Newsletter

Spring 2009

NOTES FROM THE FSU PRESIDENT

Dear FSU Members,

Welcome to our first electronic newsletter.  There are several items we think will interest you here: details of the new contract, how we’re getting a group of NTT faculty into the Commonwealth’s defined benefit retirement system, and some of the gains we’ve won for faculty through the grievance process.  We also include an update on the financial situation at UMB – and what it might mean in FY 2010, and beyond.

We’re also reminding you of our Annual Meeting on Wednesday, May 6^th.  We look forward to seeing you there.

Another exciting item is the FSU’s use of an electronic voting mechanism to choose officers for the FSU this Spring.  No other MTA union uses such a mechanism; they all use paper ballot systems.  This is an experiment and we’re hoping, but not guaranteeing, no glitches.  If it doesn’t work, we’ll head to the Supreme Court.

Despite the awful financial situation in the Commonwealth, the FSU bargaining team has won a three-year contract with a number of advantages for tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty.  The bargaining lasted more than 15 months, so the team worked above and beyond the usual efforts for a contract.  However, we have to remain vigilant, because the attempts to cut our pay continue in the legislature – in the guise of increasing our health insurance contributions to 30%.  The contract bargaining for CCDE is just now beginning, by the way.

As you can read later in this newsletter, Jon Millman and Nelson Lande, in particular, have worked for several years to win the right for many NTT faculty to join the Commonwealth’s retirement system (allowing many to become vested).  With the help of our MTA representative, Mickey Gallagher, they have almost completed this process – allowing almost 100 faculty to buy into the system.

We’d like to hear any comments you have on this newsletter, please send them along to the FSU office.

Regards,

Catherine Lynde

FSU CONTRACT RATIFIED

Members of the FSU bargaining unit came out in full force to approve the 2009 – 2012 collective bargaining agreement. Negotiating a new agreement during these economic times was no easy feat for the bargaining team.  The bargaining team was able to secure long sought significant gains.

Enhancements to the contract include a flexible sabbatical leave policy, expansion of the sick leave bank to provide coverage for family sick leave, pre-established post retirement agreement, assurance of fair distribution of merit monies, a new scholarship award for non-tenure track faculty, and a professional development fund.

The contract also calls for continuation of negotiations through the establishment of three committees: 

Joint Labor/Management Non-Tenure Track Committee

The Non-Tenure Track Committee is charged with reviewing current departmental policies and procedures established for non-tenure track faculty.  This review will include a scan of best practices with a goal of revising current policies and procedures to assure non-tenure track faculty are fully integrated into the academic life here at UMB.

Joint Labor/Management Distance Education Committee

The Distance Education Committee will negotiate contractual language to establish rights of faculty when teaching distance education courses.  Topics will range from right of first refusal, developmental course fee, class size, evaluation instrument and process, compensation … and any other relevant provisions.

Joint Labor/Management Phased Retirement Committee

This committee is charged with reviewing options available through the University to provide unit members with the ability to gradually step down from their position prior to full retirement.

All of these committees will need input from you, the membership of the FSU, to assure your interests are represented and pursued to the fullest extent possible.  If you have interest in any one or more of these committees please be sure to contact the FSU office at FSU@umb.edu and let us know.

The FSU Bargaining Team consisted of:

Catherine Lynde, Economics

Larry Kaye, Philosophy

Marlene Kim, Economics

Elizabeth Mock, Healey Library

Mickey Gallagher, MTA Consultant

If you have questions on the new contract, feel free to ask a bargaining team member- and don’t forget to thank them for their hard work when you do.

LECTURER RETIREMENT UPDATE

The FSU Pension Committee for Non-tenure Track Faculty (NTTF) has been working to open the State Employee Retirement System (SERS) to NTTF who are currently in the Optional Retirement Program (ORP).  Last March in a meeting with Peter Tsaffaras, the head of ORP, the Committee learned that prior to 2004, the inclusion of part-time faculty violated the regulations governing the ORP.  Armed with that information, Mickey Gallagher, the FSU’s legal consultant, requested that the ORP allow affected part-time faculty to transfer to SERS.  Tsaffaras agreed contingent on a letter of consent from Mark Preble, head of Human Resources at UMB.  Preble agreed, and recently he sent such a letter to Tsaffaras.  The Pension Committee’s next step is to meet with the SERS board of directors.  

FSU ANNUAL MEETING, WEDNESDAY, MAY 6TH, 2009

Come find out more about our new contract, vote on the FSU FY10 proposed budget, tell us your concerns about the future of UMB, and anything else you’d like.  There’ll be some snacks and drinks.  We look forward to seeing you there.

FSU SETS NEW STANDARD: JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED

The FSU has a long tradition of making every attempt to resolve contractual issues through informal discussion and mediation.  That tradition has served most unit members well, ending in an informal resolution.

However, historically there have always been a number of issues raised by unit members that the FSU and the administration were unable to resolve informally.  In those cases contractual timelines were nearly ignored by the administration and contractual violations allowed to continue for years.

More recently, the FSU Executive Committee took steps to bring a more timely resolution to pending cases and provide unit members with knowledgeable, firsthand representation with the ability to enter into informal resolution at any time throughout the more formal grievance processing. 

First, the FSU Executive Committee established a Grievance Committee composed of FSU unit members from across campus.  This group assists the FSU Grievance Officers and MTA Consultant by meeting on a regular basis to discuss pending cases; explore potential resolutions; and, when necessary, seek further legal redress of issues not resolved through informal efforts.

The results are paying off.  During this past semester the FSU resolved the usual numerous issues through informal means while at the same time secured resolution on four separate issues that had been outstanding for over a year. Several of the contractual violations were resolved after filing grievance complaints up through the University President’s office; one violation was resolved after filing for arbitration and the fourth issue was resolved by filing charges with the Massachusetts Division of Labor Relations.

FSU NEWS IN BRIEF

New FSU Budget

The Executive Committee has adopted our budget for Fiscal Year 2010.  It includes NO INCREASE IN FSU FEES for this next year.  The Committee agrees that, in a year when nobody receives any salary increases, the FSU should get by on the same amount too.  We did, however, give our staffer a cost-of-living adjustment as part of our commitment to the idea that we should all have, at a minimum, cost-of-living salary increases.  Too bad the UMass President doesn’t feel the same.

FSU/Administration Salary Anomaly Process

You may know that we won a one-time anomaly adjustment about 10 years ago, and then, again, 2 years ago.  In our FY 2008 contract we won an ONGOING COMMITMENT to annual salary increases for those with anomalous salaries.  This provision continues in the new contract also.   Given the length of time it took to get our new contract agreed, we are putting off the anomaly adjustment process for this until next.  At that time we’ll award 2 years’ worth of adjustment money.  We have agreement from the University to guarantee that nobody will lose out from this process, because we will make the relevant adjustments retroactive.

Look to the Fall semester, 2009, for a beginning to this process.  We’ll provide more information about how it will proceed at that time.

MTA Annual Meeting, April 30, May 1, May 2, Hynes Convention Center, Boston

We have several delegate slots open if anyone wishes to attend.  This is an opportunity for MTA members to take unified action now to protect our schools, our public higher education system and our basic union rights.  See Lorenzo in the office for details.  Also see the MTA website for more information:  http://massteacher.org.

The FSU and UMB Press

In response to feedback from faculty about morale and support for UMB as a research institution, the FSU has been able to play a role in bringing back the presence of University of Massachusetts Press on our campus. With support from the Provost's Office, the editorship has been conceived to include a range of functions to encourage UMB's role in knowledge production, ranging from the acquiring of manuscripts and the cultivating of the Press's profile in Boston to helping junior faculty strategize about publishing. A search is currently underway; members of the search committee are Neal Bruss (English), Shaun O'Connell (English), Mark Pawlak (writing center and Professional Staff Union representative), Rachel Rubin (American Studies), and Paul Wright (the last person to hold the position until his retirement). As the administration has announced, all ongoing searches are being scrutinized as part of UMB's response to the current economic situation, and this one is no exception.

DID YOU KNOW?

When you become a member of the Faculty Staff Union you are actually joining three unions, not one: the FSU, the Massachusetts Teachers Association (our statewide affiliate), and the National Educational Association (our national affiliate). Your annual dues are divided between the three unions with the MTA receiving the largest share followed by the FSU then the NEA. This tiered structure allows the FSU to allocate a portion of the total union dues toward its own budget while still being able to utilize the resources of our affiliates. For example, the FSU pays the salary of its Membership Coordinator from its own budget. However, our legal consultant Mickey Gallagher, who leads contract negotiations, oversees grievance cases, and provides general advising on all union matters, is provided to the FSU by the MTA. This structure also allows you to participate in all policy matters for the FSU, MTA, and NEA that are subject to member voting.

In addition to this three tiered vertical structure the FSU has a horizontal structure that many members may not be aware of. The FSU is in fact one of two chapters of a larger local that encompasses the faculty/librarians from both UMass Boston and UMass Amherst (the faculty and librarian chapter at UMA is called the Mass Society of Professors, or MSP). This larger local is governed by the Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) which is comprised of 11 total officers (7 from the Amherst campus and 4 from Boston). The JCC is charged with affiliating the two chapters as one unit. In practical terms, this means that both chapters are subject to the same contract (which is negotiated by both chapters collectively), are advised by the same MTA consultant, and maintain a singular financial structure (meaning that monies from the local portion of union dues are managed by the JCC, which also sets the annual local dues rate). But when it comes to day to day issues of local union governance, the two chapters operate on a largely independent basis. For example, each chapter has its own Executive Committee, its own bylaws, and its own grievance officers.