UUP members at Stony Brook HSC played a big part in the success of the second annual Suffolk County Minority Health Summit.

Eleven UUPers took part in the daylong event, co-sponsored by the Stony Brook HSC chapter, the Center for Public Health and Health Policy Research at Stony Brook (CPHHPR), the Suffolk County Minority Health Action Coalition (SMHAC) and Literacy Suffolk, Inc. It was held Nov. 21 at Stony Brook’s Southampton campus.

“The summit was definitely successful and it was well received,” said Jewel Stafford, a UUPer and CPHHPR’s research coordinator. “We were humbled by the community presence that was there and how many people are really committed to improving their community through a collective vision.”

About 80 Suffolk County residents attended the event, intended to reach out to communities on the eastern end of Long Island, which has limited access to vital health care resources. The summit was designed to identify minority health issues and develop methods to address those concerns.

“Through the summit, we’re trying to aid underserved people in the community and get them the health care information that they need,” said Charles Hines, Stony Brook HSC’s chapter treasurer and a UUP delegate. “We’re a hospital and a health technology center. We can incorporate all our skills into this.”

The summit is an extension of the CPHHPR, which is committed to improving the health of Long Island residents through researching critical public health issues there—including a lack of access to cancer screening, growing incidence of HIV/AIDS and increased gang violence.

Stafford said there’s every intention to stage a third summit in 2010.

“We have this consistent presence, this collective unit that’s dedicated to address the needs of these communities.”

— Michael Lisi

Just days after Gov. Paterson imposed a devastating $90 million midyear budget cut for SUNY, UUP President Phillip Smith took the union’s concerns to state lawmakers. Testifying Oct. 21 before the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, Smith said the $90 million reduction to SUNY was the largest affecting all state agencies. It meant SUNY was being asked to absorb 18 percent of the total $500 million reduction.

“Even in the face of a state fiscal crisis, there is no reasonable justification to place such an undue burden on one state agency,” Smith testified.

He stressed that students are bearing the brunt of this series of budget cuts.

“In 1990, the state funded 75 percent of the University’s operating budget. After the governor’s latest reduction, students are now financing more than half of SUNY’s operating budget,” Smith said.

Cuts run deep

Smith told lawmakers that, in the last 18 months, state support for SUNY dropped by a shocking $410 million. That translates to 17 percent of SUNY’s operating budget. Smith warned that budget slicing has already exacted a toll on the University in the form of swelling class sizes, frequent course cancellations, delayed graduations, denied admissions and fewer full-time faculty. Smith said the cuts could not have come at a worse time.

“It is particularly unfortunate that these cuts have occurred during a time of economic recession, when educating or retraining New York’s workforce is particularly imperative, and at a time when college affordability has become an issue of statewide importance,” Smith testified.

UUP’s statewide affiliate NYSUT also linked SUNY’s well-being to the state’s economic future.

“Our public universities are being cut when the demand for their services is at an all-time high,” NYSUT Director of Legislation Stephen Allinger testified. “This is counterproductive when you consider that intellectual capital is what is driving economies around the world and is what our state needs to foster economic growth.”

SUNY’s hospitals and health science centers are not immune to the state budget malaise. Smith said state subsidy reductions combined with Medicaid cuts have pushed them to the breaking point.

“The quality of health care provided by these institutions is already at great risk, and further reductions in Medicaid support will undermine their ability to serve the needy,” Smith testified.

He urged lawmakers to reverse the $90 million budget cut and to protect SUNY hospitals from additional Medicaid cuts.

Earlier, Smith testified in New York City on another matter of concern to SUNY and UUP—balancing traditional teaching with research and technology. Addressing the Governor’s Task Force on Diversifying the New York Economy through Industry/Higher Education Cooperation, Smith said the focus on research and technology has been overemphasized for the last 20 years.

“We certainly agree that university/industry affiliations are important to both the University’s reputation and the state’s economic growth,” Smith testified. “But there needs to be more of a balanced approach. The University needs to reaffirm its original emphasis on teaching and learning.”

— Donald Feldstein

If not now, when?

If not you, who?

These simple phrases have become the mantras of union officers and UUP Outreach Committee members, who are calling on all of their colleagues to stand up and speak out for SUNY.

“The governor’s midyear cuts are bleeding SUNY dry,” said UUP President Phillip Smith. “This isn’t just my fight. This is our fight, and everyone has a stake in it. We have to act like it’s our own job, our own students, that we’re fighting for—because it is.”

UUP has placed extra emphasis on meeting with lawmakers in their home districts—and it’s beginning to pay off. In recent weeks, UUPers from a handful of chapters around the state have taken time out of their busy schedules to talk with legislators about SUNY’s role in the state’s economic recovery, and the devastation further cuts would have on the University and its students.

Several chapters are leading the way by scheduling multiple meetings with lawmakers. For instance, the Upstate Medical University Chapter sent representatives to lawmakers’ offices on five separate occasions since October—and walked away feeling better about the support Upstate and SUNY have on both sides of the political aisle.

In a meeting with Assemblyman Albert Stirpe (D-North Syracuse), UUPers David Peckham, Brian Tappen and Carol Braund stressed the need to keep SUNY and its hospitals intact.

“We recognize that New York state is money-starved and every program and agency will face cuts,” said Tappen, a member of the statewide UUP Executive Board. “But it was good to hear firsthand that Assemblyman Stirpe agrees with UUP when we say that education and health care cuts should be ‘least and last, not first and most.’”

Assemblyman Will Barclay (R-Fulton) saw eye to eye with UUP about the damaging cuts SUNY has faced, as well as on the dangers of proposed flexibility legislation. Barclay agrees that SUNY should have some flexibility to improve efficiency, but rejects the idea of full autonomy. Barclay told the UUPers he opposes A./S.2020 and similar legislation that runs counter to SUNY’s mission of providing an affordable, accessible, quality public higher education.

Dozens of the rank-and-file unionists who have met with lawmakers had earlier taken part in one of several regional training sessions. The training is designed to educate UUPers on the union’s key issues and to supply them with the tools they need to make the case for SUNY.

The UUP Outreach Committee has been conducting training sessions around the state on how to advocate for the union and University. People who take part in the training are provided with talking points on the union’s priority issues, as well as a complete contact list for state senators and assemblymembers. Trainees also take part in role-playing activities and learn successful advocacy practices.

“In order to advocate on behalf of UUP and SUNY, we must engage in local advocacy,” Outreach Committee Co-chair Glenn McNitt told participants during an Oct. 28 training session in Albany. “Representatives often have more time to spend talking with us, and legislators pay special attention to constituents who visit their district office.”

— Karen L. Mattison

None of the nearly 40 members of the UUP Outreach Committee minced words about the challenges UUP and SUNY face during the committee’s retreat Nov. 6-7 in Albany. And the threat posed by flexibility is near the top of the committee’s worry list.

“Flexibility threatens to dismantle the public nature of the University,” UUP President Phillip Smith told committee members. “Selling or leasing campus property removes opportunities for future expansion of academic programs and services.”

The chances for final legislative approval of A./S.2020—the bill that would allow the University at Buffalo to sell or lease campus property and charge differential tuition—have waned, committee members were told. But another bill, S.5836, is lurking on the horizon. The bill would allow similar provisions at SUNY’s other university centers—Stony Brook, Binghamton and Albany—as well as at SUNY teaching hospitals in Brooklyn and Syracuse.

“Not many people have been talking against it,” said Outreach Committee Co-chair Glenn McNitt.

Over and above the governor’s $90 million midyear budget reduction for SUNY, Smith warned the University faces the prospect of more cuts down the road, citing that federal stimulus funds run out in 2012, and higher state tax rates on the wealthy end the following year.

“We in Albany can’t do it alone,” Smith said in an appeal for increased participation in advocacy activities. “Lawmakers have to hear from the grassroots.”

Committee members debated the form and content of the union’s 2010 Legislative Agenda that will be submitted to the Executive Board for final approval.

Following that discussion, McNitt closed the retreat with a charge to the committee.

“We should leave here knowing we’re better organized,” he said. “Develop a list of groups in the community you can talk to about our mutual concerns, and know what you’re going to say to them.”

— Donald Feldstein

They dubbed it the “Un/Happy Hour” to make a strong statement about the inadequacies part-time and contingent UUP faculty face in Cortland and on campuses across the state and nation.

That’s how Cortland UUPers spotlighted Campus Equity Week (CEW) on their campus.

The event was also an opportunity for members and students to say thank you to adjuncts for the essential work they do.

“It was really meant to extend our appreciation to part-timers,” Cortland Chapter President Jamie Dangler said of the Oct. 29 event. “Our part-time members do feel that they are marginalized on the campus. They need to understand that we value them.”

Held biannually, CEW is an AFT-sponsored national initiative to publicize issues of fairness and quality related to higher education part-time and contingent faculty in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. CEW was held Oct. 26-31.

This year, UUP was one of hundreds of higher education unions affiliated with AFT that observed CEW by calling attention to the injustices these oft-exploited employees endure.

“Campus Equity Week is a wail of pain and rage at some campuses, as sweeping layoffs are disguised as ‘nonrenewals’ and a quasi-invisible instructional faculty is gutted, unemployed and uninsured,” said UAlbany UUPer Jill Hanifan, who co-chairs the union’s Part-Time Concerns Committee. “At other campuses, it’s an urgent and sobering message about workload creep. It’s also been a catalyst for (administrators) to publicly acknowledge the essential contributions of part-time and contingent faculty.”

UUP and its chapters have done the latter, achieving significant gains for part-timers since the first Campus Equity Week in 2001.

Since then, chapters have worked for starting salary increases for part-timers and enacted separate labor/management meetings for part-time issues, as provided in UUP’s contract with the state.

Statewide, UUP has secured full health, vision and dental benefits for eligible part-timers, as well as vacation and sick leave benefits.

“UUP has worked tirelessly for the fair treatment of part-time and contingent faculty,” said UUP President Phillip Smith. “Their contributions are significant and deserve to be highlighted, and not just during Campus Equity Week.”

Higher education unions nationwide have held up UUP’s negotiated gains for part-timers as examples of equity during their heated contract battles. Still, adjuncts are paid far less than full-time faculty and lack job security—which essentially robs them of academic freedom, proponents say.

“Campus Equity Week raises the awareness of the contributions of part-timers and the insidious attack on tenure, as there is a rising number of contingent faculty in ranks of higher education across the country,” said Stony Brook HSC member Carolyn Kube, co-chair of UUP’s Part-Time Concerns Committee.

Now more than ever, a growing number of SUNY colleges and universities are increasing their reliance on part-time faculty as a way to stem extreme state budget cuts to the University.

Nearly half of Cortland’s faculty is made up of part-timers. Farmingdale and Plattsburgh also employ large numbers of adjuncts.

At New Paltz, where more than 100 part-time faculty weren’t renewed in the fall due to campus budget-cutting measures, CEW was a chance to shine light on the importance of adjuncts there and statewide.

New Paltz Chapter President Richard Kelder and Peter D.G. Brown, the chapter’s vice president for academics, talked with students and colleagues at a CEW informational table in the college’s Jacobson Faculty Tower.

Said Kelder: “Many of our adjunct faculty have served the college with distinction and dedication for many years. They are entitled to job security and better compensation.”

“We have achieved much, but our work is not done,” said Smith. “UUP will continue that battle.”

— Michael Lisi

For decades, part-time faculty at the nation’s colleges and universities have used legislation, litigation and negotiation in their struggle for fair wages and benefits. They’ve made their case in state legislatures, before the courts and at the bargaining table. Some have been won; many have been lost.

But nowhere have there been more gains than in New York, where UUP has achieved unprecedented benefits for the part-time employees it represents. Specific gains were outlined in the 2001 AFT report “Marching Toward Equity: Curbing the Exploitation and Overuse of Part-time and Non-tenured Faculty,” in which it was reported that UUP’s 1999-2003 contract “resulted in one of the most comprehensive packages of part-time pay and benefits in the country so far.”

“UUP has worked long and hard to make inroads for part-timers,” said UUP President Phillip Smith. “The gains we’ve made have taken years to achieve. It has been an uphill battle for UUP—both at the bargaining table and in campus labor/management meetings—but one we’ll keep on fighting. Our part-time colleagues have been exploited long enough.”

Slowly but surely, UUP contracts over the years have grown to include provisions for part-time faculty that, in many areas, mirror those for full-time faculty, including year-round health insurance, contractual salary increases, lump sum payments, opportunities for professional development, and dental, vision and prescription drug coverage. A detailed fact sheet on contractual benefits can be found on the UUP Web site at www.uupinfo.org. Click on Benefits and scroll down to Part-timers.

Since 2001, UUP chapters have taken a stand during Campus Equity Week (CEW), an international initiative designed to educate the public, college communities and policymakers on issues of fairness and equity for part-time faculty in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. UUP views CEW as one important way to raise awareness about the inequitable employment practices faced by part-timers and to highlight the quality of contributions they make on SUNY campuses (see related story, page 11).

UUP’s new Task Force on Contingent Employees is another way the union is working for its members.

In March, President Smith charged the committee to define “contingent” from the perspective of UUP and SUNY, and to identify the various relationships among contingent workers. The nine-member task force will recommend actions, policies and procedures to address the concerns of SUNY’s contingent faculty, such as part-timers who want full-time work and full-timers who want a tenure-track position or the opportunity for permanent appointment.

“This is another important step in our journey for parity for all academic and professional members,” Smith said. “The task force report will give UUP the ammunition is needs to shoot holes in any arguments made by SUNY and the state.”

The union’s Part-time Concerns Committee, co-chaired by Jill Hanifan of Albany and Carolyn Kube of Stony Brook HSC, has also created a Web site that includes a password-protected link for committee members to exchange ideas. To log on to the public site, go to www.uupinfo.org, click on Committees on the left side of the home page and then scroll down to Part-time Concerns Committee.

And there’s a new national organization dedicated to achieving professional equity and advancing academic freedom for contingent faculty across the country.

Called the New Faculty Majority: The National Coalition for Adjunct & Contingent Equity, the group’s board of directors includes UUP members Peter D.G. Brown of New Paltz, Ross Borden of Cortland and Anne Weigard of Cortland, who serves as secretary for New Faculty Majority.

Go to www.newfacultymajority.info to learn more.

– Karen L. Mattison