HFCC Federation of Teachers Newsletter

Index of Past State of the Union Reports

Editor: Betsy Cohn
January 28, 2008

ANNUAL REPORT ON STATE OF THE UNION

            The Federation’s constitution calls for an annual report to the membership on the Federation’s accomplishments of the year concluding and challenges of the year upcoming. 2008 marks my 30^th such report as Local 1650 President – and the first occasion in those 30 years that tension marks the relationship between the Federation and College Administration. Nothing at the outset of 2007 indicated that such would be the case.

2007-2012 Contract

            Last May, the Federation negotiated, in some 72 hours, a new five year contract. It was done in a matter of 72 hours at the insistence of and to the credit of Dr. Mee – and was only possible due to a great deal of experience, expertise, and good will on both sides of the negotiating table. While the 2007-2012 contract begins with a one year wage freeze and health insurance concessions, the contract provides equitable wage increases and secures health insurance coverage over its five year duration. A remarkable and needed feature of the contract was an additional step advancement for previous work experience given to eligible newer faculty who were hired during a period when such credit was absent from the contract. The 2007-2012 contract restores previous experience credit for salary schedule placement, and this will assist in attracting highly qualified faculty to the College. The contract also provides a VESP – an opportunity for teachers to retire early and for the College to generate savings. Given Michigan’s very troubled economy, the new contract is indeed a good one for HFCC faculty and HFCC. In May, the labor climate at HFCC looked so very promising – at least for Local 1650 members.

Adjunct Faculty Union

            That climate has changed, as adjunct faculty have begun to pursue the right virtually every other HFCC employee enjoys – the right to bargain collectively and have a voice in determining their professional lives and livelihoods. Adjunct faculty are now embarking on a process that HFCC’s full-time faculty perilously pursued and achieved 42 years ago, that HFCC administrators achieved in 1981, and that the College support staff achieved – for full-time and part-time staff – many years ago. Adjunct faculty seek nothing more than the legal standing and opportunity to negotiate the compensation and conditions of their employment. The consequences of their having no union – no such standing and opportunity at HFCC – are clear.

HFCC adjuncts are the lowest paid of any community college adjunct faculty in the metropolitan area.

Most HFCC adjuncts lack any office space for student conferences, and none is compensated for such activity.

HFCC adjuncts have no sick days and no access to group health insurance coverage, not even an opportunity to purchase coverage at their own expense.

HFCC adjuncts have no due process protection and procedures to resolve and redress grievances.

HFCC adjuncts have no job security – no reassurance of re-employment – no matter how long and successfully they may have taught at the College.

                        Which full-time HFCC employee – faculty, administrator, support staff, or exempt administrator for that matter – would not seek to remedy such conditions, if they found themselves in the adjuncts’ place? Year after year, decade after decade, the College has failed to address these conditions in a meaningful way. Admittedly, such conditions can not be remedied in their totality all at once, but the process can begin – and it begins in collective bargaining – and it begins with good will.

            The College Administration has a great opportunity to begin a relationship with an HFCC adjunct faculty union in a positive, productive fashion. Thus far, that opportunity is being squandered. The Administration’s September 12 letter to adjunct faculty was, despite its “artful” crafting, an anti-union letter in many ways, primarily in raising the question of whether an adjunct union would be in the “best interests of adjunct faculty as well as the College, our community, and especially our students.”

            Why would an adjunct union be any less in the best interests of its members, the College, our community, and our students than one of HFCC’s full-time unions? What makes adjuncts so less capable of establishing and operating a union in the best interests of the above mentioned? To question an adjunct employee union in this fashion is to question each HFCC union in this fashion – and history shows there is no justification in doing so.

            The Administration’s opposition to the adjunct union continues in the current negotiations to define the adjunct bargaining unit – and that ill advised posture now encompasses Local 1650.

The Administration opposes inclusion in an adjunct union of adjuncts who are doing work on a part-time basis that when performed full-time is done by 1650 members: work in the English Language Institute, the Learning Lab, Cooperative Education, Corporate Training, and Placement Services.

The Administration’s attorney has also expressed interest in going to MERC to move work in some of these areas out of Local 1650.

The Administration seeks to exclude one-half of the adjunct faculty from the adjunct faculty union. It insists that adjuncts who teach one class per semester be excluded. The effects are: (1) to cut adjunct union membership and resources by half; (2) to create a membership and bookkeeping nightmare for an adjunct union, with adjuncts moving in and out of the union each semester as their assignments change; and (3) to allow the Administration to “cherry pick” adjuncts in and out the adjunct union at its discretion by controlling the number of classes taught.

The Administration seeks to put the 300 adjunct faculty permitted to organize under its plan into Local1650 – despite the preference of both part-time and full-time faculty to have their own unions.

            Such is the turn-about in the Administration’s attitude toward unions since May. It is an astounding reversal and damaging to the decades-long, productive relationship between the College and its unions. What motivates the Administration’s behavior and agenda is a mystery.

            Moreover, this Administrative agenda will place the College in a very unfavorable light in the eyes of students, in the eyes of the UAW and other unions with which the College has worked closely in the past, in the eyes of elected officials who value organized labor, and in the eyes of the public and media, where this ill advised and unnecessary confrontation, if not resolved, will certainly play itself out.

State Politics and HFCC

            At the State level, 2007 demonstrated yet again how very much the fate of HFCC’s students, faculty, and staff are in the hands of elected officials. The State’s $1.8 billion budget deficit in 2007 threatened decimating cuts to State services – one such State service being this College. Had the Republican legislative leadership and their partisan strategy prevailed, all of the State deficit would have been addressed by budget cuts – despite the assessment of virtually every impartial analyst that a combination of cuts and revenue enhancements was necessary. Local 1650, AFT -Michigan, and the State AFL-CIO lobbied extensively to persuade legislators to address the budget crisis responsibly. The Legislature was only able to do so as State government faced shutdown. The 2007 State deficit could have been resolved months earlier than it was, with the very combination of cuts and revenue increases that eventually passed, had Republican strategists not exploited the State’s fiscal vulnerability and fiscal standing for partisan purposes.

            Passage of the 2007 budget has brought momentary fiscal relief, but State revenue projections predict a 2008 revenue shortfall. Any 2008 shortfall is likely to be covered with budget cuts alone, since efforts are already underway by right-wing idealogues to recall legislators who voted to increase State revenues in 2007, legislators who must stand for election next November anyway. Those who see the need to support vital State services – and this must include HFCC faculty – will need to devote both physical and financial resources to defeat these recall drives and elect legislators next November who will place the State’s welfare above ideology and partisan politics.

Right-to-Work Threat

            Efforts are also underway at the State level to make Michigan a so-called “Right-to-Work State,” either through legislation or a petition to open and revise the State constitution. This is nothing but an effort by the far-right to weaken, if not destroy, unions by permitting employees, whom unions are obligated to represent, to avoid paying the dues or fees necessary to support negotiating, maintaining, and policing contracts. We have all seen the result of a weakened labor movement: decreased wage levels, loss of group insurance benefits, and weakened or destroyed pension systems. All of this has whetted the appetite of the far-right. HFCC faculty should ask ourselves just how long we can maintain professional wages, good insurance coverage, and sound pension benefits when these are no longer common in our State and nation. HFCC faculty should recognize that such wages, insurance coverage, and pension benefits were all achieved at HFCC because other unions had achieved them elsewhere – that HFCC faculty stood on the shoulders of other unions and that only by doing so achieved the wages, benefits, and pensions we enjoy. HFCC faculty should ask ourselves what are we prepared to do, in the political arena and at the ballot box, to elect officials who value the Union movement and the middle class the Union movement built.

HFCC Trustees

            2008 will require of Local 1650 activism in local politics as well. In 2007, two candidates for College Trustee endorsed by Local 1650 won seats on the Board. With the College Administration’s attitude toward unionized faculty adrift at best and damaging at worst, it is imperative that Local 1650 and the other College unions elect Trustees next November who value the tradition of positive labor relations that has served HFCC students, our College, and our community so very well for so many years.

2008 Federal Election

            Political challenges also face HFCC faculty at the national level in 2008. While the Local sends none of its political action funds to candidates for national office or to national political parties, the Federation must, nevertheless, inform HFCC faculty of where candidates stand on issues that directly and indirectly affect higher education and the right to bargain. Admittedly, these are but two areas that voters should examine in preparing to cast their ballots. Nevertheless, the President and Congress determine the level of Pell and Perkins funding for higher education, and HFCC students and the College rely heavily on both. In 2007, the Democratic controlled Congress supported AFT and AFL-CIO proposals that improved such funding dramatically. In 2008, the President and Congress will determine, in the Reauthorizaiton of the Higher Education Act, if the far-right succeeds in enacting David Horowitz’s political litmus tests regarding the content of College curricula and the hiring of College faculty. In the Higher Education Reauthorization, the President and Congress will also determine whether funding and perhaps accreditation will be predicated on a College’s graduation/persistence rates.

            The political challenges of 2008 will be many. They will manifest themselves on the local, State, and federal levels. For many years, whatever the political turmoil and uncertainties, one thing was certain at Henry Ford Community College – and that was the collegial interaction of the Federation and the Administration in anticipating, addressing, and resolving problems from without and within – and in so doing minimizing potential damage to the College and its image in the community. Whether such remains true in 2008 and beyond has been called into question by the Administration’s actions in recent months. Our adjunct colleagues seek what virtually every HFCC employee enjoys. Nevertheless, they are being rebuffed, with serious implications for Local 1650. Decades of goodwill within the College and the College’s image throughout the community are being put at risk – for no good reason.

John McDonald

January 28, 2008

Henry Ford Community College
Federation of Teachers
5101 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, MI 48128-1495

jmcdon@hfcc.edu

Index of Past State of the Union Reports

Editor: Betsy Cohn	January 28, 2008
ANNUAL REPORT ON STATE OF THE UNION The Federation’s constitution calls for an annual report to the membership on the Federation’s accomplishments of the year concluding and challenges of the year upcoming. 2008 marks my 30^th such report as Local 1650 President – and the first occasion in those 30 years that tension marks the relationship between the Federation and College Administration. Nothing at the outset of 2007 indicated that such would be the case. 2007-2012 Contract Last May, the Federation negotiated, in some 72 hours, a new five year contract. It was done in a matter of 72 hours at the insistence of and to the credit of Dr. Mee – and was only possible due to a great deal of experience, expertise, and good will on both sides of the negotiating table. While the 2007-2012 contract begins with a one year wage freeze and health insurance concessions, the contract provides equitable wage increases and secures health insurance coverage over its five year duration. A remarkable and needed feature of the contract was an additional step advancement for previous work experience given to eligible newer faculty who were hired during a period when such credit was absent from the contract. The 2007-2012 contract restores previous experience credit for salary schedule placement, and this will assist in attracting highly qualified faculty to the College. The contract also provides a VESP – an opportunity for teachers to retire early and for the College to generate savings. Given Michigan’s very troubled economy, the new contract is indeed a good one for HFCC faculty and HFCC. In May, the labor climate at HFCC looked so very promising – at least for Local 1650 members. Adjunct Faculty Union That climate has changed, as adjunct faculty have begun to pursue the right virtually every other HFCC employee enjoys – the right to bargain collectively and have a voice in determining their professional lives and livelihoods. Adjunct faculty are now embarking on a process that HFCC’s full-time faculty perilously pursued and achieved 42 years ago, that HFCC administrators achieved in 1981, and that the College support staff achieved – for full-time and part-time staff – many years ago. Adjunct faculty seek nothing more than the legal standing and opportunity to negotiate the compensation and conditions of their employment. The consequences of their having no union – no such standing and opportunity at HFCC – are clear. HFCC adjuncts are the lowest paid of any community college adjunct faculty in the metropolitan area. Most HFCC adjuncts lack any office space for student conferences, and none is compensated for such activity. HFCC adjuncts have no sick days and no access to group health insurance coverage, not even an opportunity to purchase coverage at their own expense. HFCC adjuncts have no due process protection and procedures to resolve and redress grievances. HFCC adjuncts have no job security – no reassurance of re-employment – no matter how long and successfully they may have taught at the College. Which full-time HFCC employee – faculty, administrator, support staff, or exempt administrator for that matter – would not seek to remedy such conditions, if they found themselves in the adjuncts’ place? Year after year, decade after decade, the College has failed to address these conditions in a meaningful way. Admittedly, such conditions can not be remedied in their totality all at once, but the process can begin – and it begins in collective bargaining – and it begins with good will. The College Administration has a great opportunity to begin a relationship with an HFCC adjunct faculty union in a positive, productive fashion. Thus far, that opportunity is being squandered. The Administration’s September 12 letter to adjunct faculty was, despite its “artful” crafting, an anti-union letter in many ways, primarily in raising the question of whether an adjunct union would be in the “best interests of adjunct faculty as well as the College, our community, and especially our students.” Why would an adjunct union be any less in the best interests of its members, the College, our community, and our students than one of HFCC’s full-time unions? What makes adjuncts so less capable of establishing and operating a union in the best interests of the above mentioned? To question an adjunct employee union in this fashion is to question each HFCC union in this fashion – and history shows there is no justification in doing so. The Administration’s opposition to the adjunct union continues in the current negotiations to define the adjunct bargaining unit – and that ill advised posture now encompasses Local 1650. The Administration opposes inclusion in an adjunct union of adjuncts who are doing work on a part-time basis that when performed full-time is done by 1650 members: work in the English Language Institute, the Learning Lab, Cooperative Education, Corporate Training, and Placement Services. The Administration’s attorney has also expressed interest in going to MERC to move work in some of these areas out of Local 1650. The Administration seeks to exclude one-half of the adjunct faculty from the adjunct faculty union. It insists that adjuncts who teach one class per semester be excluded. The effects are: (1) to cut adjunct union membership and resources by half; (2) to create a membership and bookkeeping nightmare for an adjunct union, with adjuncts moving in and out of the union each semester as their assignments change; and (3) to allow the Administration to “cherry pick” adjuncts in and out the adjunct union at its discretion by controlling the number of classes taught. The Administration seeks to put the 300 adjunct faculty permitted to organize under its plan into Local1650 – despite the preference of both part-time and full-time faculty to have their own unions. Such is the turn-about in the Administration’s attitude toward unions since May. It is an astounding reversal and damaging to the decades-long, productive relationship between the College and its unions. What motivates the Administration’s behavior and agenda is a mystery. Moreover, this Administrative agenda will place the College in a very unfavorable light in the eyes of students, in the eyes of the UAW and other unions with which the College has worked closely in the past, in the eyes of elected officials who value organized labor, and in the eyes of the public and media, where this ill advised and unnecessary confrontation, if not resolved, will certainly play itself out. State Politics and HFCC At the State level, 2007 demonstrated yet again how very much the fate of HFCC’s students, faculty, and staff are in the hands of elected officials. The State’s $1.8 billion budget deficit in 2007 threatened decimating cuts to State services – one such State service being this College. Had the Republican legislative leadership and their partisan strategy prevailed, all of the State deficit would have been addressed by budget cuts – despite the assessment of virtually every impartial analyst that a combination of cuts and revenue enhancements was necessary. Local 1650, AFT -Michigan, and the State AFL-CIO lobbied extensively to persuade legislators to address the budget crisis responsibly. The Legislature was only able to do so as State government faced shutdown. The 2007 State deficit could have been resolved months earlier than it was, with the very combination of cuts and revenue increases that eventually passed, had Republican strategists not exploited the State’s fiscal vulnerability and fiscal standing for partisan purposes. Passage of the 2007 budget has brought momentary fiscal relief, but State revenue projections predict a 2008 revenue shortfall. Any 2008 shortfall is likely to be covered with budget cuts alone, since efforts are already underway by right-wing idealogues to recall legislators who voted to increase State revenues in 2007, legislators who must stand for election next November anyway. Those who see the need to support vital State services – and this must include HFCC faculty – will need to devote both physical and financial resources to defeat these recall drives and elect legislators next November who will place the State’s welfare above ideology and partisan politics. Right-to-Work Threat Efforts are also underway at the State level to make Michigan a so-called “Right-to-Work State,” either through legislation or a petition to open and revise the State constitution. This is nothing but an effort by the far-right to weaken, if not destroy, unions by permitting employees, whom unions are obligated to represent, to avoid paying the dues or fees necessary to support negotiating, maintaining, and policing contracts. We have all seen the result of a weakened labor movement: decreased wage levels, loss of group insurance benefits, and weakened or destroyed pension systems. All of this has whetted the appetite of the far-right. HFCC faculty should ask ourselves just how long we can maintain professional wages, good insurance coverage, and sound pension benefits when these are no longer common in our State and nation. HFCC faculty should recognize that such wages, insurance coverage, and pension benefits were all achieved at HFCC because other unions had achieved them elsewhere – that HFCC faculty stood on the shoulders of other unions and that only by doing so achieved the wages, benefits, and pensions we enjoy. HFCC faculty should ask ourselves what are we prepared to do, in the political arena and at the ballot box, to elect officials who value the Union movement and the middle class the Union movement built. HFCC Trustees 2008 will require of Local 1650 activism in local politics as well. In 2007, two candidates for College Trustee endorsed by Local 1650 won seats on the Board. With the College Administration’s attitude toward unionized faculty adrift at best and damaging at worst, it is imperative that Local 1650 and the other College unions elect Trustees next November who value the tradition of positive labor relations that has served HFCC students, our College, and our community so very well for so many years. 2008 Federal Election Political challenges also face HFCC faculty at the national level in 2008. While the Local sends none of its political action funds to candidates for national office or to national political parties, the Federation must, nevertheless, inform HFCC faculty of where candidates stand on issues that directly and indirectly affect higher education and the right to bargain. Admittedly, these are but two areas that voters should examine in preparing to cast their ballots. Nevertheless, the President and Congress determine the level of Pell and Perkins funding for higher education, and HFCC students and the College rely heavily on both. In 2007, the Democratic controlled Congress supported AFT and AFL-CIO proposals that improved such funding dramatically. In 2008, the President and Congress will determine, in the Reauthorizaiton of the Higher Education Act, if the far-right succeeds in enacting David Horowitz’s political litmus tests regarding the content of College curricula and the hiring of College faculty. In the Higher Education Reauthorization, the President and Congress will also determine whether funding and perhaps accreditation will be predicated on a College’s graduation/persistence rates. The political challenges of 2008 will be many. They will manifest themselves on the local, State, and federal levels. For many years, whatever the political turmoil and uncertainties, one thing was certain at Henry Ford Community College – and that was the collegial interaction of the Federation and the Administration in anticipating, addressing, and resolving problems from without and within – and in so doing minimizing potential damage to the College and its image in the community. Whether such remains true in 2008 and beyond has been called into question by the Administration’s actions in recent months. Our adjunct colleagues seek what virtually every HFCC employee enjoys. Nevertheless, they are being rebuffed, with serious implications for Local 1650. Decades of goodwill within the College and the College’s image throughout the community are being put at risk – for no good reason. John McDonald January 28, 2008 Henry Ford Community College Federation of Teachers 5101 Evergreen Road Dearborn, MI 48128-1495 jmcdon@hfcc.edu