Quick Contract Update

Friends of the WGAE Staff:

We wanted to give you a quick update.  Although our contract is not yet signed, the WGAE has provided the required documents to the mediator.  We are hopeful that the contract will be signed by early next week.  Sit tight.  We will keep you posted.

In solidarity,

Elaine, Leah, and Karen

Good News: Tentative Agreement For Contract Signing

This message was sent to WGAE staff members of TNG today (Jan. 30, 2008):

Hey Guys,

Good news. There is an end in sight, or a new beginning, depending on how you want to look at it, in our struggle to have our contract signed.

As you know, there was a mediation meeting in Washington on Monday afternoon between the WGAE (Mona, Ann, and Michael Winship) and TNG President Bill O’Meara, along with high-ranking officials of the CWA and AFL-CIO. Sarah Fox of the AFL-CIO (formerly an NLRB board member) mediated the meeting. The welcome result of this meeting is that the WGAE and the TNG have reached a tentative agreement, whereby our contract should be signed by the end of the week.

The agreement is basically that the WGAE will sign the contract we ratified on October 30, 2007. The disputed issue of the additional 3% wage increase due some members of the unit will be subject to an arbitration, with the proviso that there be no prejudice to either side related to the fact that the contract has already been signed.

This is, in essence, the same solution that Bill proposed before Christmas, before Jose and Susan’s employment was terminated. As part of the agreement, WGAE has offered additional compensation to both Jose and Susan, in lieu of renewed employment. This too is something which should be finalized by the end of the week. The side letter Mona earlier insisted on including in the contract, which contained language which could potentially reopen our contract, will not be included.

Assuming all goes well, Monday will be a day which signifies a new phase of our relationship with the WGAE, with a signed contract guaranteeing our rights as workers. It will also be a day to begin building the staff-management relationships which characterize a pleasant, productive, and professional environment.

Also, the meeting previously scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday Jan. 31, will be postponed, in light of these developments.

Yours in Solidarity,

Elaine, Leah, and Karen

New Leadership At Guild Staff Union

January 16th was the deadline to submit nominations for your Unit Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary. The only nominations received were Elaine Lindsay for Chair, Leah Tedrick-Moutz for Vice Chair and Karen Young for Secretary. So, Elaine, Leah, and Karen have been elected. Congratulations!

Elaine, Leah, and Karen would like to thank outgoing Chair Susan DeCarava, outgoing Vice-Chair Alexis DiVincenti, and former Secretary Sean Stevenson for their service to our members.  They began organizing our staff union in late 2005 and first achieved recognition in January 2006.  We all know about the many ups and downs, the long nights of negotiations, and tense moments of confrontation with management that have happened since then.  Susan, Alexis and Sean remained steadfast and courageous, and brought us where we are today, with a contract that is implemented (if not signed), and the union protections we all need and deserve.

We look forward to our continued work together as a unit, strengthening the bonds we’ve already forged.  Here’s to a bright and productive New Year.

In solidarity,
Elaine, Leah, Karen, Susan and Alexis

Pace adjuncts want new pact

From NY Metro:

INTERVIEW. It’s been more than three years since Pace University’s adjunct faculty voted to join New York State United Teachers. The adjuncts, however, say they’re still fighting for a fair contract, claiming the administration has delayed by launching “frivolous” lawsuits challenging who can be at the bargaining table. (The administration lost the initial case and two appeals are pending with the National Labor Relations Board.)

John Pawlowski, president of the university’s adjunct union, told Metro he’s hoping to avoid a strike in the spring.

Where do talks stand?

We haven’t gotten anywhere on the main things: job security, salary and benefits. We’ve come to agreement on lesser issues — jury time off, paid sick leave. We’re asking for adjuncts of a certain number of years to have job security. Right now you’re at the whim of the department chair. The administration claims it limits their flexibility. We want to give adjuncts the right of first refusal. We’re saying the only way to dismiss an adjunct is for cause.

What about the salary?

We’re going for salary parity with the full-timers. Right now, an adjunct makes about one-quarter of a full-timer. Adjuncts earn about $2,500 to $3,000 for a 3-credit course. If you take a full-timer making $100,000 a year, spending 70 percent of the time in class, for a 24-credit course-load, it’s quite a disparity.

Will you strike?

We would not like to. Before the union came about, I thought adjuncts were people [like me] who had other jobs and taught because they had time and enjoyed it. I didn’t realize there’s a whole group of people who make their living doing this. It would be really hard for them if we went on strike. The university wants us to give up, but we’re not going away.

Anti-Union News…

December 23, 2007
Labor Board Restricts Union Use of E-Mail
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that employers have the right to prohibit workers from using the company’s e-mail system to send out union-related messages, a decision that could hamper communications between labor unions and their membership.

In a 3-to-2 ruling released on Friday, the board held that it was legal for employers to prohibit union-related e-mail so long as employers had a policy barring employees from sending e-mail for “non-job-related solicitations” for outside organizations.

The ruling is a significant setback to the nation’s labor unions, which argued that e-mail systems have become a modern-day gathering place where employees should be able to communicate freely with co-workers to discuss work-related matters of mutual concern.

The ruling involved The Register-Guard, a newspaper in Eugene, Ore., and e-mail messages sent in 2000 by Suzi Prozanski, a newspaper employee who was president of the Newspaper Guild’s unit there. She sent three e-mail messages about marching in a town parade and urging employees to wear green to show support for the union in contract negotiations.

During the years that this case was pending, many companies were uncertain whether they could bar union-related e-mail. But the labor board’s decision gives companies nationwide the green light to prohibit union-related e-mail as part of an overall nonsolicitation policy.

“An employer has a ‘basic property right’ to regulate and restrict employee use of company property,” the board’s majority wrote. “The respondent’s communications system, including its e-mail system, is the respondent’s property.”

Labor leaders attacked the decision, calling it part of board rulings that have favored employers and undercut workers.

“Anyone with e-mail knows that this is how employees communicate with each other in today’s workplace,” said Jonathan Hiatt, general counsel for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “Outrageously in allowing employers to ban such communications for union purposes, the Bush labor board has again struck at the heart of what the nation’s labor laws were intended to protect — the right of employees to discuss working conditions and other matters of mutual concern.”

The ruling comes as the nation’s labor unions continue to struggle to reverse their membership declines. They represent just 12 percent of the nation’s work force, down from 35 percent in the 1950s.

The two board members who dissented asserted that the employees’ interest in communicating with other employees about union activity and other collective concerns should, with regard to the e-mail system, outweigh the employer’s property interest.

They wrote, “The majority erroneously treats the employer’s asserted ‘property interest’ in e-mail — a questionable interest here, in any event — as paramount, and fails to give due consideration to employee rights and the appropriate balancing of the parties’ legitimate interests.”

The majority’s decision was dated last Sunday, the day the board’s chairman, Robert J. Battista, stepped down because his term expired. President Bush has not renominated Mr. Battista, with many Democrats threatening not to reconfirm him because he has been part of so many anti-union rulings.

The board overturned several decisions it had made in ruling that an employer does not illegally discriminate against pro-union speech if it lets employees use e-mail for personal communications but bars them from using e-mail for solicitations for outside organizations.

Adopting the reasoning of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, involving two cases concerning the use of employer bulletin boards, the labor board distinguished between personal non-work-related postings like for-sale notices and wedding announcements, on the one hand, and group or organizational postings like union materials on the other.

In many past cases, the labor board ruled that employers engaged in illegal anti-union discrimination if they barred workers from engaging in union-related speech on bulletin boards or telephones when they allowed workers to communicate on bulletin boards or telephones about other matters.

In its new ruling, the board’s majority wrote that employers can allow workers to use e-mail for personal communications while barring them from organizational-related communications. The majority redefined the meaning of discrimination and wrote that the Seventh Circuit’s approach “better reflects the principle that discrimination means the unequal treatment of equals.”

Adopting another new policy, the board appeared to allow employers to bar e-mail for certain organizational activities, like promoting a union or Avon products, but not organizational activities related to charities.

The dissenters said the majority’s decision, in allowing employers to bar solicitation with regard to some activities and not others, “would allow employees to solicit on behalf of virtually anything except a union.”