Some Faculty Still Unclear on Membership Status

Associate Professor David M. Larson (ENG) is currently the Chapter President and he has been a member of the Chapter Executive Committee since the Chapter Bylaws were adopted. He was a member of the negotiating team for both of our contract negotiations. This statement is a revision of a paper Professor Larson wrote after the first contract was negotiated. 

The CSU Faculty are now well into the second Contract negotiated by the AAUP. Because of the support of dedicated members, we have been successful in numerous ways: we have defended faculty rights, increased equity in the treatment of faculty in wages and benefits, and maintained the faculty's role in the governance of the University.

Because not all faculty are familiar with the benefits gained by the AAUP Contract--and some seem woefully misinformed about the AAUP's efforts on behalf of faculty--I thought it would be useful to review the benefits the AAUP has gained for faculty in the last two contracts and to look at areas which still need improvement.

Following are a few of the ways in which we have all been better off under the CSU-AAUP Contracts.

Non-Economic Issues

In the past two contracts the CSU-AAUP achieved significant gains for the faculty in four areas: 1) the protection of tenure, 2) faculty governance, 3) faculty grievances, and 4) the protection of faculty in a financial crisis. Given the current state and national hostility to faculty prerogatives, this is a remarkable achievement.

1) Tenure: As the Contract states, faculty are now tenured "...by the University...." They are not tenured merely in a particular program or department. So when a program is suspended (as the major in German was), the tenured faculty members in that program will be retained, not laid off, and, even if an entire department is closed, the University must make a good faith effort to find its members an equivalent position within the University, including retraining them if necessary.

2) Workload: CSU-AAUP has just shifted to semesters. In that shift the faculty have maintained--indeed, with the addition of the banking system have improved--the teaching load they had during quarters, and we have done this in the face of demands by the Regents and the Legislature that faculty increase their teaching load and decrease the amount of time they spend on research and University service. This would not have happened without the AAUP. Those of you who have been here as long as I may remember that the previous CSU consideration of semesters foundered because of administrative insistence that under semesters the normal research/service load would be three courses per semester. In our recent shift to semesters we have maintained the eight credit per term research/service load, and we have added a banking system for work on theses and dissertations--work which previously received no credit whatsoever.

3) Governance: To protect the faculty's right to determine curriculum and its larger role within the University, the Contract recognizes faculty governance at CSU (Article 40). Thus when an administrator recommends that a program be added or closed, the faculty's right to make the final decision (plus the "Greenbook's" requirement that specific procedures be followed in arriving at such a decision in order to provide affected faculty a chance to respond to the proposal) now has legal standing. In a time when the University is under great external pressure to add vocational programs and abandon ones which are devoted to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, such protection is crucial. We will not arrive at school one morning to discover--as has happened at other Universities--that the Administration has announced the abolition of the physics department because it is irrelevant to our urban mission.

4) Grievance: The most overlooked benefit of the Contract (except by those faculty who have needed it) is its excellent grievance process. The Contract's grievance process benefits both the faculty and Administration.

For faculty the grievance process provides an opportunity to have their cases heard impartially. The process may include a hearing by a panel of the faculty member's peers, and, when warranted, it may end in binding arbitration.

One central goal of the Contract is to ensure faculty fair and equitable treatment. If the contract is violated, the faculty member has the right to file a grievance. Because he or she is represented by a Grievance Officer from the AAUP and because the Administration's actions may finally be judged by an arbitrator, the Administration must treat the complaint seriously. It cannot simply shrug it off, as was frequently done in the years before we had a contract.

For the Administration the grievance process provides a mechanism for ensuring that faculty know they are treated fairly so that old wounds do not continue to rankle. It promotes faculty morale.

The success of the grievance process in resolving issues can be seen in the fact that the CSU-AAUP has taken very few cases to arbitration. Most have been disposed of at a previous level. The process works because it ensures that complaints of contract violation are treated with respect by administrators.

5) Financial Exigency and Academic Re-organization: None of us like to contemplate the possibility of a truly dire financial emergency at CSU, but this event is occurring more and more frequently across the nation--most recently at Central State University here in Ohio.

Should CSU's Administration ever declare a condition of financial exigency, followed by an academic re-organization, the Contract guarantees the AAUP a role in: 1) examining the validity of the claim of financial exigency, and 2) making recommendations to cope with the crisis with the least disruption to education at CSU. The Contract also provides protection and compensation for faculty facing dismissal because of a genuine financial crisis.

Every faculty member in the University benefits from these guarantees in the CSU-AAUP contract. Most faculty have also benefitted financially.

Economic Issues:

1) Benefits: Perhaps the most dramatic victory is in our benefits packages. In the face of concerted national and local efforts to make faculty pay more for fewer and worse benefits, the CSU-AAUP Contracts--and the negotiations carried on by the Benefits Committee established in the first Contract--succeeded in improving our benefits. We have given up nothing and have added both a third health care choice and a new crisis intervention program.

On benefits the CSU-AAUP contracts have helped everyone at CSU--faculty, staff, and Administration.

2) Salaries: Many faculty have been disappointed with the salary packages the negotiations have achieved--including the members of the Negotiating Team. The raises did not do enough to recover the ground the CSU faculty lost in the ten years previous to the first Contract compared to the rates of inflation or to the salaries of our colleagues at other universities.

Yet the packages the AAUP won have accomplished much. We have established minima for each rank--and added small supplements for years in rank--to create equity for faculty who have demonstrated their commitment to this University but who were treated unjustly in the years before the contract, a time when raises were too often based on whim or favoritism.

The minima and the supplements for years in rank established the principle that a competent, dedicated professional deserves a living wage. Although the three per cent raise per year we gained in our contracts was much less than the AAUP sought--and much less than the faculty deserved-- it was, in the judgment of the Negotiating Team, the most the Board would authorize short of a credible threat of serious faculty action. A stronger union would have meant a larger raise.

The same circumstance accounts for the very limited market adjustments afforded faculty members (including many in the Business College) whose pay has fallen behind the standard levels of their fields. The Board did not take their complaints seriously, and without strong membership support, the AAUP cannot force the Board to grant more than it wishes.

After serving on two Negotiating Teams, I can confidently say that, as far as economic issues are concerned, the AAUP has had a significant impact in making certain that money is distributed more equitably than in the past, but, until we have more members, we are not likely to be effectual in increasing the amount of money available for faculty raises.

Conclusions:

We need a stronger governance clause to make certain that faculty maintain their control of curriculum. This is especially important given increasing efforts by the Regents in Columbus to determine what we will and will not teach.

We need to have undergraduate independent study count as part of our teaching load, as graduate advising of theses now does.

We need to extend benefits to domestic partners insofar as is legally possible so as to ensure equity for all faculty.

We need significant improvements in pay, including: substantial across-the-board increases to make up for the years of losses, market adjustments for those who find themselves making no more (or less) than newly hired colleagues at lower ranks, and fairly distributed, significant merit increases which reward all the things that faculty do-- teaching, service, and research.

To gain any of these--and especially to force the Board of Trustees in our next contract to release the money necessary to remedy years of economic injustice--we must have a majority of the CSU faculty as members.

If you believe that hitching a free ride on the contract while others willingly pay membership dues to the CSU-AAUP is a "smart" thing to do, I would suggest that you think again. You are being penny-wise but pound foolish. Yes, you are saving a few dollars a month while getting the same benefits your colleagues are receiving who are paying their fair share of the AAUP's expenses. Yes, you share in the protections the AAUP grants all members of the Bargaining Unit. When an administrator violates your rights as a faculty member, we will use the contract to defend you, AAUP member or not. When Columbus tries unilaterally to increase your workload, we will use the contract to stop that from happening, AAUP member or not. When we negotiate pay increases or benefits improvements, you will share in them, AAUP member or not.

But because you are not an AAUP member, we do not have the power we need to pressure the Board to grant the raises we deserve. Because you are not an AAUP member, we cannot convince the Board that we have the enthusiastic endorsement of our colleagues, who will support us in threatened job actions. Because you are not a member, the CSU-AAUP is not strong enough to improve significantly the economic status of our faculty as a whole.

So, yes, your refusing to become a member weakens the AAUP--the representative of all the faculty outside the law school. To gain a few dollars per month you muffle your voice within the CSU-AAUP, you undermine your own representative in its negotiations with the Administration and the Board, and you throw away any chance of our achieving the raises we deserve as a faculty. You let your colleagues pay your way for you, take advantage of their efforts, and you make it more difficult for them to achieve our mutual goals.

Make your voice heard within the AAUP! Make AAUP's voice stronger with the Administration and the Board of Trustees! Make a difference at CSU!

All you need to do is join AAUP; do your part; and pay your way.

Posted February 3, 1999.

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