AT UUPINFO.ORG; Guide helps members balance work, family

To support members’ efforts to balance their family and work needs, UUP has compiled a guide that outlines options to address family leave needs and identifies programs and services that can assist professionals and academics as they attempt to balance work and family life.

UUP’s goal was to bring together information members need to know to explore possibilities and identify the services available to them.

The Family Leave/Work- Life Services Guide is not intended to address all circumstances or individual issues. It does, however, provide a comprehensive picture of possible options and benefits UUP members can access. Members are advised to seek additional information from their UUP chapter officers and/or campus Human Resources departments.

To read the guide online, click on it from the UUP home page or under Reports/Guides in the left-hand toolbar.

NLRB RULING; Decision may boost grad employee organizing

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently took favorable action on a petition from the New York University Graduate Student Organizing Committee/United Auto Workers seeking a vote on union representation for graduate teaching and research assistants at NYU.

In October, the NLRB overruled a decision by a regional director, stating that it was not possible to judge the accuracy of representations made by the union and the university without holding a hearing on the petition.

Also, the NLRB found “compelling reasons” to reconsider a 2004 board precedent that graduate students at Brown University were students and not employees under the National Labor Relations Act.

“The NLRB’s direction here gives the board the opportunity to get it right and correct the obvious flaws in the Brown decision,” said David Strom, general counsel for the American Federation of Teachers.

The NYU case has been returned to the NLRB regional director, who is charged with holding a full hearing and issuing a new decision based on the evidence.

AT UUPINFO.ORG; Booklet available to help organize vital records

Having personal information in one place can make it easier for UUP members and their families to deal with the unexpected.

That’s why UUP’s Committee on Active Retired Membership compiled a new booklet—Organizing Your Vital Records—to help members more easily navigate moments of change.

The booklet is available for download at www.uupinfo.org. Click on Reports/Guides.

Online survey: Study under way on contingent academics—The Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW) is kicking off a major survey of contingent faculty, instructors and researchers, including graduate employees.

The survey is the first national study of its kind to examine salaries, benefits, course assignments, and general working conditions facing contingent academic employees.

The survey will collect institution-specific and course-specific information to create a more textured and realistic picture of contingent academic workers’ working lives and working conditions.

CAW hopes that a sufficient number of respondents will complete the survey, which will help CAW develop a rich dataset that will be available to CAW member organizations to advocate on behalf of professional compensation and working conditions for the contingent academic workforce.

UUP’s national affiliate, the America Federation of Teachers, is an active participant in CAW. To take the survey, go to www.surveymonkey.com/s/VNNNRVS.

And AFT’s survey says: State worker wage growth flat; gap persists—A standard talking point among some politicians, pundits and anti-government groups masked as think tanks is that government employees make more money than private-sector workers.

Not so, according to the 2010 AFT Public Employees Compensation Survey of state government jobs, which is the only national survey of its kind. In fact, the survey’s authors found that private-sector occupations that have a comparable match in state government earn at least 20 percent more on average. The gap between private- and public-sector pay is much larger in some occupations. On average, an attorney working for the government earns 57 cents for every dollar earned by a private-sector lawyer; a government-paid chemist earns 65 cents for every dollar earned by a private-sector chemist; and a government-paid librarian earns only 74 cents for every dollar earned by a private-sector librarian.

The survey, released every September, reflects pay rates in effect March 1 of the same year for 45 professional, scientific and related occupations in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

For the first time since the AFT started publishing the survey in 2000, wage growth was virtually flat, up an average of 0.4 percent to $47,245.

Don’t buy: AFT avoids doing business with Harrah’s Entertainment—The AFT will not conduct any business with Harrah’s Entertainment—which owns casinos and resorts around the United States—as long as the company continues to stonewall in contract negotiations with United Auto Workers members in Atlantic City, said AFT President Randi Weingarten in an Aug. 19 letter to Harrah’s CEO Gary Loveman.

“We have more than 1.4 million members nationwide with our greatest concentration in the Northeast,” Weingarten wrote. “Atlantic City has been a favored destination for our members and their families. Las Vegas is another popular venue for our meetings. However, while this stalemate continues, we will be actively seeking alternate business relationships and facilities for upcoming conventions and meetings.”

The AFT looks forward to hearing of the fair resolution of a contract with the UAW Atlantic City dealers’ union, she said. “Until that time, our policy is to take our meeting and convention business elsewhere.”  For more information about the labor dispute, go to the Atlantic City Casino Workers Web site at www.acdealersunion.com.

Justice prevails: Colorado faculty win court case on tenure—In a case that holds national implications, the Metropolitan State College of Denver Board of Trustees has decided not to appeal a significant state district court ruling on faculty tenure protections written into faculty handbooks. In June, a Denver District Court judge ruled that the college violated faculty rights when it rewrote the faculty handbook to eliminate tenure retroactively.

The case began six years ago, when the board of trustees at Metropolitan State College of Denver rewrote the handbook. The Metropolitan State Faculty Federation, an AFT affiliate, filed suit. The District Court judge later ruled that the board’s actions were legally void, and faculty tenure rights were restored. Last week, the Metro State Board of Trustees decided not to appeal the ruling.

David Strom, AFT general counsel, believes that “it was a significant accomplishment to convince a court that a handbook is binding and can confer vested tenure rights. Most employers believe that handbooks are policy statements, subject to change, that do not create permanent rights.”

This case is especially significant since Colorado does not have collective bargaining rights.

AFL-CIO news:‘Working NY’ television show starts again Oct. 7—The fourth season of “Working New York”—a half-hour talk show designed to inform the general public of policies, issues and initiatives important to working men and women and their families—begins at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 7.

Airing the first and third Wednesdays of each month, the program is hosted by New York state AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes and addresses a wide range of social, political and economic issues from the point of view of working people. The show attracts a diverse collection of guests from the worlds of politics, literature, entertainment and labor. Regional News Network is a broadcast network that currently reaches close to five million households in the tri-state area. In New York, RNN airs on cable and satellite systems from Long Island, through New York City and the Hudson Valley and into the Capital District.

For more information about the show or for a listing of stations, go to www.nysaflcio.org.

In memoriam: UUP mourns former statewide treasurer—Former UUP treasurer Frank DiNoto died Aug. 5 following a long illness. He was 77.

DiNoto, who served as union treasurer from June 1974 to October 1975, was director of financial aid at SUNY Fredonia. He left the college in 1977.

He was a teacher in the Fishkill School System for more than 25 years.

DiNoto received his bachelor’s degree from UAlbany and his master’s from Penn State.

— Karen L. Mattison

UUPers urged to help Iraqi workers by signing USLAW petition— Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein died in 2006, but his restrictive 1987 law barring the formation of unions and collective bargaining is still being enforced.

And America has remained silent on the issue for too long, according to U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), a coalition of 184 unions working to mobilize support to end war and protect workers’ rights around the world.

UUP members can help Iraqi workers who risk beatings, torture and even death for organizing unions by signing an online petition on the USLAW Web site, http://uslaboragainstwar.org/IraqLaborRightsCampaign. The petition asks U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to speak out for labor rights in Iraq and to push the Iraqi government to respect and protect the rights of workers and unions.

Signing the petition is one way to advance a Spring Delegate Assembly resolution calling on UUPers to learn more about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

— Michael Lisi

New Jersey certifies Rutgers postdoctoral union—The New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission has certified the vote of nearly 350 postdoctoral associates and fellows to be represented by Rutgers Council of ABA Chapters/AFT, the union that represents more than 5,000 faculty and graduate employees at Rutgers University. Postdoctoral associates and fellows are grant-based, nontenure-track research faculty who work under the direction of a principal investigator, usually a university professor. Generally, their salaries are low, job security is nonexistent and work rules are arbitrary. “Having a union contract will help us set working conditions that are fair and allow us to better focus on our work,” said Alan Wan, a postdoctoral associate in the chemistry department.

Western Michigan adjuncts, instructors vote for union—Instructors and adjuncts at Western Michigan University cast an overwhelming vote for union representation by the Professional Instructors Organization (PIO), which is affiliated with AFT Michigan. The vote, counted June 29 by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, was 207 to 29 for a unit of 430. Janet Heller, a part-time instructor in the gender and women’s studies program, was among a core group of 15 colleagues who began organizing in 2007, when all segments of the community except the instructors got wage increases. “We hadn’t even gotten a cost-of-living raise for 12 or 15 years,” she said. WMU pays the adjuncts $700 per credit hour, and offers no benefits or adequate office space. Achieving more job security and seeing part-time jobs converted to full time are two other priorities for the new union, Heller said.

AFT endorses Trumka   for AFL-CIO president—By unanimous vote, the AFT Executive Council July 11 endorsed Richard Trumka for president of the AFL-CIO.

Officer elections will be held during the AFL-CIO’s September convention. The AFT is the second largest union in the AFL-CIO. AFT President Randi Weingarten praised the slate of officers, which includes Trumka, Elizabeth Shuler for secretary-treasurer and Arlene Holt Baker for executive vice president. “This is a team that understands the importance of a united, re-energized labor movement. We look forward to having them lead our movement,” Weingarten said. Trumka, speaking to the AFT Executive Council by phone from Arkansas, pledged to keep working people’s issues at the forefront of the national agenda. “We need to become the unquestioned voice of people who work hard and play by the rules,” Trumka said.

Weingarten steps down as UFT president—Randi Weingarten, who was elected AFT president one year ago, announced June 24 that she will devote herself full time to that role and is stepping down from her position as president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) in New York City, effective July 31. Weingarten, elected UFT president in 1998, had held both union positions since  July 2008.

Former UUP statewide VP for academics dies—Former statewide vice president for academics Morris Budin of SUNY Binghamton died May 26 following a long illness. He was 88. A professor emeritus of geography, Budin served as a UUP vice president from 1976-78 and on the statewide Executive Board from 1984-90. “For those of us who were fortunate to know Morris, we recognize that he ‘stood tall’ as a founding member of UUP, the union he loved so much and to which he made monumental contributions,” said UUP President Phillip Smith. “Morris’ work for UUP is almost encyclopedic: Founder, negotiator, vice president, board member, staunch chapter advocate, and loyal friend to many. His passing marks a clear loss for UUP. He will be sorely missed.”

— Karen L. Mattison

UUP earns AAUP Outreach Award—UUP has won national honors for its outstanding political action outreach efforts. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) presented UUP with its Al Sumburg Award during its annual meeting, June 11-14 in Washington, D.C. The award is given to a person or organization whose advocacy efforts have been particularly effective in creating positive change to further higher education interests on a national and/or state level. UUP President Phillip Smith accepted the award on behalf of the union. He said the ABA award recognizes the hard work and success of UUP’s advocacy campaigns in 2008-09, which focused on protecting union jobs, obtaining and retaining state aid for the University and New York’s teaching hospitals, and keeping SUNY whole. “We couldn’t be more proud of this important honor,” said Smith, shown above with UUP Secretary Eileen Landy, who heads up the union’s Legislation Department. “This was truly a team effort.”