Minutes and Some History of NMSU-AAUP
Thirty years ago, a group of NMSU faculty joined AAUP and began holding meeting. This was in the era when Roger Corbett was President of NMSU. If you have history on this period or the next one, please contact info@nmsuaaup.org.
Fifteen years ago, another group of NMSU faculty, again revised the idea of AAUP, and began to enroll members and hold meetings.
In 2009 the cycle of reviving the an AAUP Chapter began once again. Will this be the time when it becomes sustainable?
Nov 8 - 2009 First Meeting of NMSU organizing group to develop options met at AFSME HQ in Las Cruces, New Mexico. People introduced themselves and thier concerns about shared governance, and other issues.
Dec 6 2009. Second Meeting on Forming faculty union for NMSU, DACC, Branches for full time, adjunct, part time faculty, administrative staff, and student workers The meeting was called to order at noon at the AFSME meeting room, ain Street Las Cruces.There were two twenty minute presentations and review of materials.
1. Michael Mauer, Esq. Director of Organizing and Services of AAUP mmauer@aaup.org http://www.aaup.org
gave history of unions and its advantages, and examples of what has been done at other universities. There are 318,000 faculty in unions in the US on 1,125 campuses, including 57,000 graduate employees. Lovejoy and J. Dewey were fist to link academic freedom and tenure together. Dues are between 7/10th and 1% of salary. AAUP offers 4 day training programs and some campus training.
2. Jim Beaty Lead Organizer - Collective Bargaining Organizing Project for AFT New Mexico jbeatyaft@gmail.com http://nm.aft.org He gave a review on shared governance, the ways AFT looks for alternatives when a state legislature has faculty salary and benefit cuts to make up for state deficits, advice on conducting a drive to get cards (recommending that we get 75% signed up before calling for the election). He is getting back to us on exact amount of dues.
Both speakers discussed their view on key issues in an hour long question and answer session; and all present participated in developing talking points on why a union is necessary and good step at this time (highlights follow; your additions are welcome):
1. A union would mean collective bargaining on such things as insuring for shared governance: (1) each search for upper administrative positions there are elected faculty representatives on the search committee from each of the university colleges, and each of the bargaining units. (2) it means that when something like faculty load, classroom size, etc. is decided and agreed to with administration, and not carried out, that there is a procedure in place for binding arbitration if the agreement is not carried out (becomes just window dressing); (3) NMSU faculty pay 40% for health plan, and have lost their free pool privileges; (4) a main concern is faculty governance, that items agreed to, get carried out by administration
2. Collective bargaining is more than just economic well-being of faculty, and student workers it is protecting professional interests in such areas as class sizes, work load, etc. (e.g. there have been significant increases in the volume of service work and teaching load requirements in the past few years), getting respect for faculty and student worker concerns, and having a viable grievance procedure in place. Our working conditions are your kids learning conditions (so if there are not the resources, if classes too big, money being moved from teaching resources into administrative budget, etc., and if there are fewer tenured faculty then education quality suffers)
3. A union is a boost to a faculty senate because it means that items in the contract negotiation that are need heeded become arbitrated in binding third party arbitration procedures. In short, when a faculty senate passes an initiative that is agreed to by the administration, and it does not happen, then a union is a partner in getting the item into binding arbitration. For example, faculty senate and administration agreed on 3-2 load to match peer institutions, but the agreement has not been followed.
4. Importance of doing the door-to-door on the ground face-to-face meetings to get faculty and student workers informed about the issues, how a union operated, what it can do, and getting the card signatures. With a union, such a matter would go into binding arbitration.
5. UNM has had interest in AAUP, but it has not crystalized. There is for past 6 months a leadership committee of 9 people working on it. Highlands are now AFT. UNM support staff are AFT, as are 28 K-12 school districts
6. Rutgers is only one in country that has unionized graduate students.
7. Department heads can be in the union; are in or out on various campuses
8. There are fewer restrictions on when and where to meet to discuss unions, for faculty as compared to staff. There are legal rules, such as professional organizations cannot interfere with work, and meetings need to be before or after work, or on breaks. Members of the administration are not allowed to interrogate faculty or workers, by asking them who is or is not working on a union initiative.
9. It was recommended by both speakers that we organize all campuses of NMSU, DACC, and its branches together for the union cards and vote. There would be one union, and multiple bargaining units.
10. Timing is good for a union initiative, since there is a governor's election not far off. Few running for that office would oppose unions, since other unions in other professions in the state would not take kindly to that.
11. A union could take a position on things such as NMSU Climate Action Report which has some alleged deficiencies and inadequacies compared to other university initiatives.
12. On line survey of faculty to assess their knowledge of unions, general interest etc. could happen. Most likely this would follow face-to-face sessions.
NEXT STEPS:
There was a discussion of best next steps to take. The theme emerged that at this time form a committee to write a report on AAUP, AFT, and NEA as options, and decide which way to go at Feb 7th 2010 meeting.
More volunteers welcome. These groups will meet one or two weeks prior to Dec. 7th to finalize their written report of pros and cons of each of the options. In addition, they will develop options for the start up of the executive committee, and various committees.
Final motion: That the process of union development continue; that the committee on union options be approved, do written report and presentation at the Feb. 7th 2010 meeting on which union to adopt, and how said union would organize (e.g. executive committee composition, subcommittees, timeline for getting things to happen). There was a second from several present, and a vote was taken. The motion passed, unanimous.
Feb 7 -2010 Summary Minutes
After presentations on AAUP, AFT, and NEA, there was extensive discussion, and it was decided by unanimous vote to go with AAUP. Reasons given were the good follow up AAUP had done already, the flexibility of the arganizing approach, the way that faculty and working students would participate in collective bargaining, the autonomy of the local people doing the work of getting things moving. An announcement was drafted over next few days:
"Announcing that a chapter of the American Association of University
Professors (www.aaup.org) was initiated February 7th 2010. We invite
participation of full-time tenured and tenure-eligible faculty; both
full-time and part-time non-tenure track faculty; branch campus
faculty; academic professionals; and graduate student employees. This
will include Las Cruces, Carlsbad, Grants, Alamogordo and the Doña Ana
Community College. Participation of the branch campuses can be through
representatives, individuals, or email."
From this all-NMSU group a steering committee will be formed and the
chapter's officers and committees will be elected in due time. Your
help is requested in spreading the word.
Other items at Feb. 7 2010 meeting:
1. Someone was designated to insure there is a key to open the doors at the montly meeting. Another person designated to talke to UNM AAUP chapter people. Another person designated to get the meeting notice out a week or two before next meeting, after check with the Working Group.
2. The term "Working Group" was adopted to describe the core group of people who lead the start up of the chapter. It was decided by consensus to establish ourselves as an AAUP chapter, expand our representation to other locations in the state, conduce an AAUP '101' meeting March 7th, and a Working Group laninning meeting March 6th.
3. Michael Mauer is being contacted to present at the March 2010 meeting
Next Meeting - Sunday Mar 7 2010 at AFSME HQ begins at noon for potluck and 12:30 for meeting start time.
On March 6th the Working Group became an official "Steering Committee" at off site meeting where we got AAUP 101 training from Michael Mauer (National AAUP) and David Witt (U of Akron). Several motions were made and agreed to unanimously which were presented to the chapter on March 7th.
4 Motions to official initiate this chapter of NMSU AAUP. Motions were agreed to by Steering Committee and now seek chapter vote.
Motion 1: That the Working Group be now designated "Steering Committee" to provide leadership and coordination of the NMSU AAUP chapter. This group meets weekly. The Steering Committee serves as the official leadership doing work of chair, secretary, treasurer, etc. until such time as the base is broad in each campus location and an election is held for those offices, and for committee chairs and co-chairs. There are two Teams that people are encouraged to join. First is the Communications Team (Chair David Boje, and Co-Chair Joan Crowley) who answers all questions from the press, and issues press releases and handles website content. Second is the Member Outreach team, chaired by Olga Viramontes. There are other members of both teams, not listed here. Olga also chairs the Liaison Council.
Plan of action - Liaison Council: We encourage volunteers at the following locations: Las Cruces, Carlsbad, Grants, Alamogordo and the Doña Ana Community College to join our action. We intend to have one member of the Liaison Council from each department (or division) of each campus location. That member will do informal information outreach to just the members of their own department (one by one) and sends email (or hand out printed flyers) to them. From this representative base the chapter of NMSU AAUP grows and does its outreach. And we have a way to talk one-on-one, answer questions, and a way to find out the key issues that concern faculty, academic professional, and graduate students.
Voting for this motion, means you approve the leaders as mentioned and the plan of action of Liaison Council
Vote: All 'Yes' votes, motion carried.
Motion 2: That we recruit ten people from the various campus locations of NMSU and DACC to attend 2010 Summer Institute July 29-Aug 1st at San Diego State University for leader skill and training and such topics as shared governance, collective bargaining etc. Info is on the http://nmsuaaup.org web site. There is some funding to help with cost of travel and accommodations.
Result: Motion assigned to communication committee.
Motion 3: Chapter By laws have been drafted and agreed to by the Steering Committee and are available for comment and amendment on the chapter website http://nmsuaaup.org I motion that the by laws be accepted and any changes be discussed at the next meeting, and that these by-laws become working rules of the chapter.
Result: All yes votes, except one abstention.
Implication of these votes: the chapter has by-laws (aka Constitution), has 3 leaders identified, and has over 7 dues paying members. Therefore, its official, we are an AAUP chapter at NMSU.
Motion 4: Have a Faculty Forum on Financial Health of the University on Aril 7th.
Mark Calendar (possible) special jointly sponsored meeting (proposed to Faculty Senate, ASNMSU, to be confirmed), and national AAUP budget expert, Howard Bunsis, to debate with invited member of Administration the revenues and costs of education. To be scheduled at NMSU campus with press release to invite the public.
Vote: All Yes votes. Motion carried.
Second Agenda Item (10 Minutes): Report from those members/volunteers of NMSU AAUP who attended and participated in the meetings at UNM AAUP
Report by Membership team.
Third Agenda Item (10 Minutes): Report on Friday March 5 meeting with leaders of Faculty Senate of NMSU and Michael Mauer and David Boje of AAUP about NMSU AAUP respectively.
Report given by David Boje and Michael Mauer
Fourth and Fifth agenda items. Training by Michael Mauer and Dave Witt.
Meeting adjourned.