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: 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.