and mandatory and inflationary cost increases. The current MOE only requires the state to provide the same level of funding and fringe benefits of the prior state fiscal year.

“The state budget does not fund contractual salary increases or mandatory costs for SUNY, so it amounts to a campus budget cut in disguise,” Dangler told Assemblyman Steve Hawley (R-Batavia).

UUPers asked lawmakers to approve a permanent endowment for public higher education and pass legislation that would require CUNY and SUNY to produce an online report disclosing financial records—including data on vendors, employees and general accounting information—for CUNY and SUNY research foundations, campus foundations and their subsidiaries.

“As an agency that spends taxpayer dollars, the SUNY Research Foundation should be subject to oversight,” Schultze said.

Teacher education was also a topic of discussion. Brockport Chapter member Jack Casement said the number of student teachers Brockport has in the field has dropped by half since last year; the drop coincided with new, deeply flawed teacher certification exams instituted by the State Education Department.

“We see the plummeting of interest in teaching,” Casement said. “Imposing external forces on what teachers should be deciding is to blame.”

Casement told legislators about UUP’s call for SED and the Board of Regents to investigate the new exams, which were created and administered by corporate education giant Pearson Inc.

UUPers from the Capital Region and Mid-Hudson Valley took part in an advocacy day June 2. Advocates from Long Island and New York City visit Albany June 9, followed by Central New York activists June 10.

There’s still time to take part in a spring advocacy events. Click here to sign up.