News Briefs - April 4, 2005● NEA Resolution in Support of COCAL  ● Meet Mexican Teachers Organizing for a Union Contract! ● Prairie State College Adjunct Election ● Graduate Employee Organizing:

○ Support Graduate Employees' Right to Organize ○ GradTRAC at University of Minnesota

● Legislation Regarding Contingent Academic Labor:○ Report from Washington State (includes text of HB 2080 and SB 5871)○ Proposed Connecticut Legislation Benefiting Contingent Faculty

● Academic Freedom:○ Academic Idol Opportunity for Liberal Professors \○ Mohamed Yousry convicted ○ Most Speak at Their Own Risk. What Academic Freedom? ○ Defend Dissent and Critical Thinking on Campus. An Open Letter From Concerned Academics

Item 1

NEA Resolution in Support of COCAL

After considerable back and forth and high level negotiations, on March 4, the Nat'l Council on Higher Education meeting at the NEA Annual Higher Education Conference in San Antonio unanimously passed the following resolution proposed by the California Faculty Association.

John Hess <jhess@igc.org>

A RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF THE COALITION OF CONTINGENT ACADEMIC LABOR (COCAL)

WHEREAS the increasing overuse and abuse of contingent/temporary faculty appointments in higher education has undermined academic freedom, weakened shared governance, and destabilized the work of the faculty, with negative results not just for our current students but for the students now in K-12 who desire and deserve access to quality higher education;WHEREAS the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL) has become a leader in contingent faculty organizing to improve the job security of contingent faculty and strengthen the role of all faculty in higher education;WHEREAS COCAL is vigorously inter-organizational and has received support from many unions and professional organizations in the United States and Canada;WHEREAS COCAL has organized major conferences and various activities to mark Campus Equity/Fair Employment Week;THEREFORE BE RESOLVED THATNCHE will encourage NEA to continue to support COCAL and to urge all higher education locals and state organizations to send people to COCAL conferences and to participate in Campus Equity/Fair Employment Week activities,NCHE will encourage NEA to provide resources for the fall 2005 Campus Equity/Fair Employment Week and the summer 2006 COCAL conference,NCHE will encourage NEA to continue to publicize contingent faculty issues and their impact on higher education,

NCHE will encourage locals and state organizations within NEA to continue to offer leadership support by participating in COCAL planning and advisory committees.

Back to top

Item 2

Meet Mexican Teachers Organizing for a Union Contract!

Monday, March 7th12:00 pm - 2:00 pmWHERE: San Francisco Unified School District,Board Meeting Room,555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor (McAllister Street)Public Transportation:BART - Civic Center stationMUNI - 5 Fulton, 47 or 49 Van Ness1000 teachers from Mexico who work to bring higher education to the rural poor areas of Guanajuato are struggling to have a voice and to form their own independent union affiliated with the FAT, the Authentic Workers Front. This is an independent union, unlike the traditional union confederation (CTM) that fosters "sweetheart" deals with employers.The SITESABES teachers union won recognition two years ago and has been struggling with outrageous violations of labor law, including the firing of union leaders. The teachers are still organizing for a contract!Bring your lunch and join us for a talk with Monserrat Banda Arteaga, a representative of the SITESABES Teachers union, who will be in San Francisco on March 7th. This event is being co-hosted by Eric Mar and Mark Sanchez from the San Francisco Board of Education, IFPTE 21, AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, LCLAA, La Raza Centro Legal and Enlace.*************BACKGROUND ARTICLE IN SITESABES UNIONUnion travails in GuanajuatoBY FRED ROSEN/EL UNIVERSAL/The HeraldFebruary 22, 2004Article 123 of Mexico's Constitution gives workers the right to unionize and to strike in theory. But reality is much more complicated.In October, 1996, the state of Guanajuato established an educational outreach program called the Advanced System for Training and Higher Education (SABES). The highlypraised program serves a community that otherwise has little access to middle and higher education, and offers a "video high school diploma" and university-level distance learning.When SABES was launched, about one thousand teachers were hired to carry out the program. The teachers were initially paid on the basis of "fees for services" (honorarios) payments determined by hours worked, and without the benefits, pensions and social security membership that a payroll job might bring. They worked on six-month contracts and had to finance their own training.In 2002, perhaps responding to growing discontent, the state decreed that the SABES teachers belonged to a category of workers that had the right to be on a contractual payroll and bargain collectively.Though still without benefits, pensions or social security, the teachers could now negotiate their wages and working conditions. The Authentic Workers Front (FAT) an activist group was called upon to guide them through the complicated process of organizing their union. In January, 2003, with the FAT's help, the teachers formed the Independent Union of Workers and Employees of SABES (SITESABES).Unions in Mexico must have a registro, a legal registration to represent workers in a particular workplace. After obtaining the registro, they must then petition for a titularidad, the right to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement in that same workplace. "We solicited the registro from the Conciliation and Arbitration Board in Le n, �the state capital," said Antonio Villalba of the FAT, "and to our great surprise, they quickly granted it to our independent union."

Unknown to most of the teachers, however, the directors of SABES had gone ahead and formed their own union, the Union of Workers and Employees in Service to SABES (STESSABES), a year earlier. This is not an uncommon practice: Employers gather a few workers together and through them form an alternative union (a "white union"), while the majority of the workers generally know nothing until this second union is already in place.And not only did the directors of SABES form a union, they negotiated a contract. The contract was negotiated in secret, before the state had even authorized the teachers' right to unionize. It won very real benefits like vacation time, bonuses and social security coverage. But one of the supporters of the alternative union went so far as to argue in a Guanajuato daily that the contract itself won the right to negotiate a contract its purpose was to protect SABES and the state of Guanajuato from an independent negotiating process.In the language of Mexico's unionists, it was a "protection contract."Mexico's Federal Labor Law establishes tripartite labor tribunals, called Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, to govern labor relations and the rights and obligations of Mexico's trade unions in each state. Each Board is composed of a government representative appointed by the governor, an employers' representative appointed by agreement among the larger business chambers, and a labor representative, nearly always appointed by one of the unions within the PRI-affiliated Congress of Labor (CT). Independent unions seldom fare well before the Boards.The "white union," arguing that it had prior registration, asked Guanajuato's Conciliation and Arbitration Board to cancel the independent union's registro. And from out of nowhere, a PRI-affiliated union appeared on the scene to claim its own jurisdiction. So not only the company union, but the PRI union and then management itself demanded that SITESABES' registration be cancelled. At that point, the Board suspended the titularidad procedure that the independent union had initiated and announced it would mount an investigation. SITESABES claims its members are being harassed and fired.Last March the director of SABES, Agust n Casillas Guti rrez, told demonstrating teachers and students that he � �respected the independent union but that the authorization of titularidad was "out of his hands." In November, the Education Commission of Guanajuato's Congress proposed a public dialogue including members of SITESABES and the state's Secretary of Education. The Secretary, V ctor Manuel Ram rez Valenzuela, agreed to the � �dialogue, defended the right of "free association," and insisted that no one had been dismissed for belonging to the union.SITESABES continues to demand that it be allowed to negotiate a contract. "We are demanding titularidad to the protection contract," says the FAT's Villalba, "because once we have it we can then improve it. We are asking for an immediate vote of the workers. That's what we want. That's where the Board interrupted the process. We would win a vote today but a year from now, after the dismissals and harassment, who knows?" Posted by Linda Cushing (cushing@allweb.com to the CPFA Listserv (elchorro-list@bruno.tcsn.net) on March 2, 2005.

Back to top

Item 3

Prairie State College Adjunct Election

On the 15th and 16th of February, adjuncts at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights (about 30 miles south of downtown Chicago) voted to unionize with Prairie State College Adjunct Instructors United, IEA-NEA. 115 people voted out of a possible 183 eligible voters. It was a contested ballot and the final tally was: IEA-76, IFT-32, no representative-7 and there were 3 challenged ballots. The unit is made up of both credit and non-credit instructors teaching at least 3 hours of classes. In the Chicago area, the IEA also represents adjuncts at Oakton, the College of DuPage, Roosevelt, Columbia, Triton, Harper, and The City Colleges. E-mail from Steve Vaughan (Steve.Vaughan@ieanea.org), IEA Higher Education Organizer, to Joe Berry on February 22, 2005

Back to top

Item 4

Support Graduate Employees' Right to Organize

Dear Colleagues: Attached and below is a petition supporting the right of graduate assistants to unionize. I am �hoping that a good number of us will want to sign on. If this is not your cup of tea, please forgive the intrusion. If you are so inclined, you could pass this along to faculty colleagues at other institutions.  From Kitty Krupat at Queens CWEDear colleagues,As you may have heard, last summer the National Labor Relations Board overturned the legal precedent that granted teaching and research assistants the right to organize unions at private universities. Asmembers of the academic community, we must stand together to protect labor rights throughout the university.We are two recent Ph.D.'s from Columbia's History department and New York University's Comparative Literature department. We are working with the graduate student union campaigns at NYU, Columbia, Yale and Penn to collect signatures on the below petition, which expresses our regret at the NLRB decision and our support for graduate employee organizing rights.Please take a moment to read the statement and forward to your friends and colleagues. To add your signature, please reply to lat202@nyu.edu with your name, title and institutional affiliation.Thank you for your support!Sincerely,Laura TanenbaumKim Phillips-Fein

FACULTY STATEMENT OF SUPPORTWe, the undersigned, deplore the recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board to revoke the collective bargaining rights of graduate employees at private institutions. Such employees have become an essential part of the educational work force at both public and private institutions, and deserve the same protections as other employees. For more than thirty years, graduate employee unions have existed without detriment to the academic community. What is detrimental, to both the academy and American society as a whole, is the continued erosion of the fundamental right to organize.We affirm our support for the right of graduate employees to form unions and we urge university administrators to voluntarily recognize those unions that have demonstrated majority support.Posted by Marcia Newfield revolu@earthlink.net to the Adjunct Mailing List (adj-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu) on March 3, 2005.

Back to top 

Item 5

GradTRAC at University of Minnesota

Graduate employees at 3 campuses file for union electionBy Michael Kuchta, Union Advocate editor

Workday MinnesotaFebruary 26, 2005MINNEAPOLIS - In what would be the largest union organizing victory in Minnesota in decades, graduate employees at the University of Minnesota filed for a union representation election on Feb. 11.The union would represent 4,300 graduate employees at the university's Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth campuses. The union, UE Local 1105, calls itself GradTRAC, for Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant Coalition.The graduate employees, who are among the university's 16,000 graduate and professional students, say they are part of the university's backbone - teaching many of the undergraduate classes on campus, grading exams, and working side by side with professors on the research that adds to the university's prestige.But like many workers everywhere, graduate employees are shouldering bigger workloads and working longer hours for no additional pay, said Kristen Houlton, a teaching assistant in Philosophy. Grad employees are being squeezed

further as medical insurance, university fees and other costs are dumped on them. For international students and students with families, it's even worse. The result is a real cut in take-home pay, Houlton said.More than bread-and-butter issuesAs the slogan "Better Jobs, Better U" suggests, the graduate employees see their campaign as more than just improving their own situation."I feel we're in a battle right now over the soul of the university," said Isaac Kamola, a teaching assistant in Political Science. He and others cite signs that the university is replacing its historical land-grant mission, affordable and accessible to all, with a more exclusive approach."It's bigger issues than just the bread-and-butter issues," said Leanna Noble, organizer for UE - the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, an independent union based in Pittsburgh. It represents 35,000 members, including graduate employees at the University of Iowa."There really is an identity with the university, and very much a commitment to the prestige and future of this institution," Noble said. "People see their working conditions as linked to a better future for education here."The diversity of work done by graduate employees - who staff more than 125 departments - means there is incredible inconsistency in pay, hours, costs and working conditions, union activists say. They expect to eliminate some of those disparities by establishing consistent standards, as UE has done at Iowa.Eleventh in the Big TenPay for teaching assistants averages about $12,300, university figures show. However, graduate salaries at the U are 11th in the Big Ten, according to a GradTRAC analysis of salaries, gathered independently by the Association of American Universities then adjusted for fee and tuition waivers.University departments pay the tuition of graduate employees, but often don't pay fees, giving the university "a backdoor route to raise revenue" from employees, Kamola said.Graduate employees also are concerned about their future, period.They point to a university task force that is recommending ways to contain the overall costs of graduate education. Proposals include merging, eliminating or "right-sizing" departments, and restricting how many students are admitted or how long they can stay. It also urges eliminating some graduate teaching assistant jobs and replacing them with "teaching specialists."Houlton says those would be adjuncts or graduate students who don't receive the benefits that TAs now receive."It sounds very much like a largely corporate document," she said.Real leverageThere is a graduate student association at the university; its role, unfortunately, is essentially advisory, said Ryan Murphy, a graduate fellow in American Studies.Last June, a division of that graduate association - the Council of Graduate Students - published an "open letter" that raised the issues of fees, health insurance, housing, the cost of living in the Twin Cities, research funding, and teaching loads, among other topics."They were employment-based issues, the kind of issues that were being brought up because there was no union that was addressing those concerns," said Houlton, who like some other union activists is also involved in the graduate association.Graduate employees need an organization with power - and staying power, Murphy said. "We need a way for this to be a permanent discussion with the university."Clerical strike was catalystGradTRAC activists already claim one victory. University president Robert Bruininks has pledged to raise salary minimums by 10 percent beginning in July. Noble calls it a "very typical employer ploy" during an organizing campaign - but an example of the real difference a union can make.At the University of Iowa, minimum salaries have risen 49 percent in the 8 years since graduate employees joined UE.Of Big Ten universities whose state labor laws allow collective bargaining for graduate employees, the University of Minnesota is the only one where they have not successfully unionized.To help change that, graduate union representatives from Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State and Wisconsin are meeting on campus Feb. 25 with GradTRAC activists. More than a dozen Twin Cities labor organizations, including AFSCME Local 3800 - the university clerical workers' union - are hosting a "solidarity reception" afterward.It was the two-week strike by university clerical workers in October 2003 that kick-started the grad employees' own campaign and showed them the power of collective action, organizers say."After that, we started talking about our position here, and seeing that we had a lot of commonalities," Kamola said.Adapted from The Union Advocate, the official newspaper of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly.

E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@mtn.orghttp://www.workdayminnesota.org/view_article.php?id=74be838723c5bc931906efd0278d0136 

Grad employees learn from past defeats

Workday MinnesotaFebruary 26, 2005MINNEAPOLIS - The union election for graduate employees at the University of Minnesota should take place by the end April, according to the state Bureau of Mediation Services.That target date - before the end of this academic year - is exactly what union organizers for GradTRAC/UE Local 1105 are counting on. "Our approach is to do it quick and do it hard," said organizer Leanna Noble.That's a lesson learned from the last time graduate employees tried to unionize at the university.In 1999, under the name Graduate Student Organizing Congress, or GradSOC, they attempted to join the American Federation of Teachers. But as the union campaign spilled over two academic years, Noble said, momentum deteriorated. The long lead time also gave university administrators too much opportunity to run their anti-union campaign, she said.The graduate employees lost that election 1,713 to 1,248.A previous organizing attempt, in 1990, also under the GradSOC name, also went down in defeat - by an even more lopsided vote of 1,810 to 855.Building for the futureThis time, Noble said, graduate employees are prepared for administration counter-tactics.By studying the 1999 campaign, and witnessing the administration's behavior during the AFSCME Local 3800 strike in 2003, "people are clear now that the administration is an employer," Noble said. "Folks get it. The university is much more than the administration."In addition, this year's organizing campaign is a ground-up effort, she said. Organizers are taking on various duties within their academic department, their building, on the three campuses, or even as a "mobile task force" among international students.It's a lot of one-on-one contact, hand-delivery of fliers, phone trees, and organized visits in departments, studios and student housing, said Julia Musha, an international student and teaching assistant in the English department. "It's really people involved in different levels.""You're talking hundreds of people," Noble said. "This is a huge bargaining unit. There's no way that staff, for example, could do this.. The kind of structure that's being built in the course of the campaign is very deliberately the kind that would then evolve into an ongoing union structure once the election's been won."An election of this size will take time to coordinate, but likely will be completed by the end of April, said Josh Tilsen, of the Bureau of Mediation Services. "We need to do this while all the eligible voters are still on campus and school is still in session," he said.State law already defines the bargaining unit, which eliminates one area of conflict and delay. Next, it's a matter of verifying the union petition and getting the union and university to sign off on the list of eligible voters, Tilsen said. It also must be decided whether the election will be on site or by mail ballot, he said.Adapted from The Union Advocate, the official newspaper of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly.E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@mtn.orghttp://www.workdayminnesota.org/view_article.php?id=1b168a4ecac1a31d074fc414a7cd166a

See also Matt Graham, "Event unites Big Ten graduate students to discuss unionization. Some argue unions help keep TAs from being overworked by professors", Minnesota Daily, February 28, 2005http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/02/28/63472Posted by Jon Curtiss curtissj@umich.edu to CGEU List cgeu-list@cgeu.org on February 28, 2005

Item 6

Report from Washington State

Yesterday (2/21/05), there was a packed senate hearing which about four bills; actually 6 were mentioned: PSSB 5802 and SB 5871, both intended to implement pro-rata pay for part-time faculty, SB 5304 for part-time faculty incremental pay, and SB 5087 proposing the revival of the Best Practices study group last convened in 1996.The first individual to testify was distinguished Senator Ken Jacobsen, who happened to have authored two of the four bills under consideration. He spoke with eloquence about the injustice to part-time faculty that results from the failure to provide equal pay for equal work. He commended and quoted from the outstanding 17 Feb 05 letter of support from Jane Buck, President of the American Association of University Professors. Senator Jacobsen also had beautiful words for the state's leading independent advocate for workplace justice for part-time faculty and the recipient of the 2002 Georgina Smith award, Dr. Keith Hoeller, who, in the senator's words, was living proof of Jesus' statement "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house, is a prophet without honor" (Mark 6:4).Senator Jacobsen also suggested the idea that part-time faculty provide the greatest program of financial aid that the state offers. He also mentioned SB 5970 (companion to HB 2080), that would bring a measure of job security to part-time faculty who now, regardless of having worked a decade or longer, are still hired on a term-by-term basis.The committee chair, Sen. Kohl-Welles, had to remind the audience to resist the temptation to show support by applause when Sen. Jacobsen.Also eliciting applause was the testimony of Annette Stover, a part-time faculty member who holds a leadership position within her union and bargaining unit at South Seattle Community College. She calculated that, because of her discounted wages over the years, the state owes her over $100,000 in back pay.My abbreviated testimony focused on PSSB 5802, which, after being amended, now seeks to establish "100 percent pro rata pay" for part-time faculty. I cited the bill as calling for "sufficient funds [.] for the colleges to implement and maintain one hundred percent pro rata pay for part-time faculty," but pointed out that getting the funds is not the same thing as stipulating that part-time faculty will be paid at 100 percent pro rata. That is, the door is left open for redirection of those funds to something the local institution feels is more pressing (as, according to Perry Robinson of the AFT, was the case in California's 1988 AB 1725).I also pointed out that the diversion of funds intended for part-time faculty brings to mind our state's management of part-time equity funds which, according one operating budget bill, "are provided solely to increase salaries and related benefits for part-time faculty." However, those funds do not go "solely to increase the salaries and related benefits for part-time faculty" but to full-time, tenured faculty whenever they teach course overloads. As I pointed out, surely full-time faculty deserve to be paid when they moonlight, but the pay for those courses should not be drawn from an account whose purpose is, to quote the Executive of the State Board for Community and Technical College's letter to the Governor of 15 September 2004, "to continue to close the pay gap between full- and part-time instructors." (at http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:UufVjm7AAv0J:www.sbctc.ctc.edu/OperatingBudget/1-Overview/1-Transmittal%2520Letter%2520-%2520Earl%2520Hale%2520to%2520Governor%2520Locke.doc+SBCTC+part+time+equity+funds+&hl=en).I'm not sure how attentive anyone was at that point in the two-hour hearing.Best wishes, Jack Posted by Jack Longmate (jacklongmate@earthlink.net) to the Adjunct Mailing List (adj-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu) on February 22, 2005.

Below is the text of proposed bill HB 2080 dealing with job security for part-time faculty in Washington state. The text is at http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2005-06/Htm/Bills/House%20Bills/2080.htm.One great thing is that it would not make any budgetary impact. It is influenced by the models of British Columbia and the California Faculty Association.It is being sponsored by Republican Jim Dunn from Vancouver, WA.

HB 2080: JOB SECURITY BILL FOR PART-TIME FACULTY

BILL REQ. #: H-1752.1

HOUSE BILL 2080State of Washington59th Legislature 2005Regular Session

By Representatives Dunn, Pettigrew, Chase and HolmquistRead first time . Referred to .AN ACT Relating to higher education; adding new sections to chapter 28B.50 RCW; and creating a new section.BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON: NEW SECTION. Sec. 1 The legislature finds that:(1) The state community and technical colleges hold a significant place in our higher education system by providing citizens with high quality instruction;(2) The retention of excellent college professors is an integral part to the success of our community and technical college system;(3) Our state's colleges and universities are dedicated to the free and open discussion of ideas that encourages the plurality of opinions that has been the hallmark of the concept of academic freedom;(4) Nearly half of the courses offered by the two-year colleges are currently taught by nontenure track, part-time faculty who lack the job security and academic freedom safeguards normally associated with tenure;(5) Job security for experienced faculty has long been a hallmark of high-quality higher education and results in a more stable work force of professionals dedicated to serving their students; and(6) Good business practice and faculty morale is best served by the time-honored labor practice of rewarding professors for their seniority, continuing education, and experience.NEW SECTION. Sec. 2 A new section is added to chapter 28B.50 RCW to read as follows:(1) Each community and technical college shall develop a new senior faculty position for nontenure track, part-time professors to be officially called associate faculty.(2) Nontenure track faculty are eligible for associate faculty status after having taught for nine quarters.(3) At a minimum, associate faculty shall have the following privileges conferred on them as a result of their seniority:(a) The right of first refusal on available departmental courses up to the equivalent of a full-time teaching load each year for fall, winter, and spring quarters;(b) The right to bump other nontenure track faculty in the event the associate faculty member's course is canceled;(c) The right to be paid thirty-three percent of their contract by the college in the event there is no one with less seniority to bump and the associate faculty member's class is canceled;(d) Their names and qualifications appearing in the college's biennial catalogs;(e) The right to receive annual contracts with the equivalent of full-time teaching loads; and(f) Annual contracts presumed to be automatically renewable.(4) Associate faculty status shall be revocable for probable cause, as outlined in the procedures for terminating full-time tenure track faculty. The associate faculty member may appeal the decision, at his or her option, including the right to a hearing and standard grievance procedures afforded to full-time faculty by contract; and(5) All nontenure track faculty who have taught more than nine quarters before June 30, 2005, shall automatically be conferred associate faculty status.NEW SECTION. Sec. 3 A new section is added to chapter 28B.50 RCW to read as follows:(1) Each community and technical college shall develop its associate faculty positions by means of collective bargaining.(2) Each community and technical college shall have its associate faculty positions in place no later than September 30, 2006.Posted by Jack Longmate (jacklongmate@earthlink.net) to the Adjunct Mailing List (adj-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu) on February 16, 2005.

In hopes that it serves as a model, pasted below is the text of Senate Bill 5871 (available at http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2005-06/Htm/Bills/Senate%20Bills/5871.htm)sponsored by Senator Ken Jacobsen.

SENATE BILL 5871

State of Washington59th Legislature 2005Regular SessionBy Senators Jacobsen and Kohl-Welles

Read first time 02/10/2005. Referred to Committee on Labor, Commerce, Research and Development.AN ACT Relating to higher education; adding new sections to chapter 28B.50 RCW; and creating new sections.BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:NEW SECTION. Sec. 1 The legislature finds that:(1) The state community and technical colleges offer quality, cost-effective instructional programs to the citizens of our state;(2) An experienced, educated faculty is essential to the quality of community and technical colleges;(3) The colleges benefit from a stable faculty work force with little turnover, which is best ensured by equitable compensation practices that encourage both recruitment and retention of high quality faculty;(4) In order to continue to develop and grow in their profession, college faculty need salaries commensurate with their education and training;(5) In order to retain quality faculty, the colleges need to compensate experienced faculty for their knowledge and their skills; and(6) Good business practice and faculty morale is best served by the principle of equal pay for equal work.NEW SECTION. Sec. 2 A new section is added to chapter 28B.50 RCW to read as follows:(1) Each community and technical college shall have only one salary schedule for all faculty.(2) Each community and technical college shall have only one increment or step increase schedule for all faculty.(3) Upon hiring, faculty must be placed on the appropriate step in the salary schedule, based upon degree, experience, and other pertinent factors.NEW SECTION. Sec. 3 A new section is added to chapter 28B.50 RCW to read as follows:(1) Upon hiring, part-time faculty must be placed on the appropriate step in the salary schedule, based upon degree, experience, and other pertinent factors, comparable to full-time faculty with comparable qualifications and experience.(2) Part-time faculty must be paid on a pro rata basis, based upon the percentage of a full-time faculty teaching load. Part-time faculty who work fifty percent of a full-time teaching load must be paid fifty percent of the full-time salary.(3) Part-time faculty must move up on the increment salary schedule on a pro rata basis, based upon the percentage of a full-time faculty teaching load. Part-time faculty who work fifty percent of a full-time faculty teaching load must move up fifty percent of the regular annual step increment.(4) Part-time faculty will be allowed to teach up to a full-time load in fall, winter, and spring quarters at each campus.(5) Part-time faculty who teach at more than one institution of higher education will have all of their experience counted at each institution. A part-time faculty member who teaches fifty percent at one community college, and fifty percent at another community college, must move up one annual salary increment at each college.(6) Part-time faculty may be assigned nonteaching duties by their hiring department on a pro rata basis, based upon the percentage of a full-time teaching load. For example, if full-time faculty work nine hours a week in nonteaching duties, a part-time faculty who teaches a fifty percent load may be asked to work four and one-half hours a week in nonteaching assignments.NEW SECTION. Sec. 4 (1) Each community and technical college must implement sections 2 and 3 of this act by July 1, 2006.(2) The legislature intends to provide the necessary funds to the community and technical colleges for the implementation of sections 2 and 3 of this act.

Back to top

Item 7

Proposed Connecticut Legislation Benefiting Contingent Faculty

The University of Connecticut-AAUP Contingent Faculty Committee submitted three bills for consideration by the General Assembly. The texts of the bills are available on the website www.cga.ct.gov . The bills are as follows:Bill 5754 - An Act Concerning Personal Service Agreements. This bill had a public hearing on February 1 at 1pm before the Labor Committee. The bill addresses the continual extension of contracts that currently prohibit us from receiving benefits. I testified for this bill and the Labor committee will be working with Ed Marth, the Executive Director of UCONN AAUP, Barry Williams, our lobbyist, and myself to find appropriate language to amend the

Personal Services Agreements so the Special Payroll Lecturers have a better chance of receiving benefits.Bill 5901 - An Act Concerning Retirement Benefits for Certain Part-time Faculty. This bill would correct an inequity between the higher education systems in the state. Currently, UCONN Special Payroll Lecturers receive no pension credits from the University. If this lecturer teaches at CSU concurrently, UCONN must contribute to their pension because CSU does. The passage of this bill would enable all Special Payroll Lecturers at UCONN to receive pension credit. Last year this bill made it through the Labor and Higher Education Committees but got hung up in the Appropriations Committee. This year it starts at Appropriations. This bill is not as expensive as the University would have the legislature believe. According to the survey I conducted of the adjunct faculty in 2002, only about 50% of adjuncts would even want benefits. I have estimated the cost to the university to be about $300,000. Keep in mind that adjuncts account for $50 million of the $278 million raised in tuition yearly.Bill 5960 - An Act Concerning the Difference in Salaries Paid to Regular Faculty and Adjunct Faculty. This bill would provide prorated benefits to adjuncts as well as adjusting the pay rate. This bill has been referred to the Higher Education Committee.While these bills specifically target University of Connecticut employees, the legislation, if enacted, creates the possibility for additional initiatives in other states.In addition: Karen Thompson (Rutgers AAUP) writes that a bill recently introduced in the legislature here in New Jersey calls for pro-rata compensation for part-time faculty appointments based on comparable full-time positions.Posted by Flo Hatcher (AAUP) (hatcherk1@southernct.edu) to to the Adjunct Mailing List (adj-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu) on February 15, 2005.

Back to top

Item 8

Academic Idol Opportunity for Liberal Professors

The director of "Brainwashing 101" - - a documentary about "liberal" indoctrination on campus wants to buy some student spies. Evan Maloney - - along with his colleagues Stuart Browning and Blaine Greenberg - - is offering college students a chance to win a computer and various iPods to catch their professors "voic[ing] his or her political views." Student snitches will play an important part in expanding the 46-minute "Brainwashing 101" into a feature-length documentary, tentatively titled - - "Ministry of Truth."What to film? Maloney asks. Most desired are examples of political speech which:

● denigrates America, its history, culture, economic system, military or political leadership.● portrays American society as institutionally racist, sexist, or "homophobic".● labels American foreign policy as imperialist, racist or genocidal.● advocates confiscation of private wealth or nationalization of corporate property.● attacks American Capitalism, corporations or businessmen in general - or describes Socialism as an ideal socio-economic system.● portrays America or Israel as the guilty parties in the current war against radical Islam.● is accompanied by the display of foreign flags such as that of the Palestinian Authority or the denigration of the American flag.

Given the difficulty of filming professors in class and despite the small problem of the Bill of Rights, Maloney suggests that his student narcs set up their cameras outside of class - - particularly at rallies, demonstrations, speakouts, and teach-ins.A full account of these hijinks is available at: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21217/If you've got students who are hot to capture free-speechifying professors and academic employees, you can direct them to: http://academicbias.com/whattofilm.html.Given the current stagnation in faculty salaries and the poverty wages of contingent faculty, you might want to try to get a residuals agreement before the camera starts rolling.Larry Hanley CCNYPosted by hanley@BWAY.NET to SENATE-FORUM@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU and forwarded by Marcia Newfield (revolu@earthlink.net) to adj-l (adj-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu) on March 6, 2005.

Back to top

Item 9

Mohamed Yousry convicted

Excerpts from AP story. Mohamed Yousry is a former York College adjunct, whose nonreappointment after being indicted in this case was the subject of an AAUP investigation and report (see http://www.aaup.org/Com-a/Institutions/archives/2004/04CUNY.htm).NEW YORK (AP) -- A veteran civil rights lawyer was convicted Thursday of crossing the line by smuggling messages of violence from one of her jailed clients -- a radical Egyptian sheik -- to his terrorist disciples on the outside.The jury has been deliberating off-and-on over the past month in the case of Lynne Stewart, 65, a firebrand, left-wing activist known for representing radicals and revolutionaries in her 30 years on the New York legal scene. The jury deliberated 13 days in all.Stewart faces up to 20 years in prison on charges that included conspiracy, giving material support to terrorists and defrauding the U.S. government.....The jury also convicted a U.S. postal worker, Ahmed Abdel Sattar, of plotting to "kill and kidnap persons in a foreign country" by publishing an edict urging the killing of Jews and their supporters. A third defendant, Arabic interpreter Mohamed Yousry, was convicted of providing material support to terrorists. Sattar could face life in prison and Yousry up to 20 years.Posted by Marcia Newfield revolu@earthlink.net to the Adjunct Mailing List (adj-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu) on February 10, 2005.

Back to top

Item 10

Most Speak at Their Own Risk. What Academic Freedom?

http://counterpunch.org/lindorff02102005.htmlFebruary 10, 2005Most Speak at Their Own RiskWhat Academic Freedom?By DAVE LINDORFFAmid all the controversy over the observations of University of Colorado professor and leftist Indian political activist Ward Churchill concerning the military justifiability of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, it's easy to overlook the fact that freedom of academic expression on American university campuses is already virtually dead.Churchill, who holds a tenured position at his university, is actually in an unusually strong position. With his tenure, the only way that the lynch mob out to fire him can get rid of him without facing a huge damage suit in court for breach of contract would be to prove a case of moral turpitude or dereliction of teaching duties or something equally heinous.But for many teachers on American campuses--indeed for most teachers on some campuses and all at some--tenure is a thing of the past. Increasingly, universities large and small, famous and unknown, are turning to contract hires to do the teaching. These virtual professors are only offered "folding chairs" that carry a contract--one year, two years, three years, or maybe five years. At that point, they have to be renewed. They cannot be considered for tenure. Many other teachers are simply adjuncts, hired on a year-to-year or semester-to-semester basis to teach one or two classes. They have no contract at all to protect them.Clearly, a person who has no job security has no freedom of expression. Such professors and adjuncts are no better off than the worker in a Wal-Mart or a General Electric factory--which means they have no more freedom of speech than a 12th century serf. They speak out at their own risk. If any adjunct or contract-hire teachers spoke out politically the way Churchill did and roused the wrath of the unwashed masses and the loofahed and lathered Bill O'Reilly, they'd be gone in a flash--if not the next day, then certainly at the end of the term.

At Temple University, a unionized urban institution here in Philadelphia, for instance (where teachers have been working almost a year without a contract because of management intransigence and demands for givebacks in the area of faculty governance), increasing numbers of professors are working on a contract basis. At Alfred University, where I taught journalism for a year, tenure is a bad joke. Although awarded after a typically exacting process of peer review, it has to be renewed every five years following a new peer review, thus providing as much academic freedom protection as a felt body-armor vest.There is no question that the lack of tenure makes for less outspokenness, iconoclasm and strength of conviction. I remember when I was working as an adjunct journalism instructor at Cornell University back in 1989, going to an assistant professor colleague who was on the tenure track, looking for support for a proposal I wanted to make regarding the department's minority students, whom I had found were having trouble with my and other teachers' coursework and were then being asked to leave the school, instead of being offered remedial or preparatory assistance. He said, "Oh, that's a controversy I can't get involved in until I get my tenure."With the bloodhounds of the right getting into full McCarthy lynching mode these days, including organized groups of student yahoos who monitor their teachers' lectures and backed by a phalanx of right-wing media mouths ready to amplify any complaint about non-mainstream viewpoints expressed by teachers in or outside the classroom, the fight for academic freedom has become more than academic. Yet instead of working to strengthen this important and historic tradition not just of tenure but of the very culture of free expression on campus, administrators are caving in to political pressure and undermining both.Ward Churchill is a fighter, and will go down slugging. Most academics, I'm afraid, will just shut up and become conventional thinkers.Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Information about both books and other work by Lindorff can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net.He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com  Posted by Suren Moodlia (suren@fairjobs.org) to the NAFFE-CAMPUS list  <Campus@naffe.net> on February 10, 2005.

Back to top

Item 11

DEFEND DISSENT AND CRITICAL THINKING ON CAMPUSAn Open Letter From Concerned Academics

March 2, 2005URGENT: The University of Colorado Board of Regents will be making its recommendations about Ward Churchill in the week of March 7.We call on all those who teach and research at colleges and universities to raise their voices in opposition to this inquisition. Sign and act on this open letter. Circulate it widely. Inform the media.As an immediate step, we call on our colleagues to pass emergency resolutions in faculty and professional associations and send them to the University of Colorado Board of Regents. We offer the following as a template for such resolutions:Resolved, that the attempt, escalated by government authority, to fire Ward Churchill and the trial by media which he is undergoing amount to a serious assault on dissent, critical inquiry, and academic freedom, and a heightening of the repressive atmosphere in American society overall. This attack is intolerable and must stop now. The precedents already set in this case" that a professor can be publicly pilloried and threatened with dismissal for what he writes" must not be allowed to stand. The University of Colorado Board of Regents must drop any effort to fire Churchill, cease its spurious investigation into his body of work and repudiate its actions up to now; and all colleges and universities must reaffirm, in word and deed, their commitment to defend critical thinking.The past month has witnessed a chilling turn in American political and intellectual life. Ward Churchill, a tenured professor and former chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Colorado, has been made the object of an unprecedented nationwide attack for an essay he wrote three years ago. Two governors, including the governor of Colorado, have called for his firing. The national and local media have not only misrepresented his work and views, but have increasingly vilified and slandered Ward Churchill himself. Some of Churchill's speaking

engagements have been cancelled. Death threats have been made against him. In response, the University of Colorado Board of Regents not only "apologized" for Churchill's remarks itself an utterly gratuitous and inappropriate action" but initiated an investigation into his entire body of work to search for mistakes and supposed evidence of "fraud." During the week of March 7, the Board of Regents will conclude its 30-day review of all of Churchill's writings and statements.One must go back to the "scoundrel time" of the McCarthy years to find anything even close to this. And now, as an unmistakable sign of what this portends, just a week ago the University of Colorado at Boulder announced an investigation into campus records to make sure that every faculty member has actually signed his or her state-required loyalty oath!All this is intolerable and must be reversed--immediately.To be clear: the issues here have nothing to do with the quality of Ward Churchill's scholarship or his professional credentials. However one views his choice of words or specific arguments, he is being put in the dock solely for his radical critique of U.S. history and present-day policy in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001. Apparently, 9/11 is now the third rail of American intellectual life: to critically probe into its causes and to interrogate the international role of the United States is treated as heresy; those inquiring can be denied forums, careers, and even personal safety. And now Churchill's persecutors have gone further, repeatedly ridiculing his scholarly argumentation that the United States committed genocide against the indigenous people of this continent, and that the FBI systematically attempted to disrupt and destroy the movements and leaders of the 1960s. Rather than debate or disprove such theses, Churchill's attackers attempt to render them beyond the pale of respectable discourse. Through all this, new ground rules are being established: any criticism or even questioning of the institutional foundations of the United States, or of the motives and interests behind its policies, will be treated as essentially treasonous. Left unopposed, this trajectory will lead to a situation of uncontested indoctrination enforced by the state.The Churchill case is not an isolated incident but a concentrated example of a well-orchestrated campaign launched in the name of "academic freedom" and "balance" which in fact aims to purge the universities of more radical thinkers and oppositional thought generally, and to create a climate of intimidation. While the right-wing claim that the universities are "left-wing dictatorships" is specious beyond belief, it is unfortunately true that the campus remains one of the few surviving refuges of critical thinking and dissent in this country. This is something to defend and strengthen.It would be hard to overstate the serious nature of what has already happened, let alone what it would mean should the Regents fire Churchill. If this assault on academe succeeds, the consequences for American society as a whole will be nothing short of disastrous.The response from the academic world has thus far fallen short of what is required. Voices have been raised in opposition, but many have been intimidated. What is needed is an outpouring of faculty resolutions condemning this witch- hunt. Teach-ins. Protests.We propose that emergency faculty resolutions be passed and sent to the University of Colorado Board of Regents (secretary: millie.cortez@colorado.edu, cc: EthnicStudies@colorado.edu) and major media outlets. We further propose that if the Colorado authorities continue their persecution of Churchill, we mount major nationally coordinated protests on campuses all over America" and internationally" as soon as possible, and that we begin to join efforts to reverse this dangerous direction in American political and intellectual lifeThe hour is very late; this case is nothing less than a watershed. We must act, and act now.Initial Signatories:

● Steven P. Best, Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of Texas-El Paso● Henry A. Giroux, Global Television Network Chair Professor in English and Communications, McMaster University● Ruth Y. Hsu, Associate Professor of English, University of Hawai'i at Manoa● Alan Jones, Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Pitzer College● Bruce Lincoln, Caroline E. Haskell Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago● Raymond Lotta, author and lecturer● Henry Silverman, Professor and Chairperson Emeritus, Michigan State University● Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University● Allen W. Wood, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

******************AMONG NEW SIGNATORIES TO THE OPEN LETTER:

● Robert M. Baum, Director of African Studies, Iowa State University

● Rosalyn Baxandall, Chair American Studies/Media and Communications, State University of New York at Old Westbury● Prasenjit Duara, Chair, Department of History, University of Chicago● James C. Faris, Professor Emeritus Anthropology, Director Emeritus, University of Connecticut Program in Middle East Languages and Area Studies● H. Bruce Franklin, John Cotton Dana Professor of English and American Studies, Rutgers University-Newark● Philip Gasper, Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Notre Dame de Namur University● Roger S. Gottlieb, Professor of Philosophy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA● Edward S. Herman, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania● Michael Meeropol, Chair, Department of Economics, Western New England College● Nancy S. Rabinowitz, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY Radical Philosophy Association● Allen F. Roberts, Director, James S. Coleman African Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles● Howard Ross, Dean, College of Letters and Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater● Mark Selden, Professor or Sociology and History, Binghamton University

******************E-mail this letter to colleagues, as well as people and institutions in other walks of life. Please get back to us with your ideas and let us know what you are doing. Send us copies of resolutions and statements. Add your name to this Open Letter.E-mail to: criticalthinking@pitzer.edu

Last revised on April 04, 2005 by the Webmaster.