Especially in this era, we should be singing Solidarity Forever
I am writing this a few days before the big rally on May 5 and the last day of bargaining on May 6. I hope you accept this not a betrayal but as a rallying cry. Time is running out to negotiate our all-important first contract, yet UNTF’s recent efforts to energize us have made me question whether our leadership has its act together well enough to stand tough in such challenging times.
Like many non-tenured faculty at Michigan State University, I wanted us to vote in a strong union that could negotiate on our behalf. I have heard the horror stories of people who teach a lot, for very little, with virtually no job security.
During my more than two decades of one-year contracts, my wages fluctuated up and down with little connection to my performance beyond the reality that fixed-term faculty serve as the economic ballast that departments use to keep their economic ships afloat. Raises? All too often years went by without any discussion at all. Vacations? In my dreams. During one nerve-wracking era, I unexpectedly faced a two-month layoff without pay when the PI (Principal Investigator) in charge of our grant forgot to file a renewal form to keep the funds flowing.
Especially in this era when many of us worry about rising health-care costs, the wise choice seemed to be to ignore any doubts and vote to band together to speak with one voice. I think I speak for many fixed-term faculty when I say that I was glad to see the American Federation of Teachers approved by a vote of more than two to one in favor of forming the UNTF. But now I also worry that many of us have growing concerns about whether the UNTF leadership is up to the task.
Michigan’s economic problems continue to deepen and funding for higher education is constantly in peril. Even more disheartening is that MSU officials almost seem to be using the negotiating of our first contract as an excuse to re-think and reduce the benefits for everyone, including tenured and non-tenured faculty and staff. Just a few weeks ago, the university announced that it will no longer offer health-care benefits in retirement for any employee hired after July 1, a cost-cutting measure so drastic that friends in academic circles are buzzing about how MSU can hope to compete for top candidates anymore.
So when I received an invitation to a UNTF luncheon at my college (Communication Arts & Sciences) on April 20, I came to learn how the union intended to push back. Adjunct Professor Don Power of Labor and Industrial Relations and Andrew Corner of Advertising, Retailing and Public Relations, who are members of the 10-person UNTF bargaining team, hosted the session. I was one of five out of an estimated 30 eligible members who attended.
Corner opened the session by announcing that he had voted against the union. The balance of his remarks made it clear that he had volunteered for the bargaining unit primarily to monitor the process. Then he left for another meeting immediately after he spoke.
Not a confidence builder.
Don Power informed us that most of the non-economic issues had been resolved. (Results? Highlights? A handout explaining what has been achieved in our name? A survey asking for our feedback? No.)
Power said that we now faced a schedule where we have only a few weeks to settle all the economic issues before we lose most of our clout when the semester ends. “Once classes let out, we lose a lot of our ability to make progress,” he said.
In response to a question about wages, Power noted that UNTF/AFT had not been able to secure comprehensive salary information about our members. Three of us immediately asked why they didn’t analyze the open record of MSU salaries that are kept in the MSU Library and online. One woman from our college rought up the Archives.org website that lists every faculty member’s salary for last year. Power placed a phone call to the UNTF office that confirmed that no one there had ever heard of this report, though it’s easy to find on Google.
Ouch.
At the meeting, we were told that we would receive email alerts about attending the last two crucial bargaining sessions this semester. Yet the first session came and went without any notification. (I even checked my spam filter.)
The UNTF tweets on Twitter offer tantalizing hints of what transpired, but the UNTF website and blog suffer from being incomplete and often out of date.
Now we learn that even the proposed one-year contracts for fixed-term faculty that the university is offering will contain a clause that says they can be canceled with 30 days’ notice if budget problems arise.
This is progress?
I have also learned that the UNTF did not fight to have its members maintain membership in the union during semesters they are not teaching. Other similar unions have treated this as an essential bargaining issue, because the logistics of determining who is and is not a member at any given time otherwise becomes a nightmare. Union members also lose their sense of connectedness, and, at a certain point, when they start charging, the union risks losing dues.
I apologize if this makes me sound like a whiner or if the issues I bring up seem petty. I have had a draft of this letter on my computer for a week, but I hesitated to post it because I did not want to jeopardize sensitive negotiations at such a critical phase. However, now that the university seems to be treating us as pushovers, turning even puny one-year contracts into utterly meaningless pieces of paper, I feel the need to speak out before my fears for the future are realized.
I, for one, will be there May 5, to show my support. However, I also ask the UNTF leadership to do a better job of communicating with us. Keep us informed, through Twitter, your blog and your website. Give us details about what is happening. Survey us about what we think and what we know. We have knowledge and concerns that you need to know about.
I hope that others will join me in renewing the commitment we made when we voted for UNTF. But I propose our message to the UNTF leadership should be: you do your part, and we will do ours.
Thanks for listening -
Bonnie Bucqueroux
*Years ago, I worked in an office at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Jackson, where the Teamsters represented the drivers. A union steward called me at home one night to urge me to help them organize the office. When I told him that I feared for my job because my husband was dying of cancer, he asked me, “Do you remember hearing about the fire at So-and-So’s house? The one that started in the garage?” Yes, I had. “That was us. So don’t worry. We know how to take care of our own.” On the spectrum between a union led by thugs and one led by thoughtful but ineffective colleagues, I still prefer the latter.
Thanks for writing this, Bonnie.
I had no idea about the status of the union. I had got a letter about coming to a meeting a million years ago. I couldn’t make it but tried to follow-up with the phone numbers listed and that was a complete bust. I never heard anything after that and presumed nothing came to fruition. I guess that is partially true!
And I’m really disheartened to hear about these recent turn of events. I’m curious to know how these folks got into leadership positions.
Or is that a sign that the membership is also lackadaisical? Or do members feel too vulnerable to show any teeth?
If I was eligible to participate I certainly would.
For ten years I worked with 3 to 6 month (12 months if I’m lucky) contracts, often getting paid late while contract renewal paperwork was in the system across 3 different colleges.
Some of the problem was just inherent in relying on grant funding. That’s something not unique to non-tenured staff and faced by non-profit workers elsewhere.
But other problems I encountered certainly could have been addressed by having a union.
- Making sure I still had campus parking while the paperwork was in renewal.
- Fining departments for taking too long to process paperwork
- Keeping my MSU netID privileges to access the secure databases during those gap times when paperwork was in process.
During those gaps my employee status would be revoked, even though I continued to work, in some cases as the PI. I could not access the contract and grant services pages to see my accounting ledger.
I’m sure I lost a good 10-20% of my productive hours just to dealing with these administrative hassles every couple of months.
You know, my life as a student teaching assistant was much more financially stable and had some of these protections available.
Maybe the concerned non-tenured employees should try to join the student union. *sigh*
Bonnie, I was really disappointed to read this blog, which feeds into the administration’s efforts to undermine our union. i thought you supported worker’s rights! surely you know by now that employers use all the tools at their disposal to divide and conquer efforts for fair pay and working conditions. criticizing people who are volunteering their efforts to help improve your working conditions is a poor idea.
Union leaders have sent emails and met with members steadily throughout the year, and those who could volunteer their time have done so. Union leaders are all volunteers. They also teach and have other job responsibilities, and families. I haven’t seen you at any bargaining committee meetings this year; I take it you were letting someone else do the work for you. Many other people are afraid to act, and that is because this administration, and so many departments across the university, are hostile to the non-tenure track faculty, willing to insult or fire people who don’t tow the line.
At the bargaining table, the administration has acted so meanly, dragging their feet all year long, and they have been so willing to turn a deaf ear to reasonable union demands-this entirely on Simon’s instructions, surely- that i am embarrassed to be associated with this administration in any way.
That we may not get the contract we deserve is not the union’s fault. the administration has all the cards, and the administration’s ugly choices will damage the education of our students in the future, that much is certain.
Do you really think it would have been better not to have voted for the union? In that case, we would never get steady evaluations, pay raises or a chance at job security. Would that be okay with you?
As I noted, it was with reluctance that I posted my open letter. Yet the picture you paint makes my case. We have an MSU administration whose paid representatives are skilled in ensuring that any contract benefits them more than us, which is why UNTF needs to have its act together. The issue isn’t whether a union is a bad idea - the issue is whether the UNTF/AFT efforts are up to the task. I hear repeatedly from people who offered support but never heard back from anyone. The people representing us did not inspire confidence. Communications from UNTF are erratic. We know little about what you are doing. There is a lack of much-needed transparency. I just hope you take my letter as a wake-up call and not as an excuse to blame the messenger.
Thank you, you are much more diplomatic that I can be, and I am sorry I was harsh all around. I am really not used to blogging.
I worked on the Bargaining Committee as much as I could this year (and tried my best to help) and I know everyone involved has been doing their best.
The issues are many and complex, but the union position from day one has been transparent, that withholding the possibility of job security and grossly underpaying your faculty are just bad ideas. Fair treatment and fair wages, these are the take-home messages we need to get behind.
The union bargaining team needs all our help-all union members need to help one another-you are so right, this is the time for a wake-up call.
I will go to the Rally on Wednesday at 11 am at the MSU Administration building to stand up for fair treatment and a fair wage for all the excellent teachers in this newest MSU union.