As The Voice went to press, UUP members were busy scheduling meetings with state lawmakers in their home districts. Their urgency was prompted by the likelihood that the state Legislature would return to Albany to vote on mid-year budget cuts.

Accompanied by local business leaders, the UUP members planned to stress the negative effects additional budget reductions would have on SUNY and on the economy in communities in which SUNY campuses are located.

But UUP’s advocates set their sights on other targets besides the budget. They focused on the proposed Tier V pension plan that would reduce the retirement benefits of future employees. Two other public employee unions—the Civil Service Employees Association and the Public Employees Federation—agreed to accept Tier V in return for the state’s promise to retract its layoff threat for their members. Lawmakers had yet to vote on Tier V, but UUP President Phillip Smith said it would be unfair if Tier V applied to UUPers.

“Tier V is totally unacceptable to us unless our members received the same benefits and protections offered to the other unions,” Smith said.

The advocates also brought their concerns about so-called “flexibility” to the table. Specifically, they’re trying to keep A./S. 2020—the bill that would allow the University at Buffalo to charge differential tuition, and sell or lease campus property in the absence of legislative oversight—from moving forward in the Assembly. The state Senate approved the bill in June. They’re also seeking to stop S. 5836, a bill with similar flexibility provisions that would apply to the three other university centers—Albany, Binghamton and Stony Brook—as well as to SUNY teaching hospitals in Brooklyn and Syracuse.

— Donald Feldstein