A Presentation by SIUE Faculty Association-IEA/NEA Leadership SIUE - - PDF document

A Presentation by SIUE Faculty Association-IEA/NEA Leadership

SIUE Faculty Senate sponsored All Faculty meeting

Morris University Conference Center-SIUE Sept 20, 2016

• Dr. Kim Archer

Associate Professor Department of Music Interim co-Chair, SIUE Faculty Association-IEA/NEA Thank you for the introduction, Jeff, and thank you, colleagues, for the opportunity to speak with you

• today. My name is Kim Archer. I’m in the Music Department (like our new Chancellor), an Associate

Professor, and the interim co-Chair of the SIUE Faculty Association. I’ll let the other interim officers introduce themselves.  You are always welcome to direct questions to the interim leaders you see here. BTW, I mention the term “interim” because we are only placeholders until the members ratify bylaws and elect permanent

• fficers. More on this in a few minutes.

 The Faculty Association also has a website with an extensive FAQ that is being updated regularly: that’s siuefa.org.  Even more important, we hope that all faculty – members or not – will attend the open Q&A session at our first General Membership Meeting. More on that in a few minutes. There are several points I want to address with you today. First, this campaign was about faculty’s common goal: to hold our governor and the Illinois legislature accountable for their fiscal decimation of higher education and their shameful treatment of the young people of Illinois that we serve – our students. Second, we are in a crisis. We want to ensure that when good administrators must make hard choices that affect educational quality, faculty will have an equal voice. In fact, in this way we want to strengthen the relationship between faculty and administrators by joining together to help keep SIUE strong and vital. Third, our health insurance is a major concern. Last year we paid premiums but couldn’t use our services. Now the state is calling to double – not just raise, but double – our premiums. Couple that with not so much as a cost-of-living increase in three years, and we’re talking about a massive salary cut – which hits

• ur untenured colleagues with young families the hardest.

AFSCME – the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees – which represents our professional staff at SIUE, has been fighting the governor on this for some time. In other words, just to be clear, your department’s secretary is fighting your healthcare battle for you. We faculty need to step up, as well. Speaking for myself, when I saw a union flyer in my mailbox last March, I thought “This couldn’t hurt and it might just help.” Still, I researched the IEA myself, with an open mind. I learned that last spring, all tenure track faculties at Illinois public universities were unionized except us, Northern Illinois, Illinois State, and Urbana-Champaign. (By the way, NIU organized over the summer.) Then, I read about faculty unions at Eastern, Western, and Carbondale rejecting broad cuts and furloughs, and instead, through their solidarity, they bargained for more creative solutions that saved jobs, saved programs, and protected their students’ quality of education.

This raises one misunderstood notion we would like to put to rest right now – the idea of a union creating an adversarial environment. We have a new chancellor. Dr. Pembrook alerted us last Friday in his “first impressions” installment that we will have a permanent Provost by the end of this year. Many of

• ur Schools have new deans. Now there is a new faculty union, too, but the union is us and we are the
• union. We, whether in the union, the Faculty Senate, the CAS Congress, or any other organization are the

embodiment of SIUE’s tradition – its cherished culture – of cooperation and shared governance. We all know that is what makes SIUE a great place to be, and worth fighting to protect. In fact, one essential role of the union is to uphold the Faculty Senate’s policies and recommendations –

• ur traditional voice of shared governance – through a legally binding contract. This coalition of

advocacy is far more powerful than either of our organizations can be by themselves. We have handouts for you today. Read that letter from Bailey Young at EIU, who is a longtime member of both the union and the senate. Read the letter from last year’s Faculty Senate president at Carbondale, which includes actual contract language spelling out the role and duties of each organization. In short, the Faculty Senate is and will remain the authority on academic policy and curriculum for the

• faculty. A faculty union does not subtract in any way from the virtues of shared governance, but it does

add an extra dimension by giving the faculty more power regarding wages, course loads, class sizes, and

• ther working conditions. Equally important, through the Illinois Education Association’s legal expertise,

the Faculty Association can access detailed budgetary information – the kind of data we need to work with the administration as true partners. Let's face it, this will prove particularly crucial when it comes to bargaining over salaries and other bread-and-butter issues. All we want is the contractual power to know what the administration knows and thus participate in tough decisions as equals. Next is the timeline of how we got to this point and where we will go from here. Beginning in spring 2016, faculty organizers staffed information tables in the lobby of the MUC, right

• utside Auntie Anne’s and Starbucks. We also staffed info tables in Peck Hall, we distributed multiple

flyers to all faculty mailboxes, we sponsored open information sessions, we hosted weekly lunches, and then, literally, we went door-to-door. Of more than 400 faculty, there were fewer than 12 who declined to meet. We did it on our own time, for no pay, no course release – not even for service credit. We did it because we believe, with full intellect and heart, that this is in the best interests of our students, campus, colleagues, and profession. By the end of August we collected a clear majority – a strong majority – of faculty interest cards, and on September 2nd, we petitioned the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board for union certification. We expect to learn in the next week or two that an official Order of Certification shall be issued. The interim officers will soon be able to set a date for the first General Membership Meeting. At this meeting, the first hour will be open to all faculty, members or not, for a Q&A session. After this, we will take a break and those who have not yet joined will have an opportunity to do so. Then members will discuss and ratify our Association bylaws. Once bylaws are ratified, we will have procedures for members to nominate and elect permanent officers. If you are interested in helping with preparations for bargaining or helping in other ways, you can contact any of us for more information. We expect to begin negotiations early in the spring semester. There are two more misconceptions I would like to clear up while I have the floor, and perhaps this will alleviate some questions. First, since earlier attempts at faculty unionization were done through an election, why not this time? In 2003 … that was 13 years ago … the State of Illinois passed legislation –informally called ‘card check’

– through which a majority of employees sign a membership card or a petition card supporting unionization, and a union is automatically created. Yes, the last time there was an attempt at faculty unionization here, it was done by election because that was the only option. But that was 1991, a quarter of a century ago. Gas was $1.14 a gallon in 1991. A lot

• f us didn’t even have our doctorates yet. In fact, in 1991, the events of 9-11 were still a decade away.

We are indeed living in a different world today than we were in 1991. Times change, people change, and circumstances definitely change – we are seeing an assault on higher education unprecedented in our

• lifetimes. The law changes, too, and so it is reasonable to expect that outcomes will change.

That said, and as I mentioned before, every single member of the faculty received multiple hard copy

• mailings. There were info tables in the MUC and in Peck, plus multiple opportunities to attend open

forums or lunches. All but about 12 faculty had at least one visit, from organizers, if not many. This campaign was not a secret. In fact, it was hard work! Second, Fair Share, which is somewhat akin to the story of “The Little Red Hen.” The Little Red Hen wants to make bread, but the other animals don’t help plant the wheat, sow the wheat, grind the flour, or mix the dough. They only show up at the end, when tasty bread comes out of the oven. The Little Red Hen tells them if they didn’t help make it, then they don’t get to help eat it, either. Well, Illinois law would overrule the Little Red Hen. The law says everyone in the bargaining unit, member or not, gets to eat the tasty bread the union makes. However, the Little Red Hen does have a point, right? Maybe, instead of her hardline stance, she would agree to having the other animals chip in a bit for seeds or tools, even if they don’t want to work? That is Fair Share. As to whether or not it would happen here at SIUE, Illinois law specifies that unions may negotiate for Fair Share, but it is not mandatory that we do so. In other words, if the members of the union want to bargain for Fair Share as a high priority in their contract, and if the administration agrees to discuss it, and if the Board of Trustees ratifies that agreement, and if the members of the union then approve the entire resulting contract, then and only then would Fair Share be enacted. That is a lot of “ifs.” We have fewer “ifs” about hiring new tenure line positions. We would much rather talk with you about what you like here at SIUE and want to preserve in our first

• contract. We want to talk about what we can do together to make SIUE stronger in this crisis, and an even

better place to work. One final thought, before I turn the floor over to our Campaign Spokesperson. We academics are often isolated and isolationist. We might not even know the person with whom we share an office wall. Over six months of organizing, though, I’ve had the honor of visiting every building

• n this campus and countless offices. I’ve talked to Assistant Professors on their first day of orientation

and full Professors who’ve been here longer than I’ve been alive. Now I’m here to share with you that a strong majority of us formed this union together because we are under assault from the state and governor. This crisis is unprecedented in our lifetimes. Indeed, a strong majority of us recognize that now is exactly the time for a faculty union, to protect so much that is good here and to help us fight for what we and our students deserve. That strong majority of us knows that our junior colleagues – untenured with young families – are being squeezed and demoralized by second-tier benefits and low salaries that aren’t being offset anymore by robust summer teaching options.

We, the strong majority, love SIUE and love working here. We are part of the Faculty Senate and we are its constituency. We are passionate, dedicated, overworked, stressed out, and under paid. We are committed to shared governance but we also understand that a crisis is when we most need to strengthen

• ur voice and our decision making power.

I have never in 43 years been so proud to be part of a group so positive and unified, so much fun, filled with good, smart, hardworking people who want only protect each other – all of us – our campus, and our students. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. Please keep an eye out for the date of that first General Membership Meeting, contact any member or interim officer if you are interested in being part of the bargaining process, which is starting up very soon, don’t forget there is a significant FAQ section on our website, which is siuefa.org and if you would like to become a member, I have forms here today or you can contact any of us to make an appointment at your convenience. Now I will to hand the floor over the Charles Berger, our Faculty Association spokesperson, who also has a few remarks.