The
main purpose of today’s blog post is to report on our informational meeting
held for faculty on 2/28.
Let
me start by saying that the weather, both the fact that the meeting had to be
postponed and the fact that the weather the day of the meeting was a bit poor,
tended to reduce attendance at the meeting.
That is unfortunate but not in our control. The attendance at the meeting was about 25
people, including NEA staff and faculty members who were presenting at the
meeting. That made for a small group but
we had quite a good presentation and a spirited question and answer period at
the end of the presentation. The
powerpoint slides are linked for interested faculty to examine in the links at
the right.
In
addition to the Q&A, the presentation included four main areas:
·
Background
of the MSU Faculty Association
o
The
discussion here focused on the history over the past several years leading up
to the MSU Faculty Association, including the report to the Faculty Senate in
Fall of 2010 referenced in the links to the right.
o
The
bottom line of the report was a unanimous recommendation from the Ad Hoc
Committee investigating unionizing that the advantages of unionizing outweighed
the disadvantages.
·
Statistics
from the Listening Campaign: What did Faculty actually say?
o
One-on-one
visits with individual faculty by union members (faculty) asking both: (1) what
are your concerns in your job and (2) What is your opinion of MSU faculty
joining together to negotiate a binding collective bargaining contract with
MSU?
o
Approximately
20% of all full-time faculty at MSU have been visited to date.
o
Top
Concerns included: (1) Faculty shared governance (70% of interviewed with that
concern), (2) Increase salaries (66%), Better University Administration
(56%). The full list is available in the
presentation.
o
With
respect to the question about MSU faculty joining together the results showed
76% of respondents with a positive opinion, 6% with a negative opinion, and 22%
who did not know enough. Note: Some
faculty answered both positive/negative and “don’t know enough”, so the
totals do not add to 100%.
·
What
are the Benefits of Unionization and Collective Bargaining?
o
The
main benefit is an enforceable contract that cannot be unilaterally changed by
the either party. Note: the Faculty
Handbook is not an enforceable contract but could become so via
collective bargaining. See the Faculty
Senate Report on Unionization for more discussion.
o
Other
benefits include: Due process, fairness, mutual accountability, contracts
tailored to our campus.
o
Collective
Bargaining in Missouri legally requires good faith bargaining by both parties.
o
Common
Elements of Faculty Collective Bargaining Agreements
·
Employee
rights, salary and benefits, tenure and promotion, workload, academic freedom,
grievance procedures, intellectual property, sabbaticals, merit pay.
·
Next
Steps – What is the MSU FA going to do going forward?
o
Continue
Listening campaign
o
Build
membership and support
o
How
can you get involved?
·
Participate
in the listening campaign – contact an MSU Faculty Association member/officer
to have a visit from a member.
·
You can also help by
talking to your colleagues. We are
interested in having small meetings with faculty from different
departments/colleges as well.
·
Join
MSU Faculty Association (there is a Spring special. Join now and pay no dues until
September.)
·
Serve
on MSU FA committees.
·
Become
an MSU FA leader.
Information from the
Question and Answer Session
The
following includes a selection of some of the questions and answers from the
Q&A session but does not include all of the discussion.
Q:
How were the 20% of the faculty
selected for the listening campaign?
A: During and immediately after the report
to the Faculty Senate in the Fall of 2010, members of the Ad Hoc Unionizing FS
Committee received emails from interested faculty members. These faculty formed the basis of the
original contact list. Thereafter, the
list was expanded, mostly randomly, to include all colleges/departments. The goal is to eventually talk to as many
faculty as possible.
Q: What steps are necessary for the union
to gain recognition from the university? How many members are needed?
A: No specific number of members in the
MSU Faculty Association is required although membership is necessary for a
successful organizing campaign. One of
the purposes of the listening campaign is to determine interest and support for
the faculty. As you can see, to date we
have very positive results. If a third
to half of all faculty indicate support then we can move to a card campaign.
Q:
What is a card campaign?
A: A card campaign is where faculty are
asked to sign a card. A signature would
indicate that the faculty member wishes for the MSU Faculty Association to be
their exclusive representatives for collective bargaining. Faculty signatures from the card campaign
must be certified by a neutral third party (e.g., League of Women Voters) but
are anonymous to the MSU administration.
Q: What happens after a successful card
campaign?
A: For private employee unions in
Missouri, a state agency would oversee an election of all faculty for the union
to represent employees. For public
employee unions in Missouri no specific procedure is in place to secure the
union the right to exclusively represent faculty at MSU. Recent court cases suggest that the card
campaign itself might be enough to secure the right to exclusive representation
although an election may also be necessary.
Q: Even if faculty vote for Collective
Bargaining, why would an employer (MSU in particular) be obligated to bargain
with the union?
A: A 2007 Missouri Supreme Court ruling
gave public employees the right to collective bargaining based upon the state
constitution. A series of Missouri
Supreme Court cases since 2007 have found both that public employers must have
a process in place to recognize unions and must also bargain in good faith. FYI, if employers refuse to have a process
(an election) in place to recognize a union, then the MO Supreme Court has
found that a card campaign will be substituted for that process. Note: Bargaining in “good faith” is commonly
interpreted by the courts as parties being willing to make progress towards a
contract.
Q: Who is eligible to sign a card and/or
vote in an election for exclusive representation?
A: All full-time faculty at MSU
Springfield. Other groups, such as per
course faculty and graduate students normally will organize separately. Often times the impetus for organizing on a
college campus comes from one of these groups rather than the full-time
faculty.
Q: Administrations come and go and there is
good reason to have agreements like CB for consistency. But there are state legislative issues that
add a lot to our problems. How do we organize without upsetting the state
legislature and thereby making it even worse for us?
A: The NEA has effective national and
state lobbyists to help with such issues, including funding higher education. For example, the Missouri NEA helped the MSU
Faculty Association to lobby Governor Nixon on MSU board appointments,
including submitting names of potential Board members and for a general
philosophy that would result in board members that had more positive attitudes
toward faculty. A refusal by the
legislature to act on some issues, however, may sometimes be positive (e.g., as
discussed above, successful card campaigns may actually substitute for an
election for exclusive representation.)
Q: A fairly long and detailed question
asking generally about whether the national NEA will over-ride the local
chapter (MSU faculty) on issues. The
basis for the question was an understanding that MSU faculty would tend to have
a better grasp of a large number of issues than the state or national NEA. How does the NEA interact with the faculty
locally and how will we be allowed to decide such issues locally?
A:
The contract that is negotiated as
part of the collective bargaining process is between the local faculty represented
by the MSU Faculty Association and the university. The NEA is not directly involved in this bargaining,
although they do provide support including training, advice on bargaining and
access to a national database of higher education contracts at other
universities. Second, a Collective Bargaining Agreement
does not cover everything. For example,
issues regarding curriculum are rarely part of a collective bargaining
agreement. Faculty control the MSU
Faculty Association negotiating team and what the union wants to go into the CB
agreement. Finally, the final
enforceable contract must be ratified by the faculty.
Q:
Public employee unions in Missouri
cannot strike, so where would the bargaining strength of a MSU union come from
even if the faculty did support unionization?
A: Most importantly, the strength of the
union comes primarily from the collective action of the faculty. MSU faculty collectively have an enormous
amount of power at MSU both because faculty have tenure and because they are
the primary providers of MSU’s product, education of students. Also important is that the collective
bargaining process helps the faculty through the MSU Faculty Association to
build a productive relationship with the administration, which also gets things
that it wants in the CB agreement.
Q: Is Missouri now/in the future a right to
work state? The implication of the
question was how Missouri being or becoming a right to work state would affect
collective bargaining in the state.
A: The answer started out with what it
means to be a “right to work” state. In
a right to work state non-union members cannot be forced via a collective
bargaining agreement to pay either union dues or a portion of “union dues”, usually
referred to as a “fair-share” to help defray negotiation and enforcement costs.
No, Missouri
is not a right to work state. There have
been past attempts for to pass right to work legislation in Missouri, which have
always failed. There is no legislative
action currently ongoing to become a right to work state. Although this does mean that collective
bargaining contracts in Missouri may have “fair share” clauses (see above) in
contracts the NEA does not include such clauses in their contracts. Hence,
non-union faculty at MSU would pay no dues or any “fair share” portion of dues.
