UFC Union Report - What we're doing!
As many of you know, outside the bargaining table, UFC is primarily a reactive organization. In short, we react to the things that the administration does when the relate to issues covered in the CBA (or, more generally, wages, salaries, and terms and conditions of employment). Our mechanisms for supporting the faculty include informal meetings, Complaints, Grievances, and Unfair Labor Practice charges.
In addition, we have set up, with the administration, the Labor Management Council: a group of faculty and administrators that are tasked with solving faculty/administration issues, hopefully before they truly become issues. In some cases, this group will be reactive, but we hope to make it more of a proactive group. More details on this group in a future posting!
This space is reserved for providing updates to faculty regarding the above mechanisms. Many descriptions below are deliberately vague - this is to protect the identities of the involved faculty.
Updates: July 2010
As might be expected, budget issues dominated UFC’s activities during the past year. This has ranged from keeping an eye on State budgets and participating in political activities to working on campus with local budgets and the academic planning task force. Some highlights include:
- Completing bargaining and ratifying a completely new CBA (October 2009); some highlights include protecting workloads (the admin wanted everyone to teach more), compression money for fall 2011, a streamlined complaint/grievance process, a better definition of Sr. Lecturer, and fewer evaluations for both reappointment and post-tenure review.
- Worked through a number of faculty issues, including a few complaints and grievances; generally we’re doing quite well for the faculty.
- Ran the tenure/promotion party at Gallery One (and expect to do the same this fall)
- Planning for the 2011 bargaining session. Including statewide meetings to coordinate bargaining efforts with Western, Eastern, and Evergreen.
- Set up both the emergency assistance fund (to help members) and the financial assistance fund (to help those hit by mandatory reductions in hours).
- Worked with UFWS to successfully protect collective bargaining agreements during the last legislative session.
- Worked with UFWS and faculty from Western to develop and fund FYI PAC (Four Year Institution) – a PAC dedicated to the issues facing four-year universities in WA. For more info, visit http://www.fyipac.org/ . WEA also has a PAC, and they have been instrumental in helping higher ed have a voice in Olympia: http://www.weacascade.org/index.php/political-action-mainmenu-81/weapac-information-mainmenu-51 . Donations would be greatly appreciated.
- Pushed for more multi-year contracts for NTT faculty.
- Regularly met with both the Provost and President to discuss issues facing both the faculty and CWU as a whole.
- Worked through large volumes of budget and personnel data.
- The Labor Management Council met regularly.
- Ran a petition which got over 300 faculty signatures asking our administration to protect the mission of the university – academics. Kudos to those who hustled sigs!
Updates: June 2009
Newly Elected Officers
- President: Bob Hickey (Geography)
- Vice President: Tom Wellock (Communications)
- Communications Officer: Wendy Bohrson (Geosciences)
- Financial Officer: Karen Gookin (English)
- Chief Steward: Marie Ferland (Geosciences)
Changes to UFC Bylaws and Constitution ratified at Spring members meeting.
Updates: November 2008
For the first time in CWU's history, NTT faculty have been offered multi-year contracts. These contracts were bargained for by UFC and agreed to by CWU during negotiations in fall 2007. They represent a triumph of the bargaining process and a significant benefit for both the faculty and the administration. It allows some NTT faculty a small measure of job security; on the administrative side, the amount of paperwork is reduced - by half is said faculty member is on an annual contract, to one-sixth if said faculty member was on quarterly contracts. Everyone gains from the ability to plan further into the future. Six NTT faculty in CAH and one coach received multi-year contracts.
Updates: August 2008
It's summer, and things have slowed down. However, your union continues to work with the administration regarding various issues. In addition to the usual relatively minor matters (those being resolved via discussion), we have two grievances and a complaint in the works. Neither grievance is 'big' and both will hopefully result in some clarifications of RPT/PTR processes around campus.
One thing that we have managed is to get agreement that, in some cases, grant co-author(s) can get category A publication status. The Graduate School is working up a process by which faculty can apply for this status.
In more news, we are looking into ways to get NTT faculty library access during the summer - without all the drama. More on that as it develops.
I need two volunteers. The first is to put together a quarterly newsletter. Anyone? Next, in an effort to highlight faculty work, we are including a web page which lists events at which faculty are performing, hosting, leading, etc events (think musical productions, art shows, planetarium shows, public field trips, etc). I need someone to reach out to the faculty, get info, and get it to our webmaster (and newsletter editor) for publication.
And last, the big one. Yes, we are rebargaining the entire CBA next year. Go to the bargaining updates page for more information.
Updates: February 2008
Another year has dawned, and UFC remains busy looking out for the faculty. The first news regards new hires: Dennis Defa is the new AVP for Faculty Relations and Wayne Quirk is the new Provost. I've been working with Dennis for the past month and a half - and Wayne for far longer. I am guardedly optimistic that UFC will be able to work productively with these administrators and move our relationship from antagonistic to cooperative.
The Labor Management Council continues to meet as a group every two weeks - in between I often meet with administrators to follow up on the issues discussed. To date, we have put out two issues of the Chronicles
- Labor Management Council Chronicle Volume 1, Issue 1 [PDF]
- Labor Management Council Chronicle Volume 1, Issue 2 [PDF]
We only have one grievance pending - and it's at the informal stage. It relates to decisions made by the Dean of the Library. The banked hours lawsuit continues to grind along. We're currently at the stage of having it certified as a class action. Many hours have been spent prepping this lawsuit, mostly trying to make sense of faculty data.
We're also kicking off two internal initiatives (which will be discussed in detail at the February members meeting). The first is a membership drive. Look for a flyer, and help us out by talking to the faculty you know who are not members.
The second initiative is a "UFC Recognition Award" This annual award is designed to recognize someone (or a group) for their service to the CWU community. It is intended to be distinct from any other award on campus. Anyone will be eligible - students, faculty, administrators, community leaders, legislators, etc - they simply will have to have made a difference, somehow, on campus. The process of nominations, etc will be rolled out in the next month or so.
Updates: Sept. 2007
Lawsuits/Unfair Labor Practice charges
Grievances
- NTT access to the complaint process. The administration claims NTT faculty have no access to this process. We disagree. At present, this is at Level 2, and we expect it to go to arbitration soon. (On hold pending ratification of re-openers.)
Complaints
- We are working on 1 formal complaint at present, however, discussions with the administration are ongoing on a variety of issues.
Other stuff UFC is doing
- Bargaining (go to the bargaining updates page for updates).
- Getting the new officers etc. into the saddle and up to date on everything that's going on.
- Updating the website!
- Discussing many, many faculty issues in hopes of preventing misinformation and educating faculty regarding the CBA and how they are represented by UFC.
Updates: June 2007
Unfair Labor Practice charges
- None at present
Grievances
- NTT access to the complaint process. The administration claims NTT faculty have no access to this process. We disagree. At present, this is at Level 2, and we expect it to go to arbitration soon.
- Many workload plans were not approved by the CBA-defined deadline of the end of the academic year. At present, this is in the informal stage.
- The new, required CV format appears to violate at least two articles in the CBA. At present this is in the informal stage.
Complaints
- We are working on 1 formal complaint at present, however, discussions with the administration are ongoing on a variety of issues.
Other stuff UFC is doing
- Bargaining (go to the bargaining page for updates).
- Getting the new officers etc. into the saddle and up to date on everything that's going on.
- Updating the website!
- Discussing many, many faculty issues in hopes of preventing misinformation and educating faculty regarding the CBA and how they are represented by UFC.