10/21, 3:30
Nov. 17 (where?)
December 15, UW Club
Retreat on Friday Jan 13, 9:30 to
3:30 pm (where?)
Faculty Senate meetings:10/20,
12/1, 1/26, 3/2, 4/20, 5/18
Regents
Watch assignments
á
Oct.
13 UW Tacoma (schedule and agenda available 10/7)
á
Nov
10 HUB 334
á
Dec
8 Petersen Room, Allen Library (may be canceled)
DANÕs LETTER DRAFTED May
25, 2016
this
letter is the opportunity to say we want to offer UW faculty the opportunity to
join both organizations at one time with a discount for doing so.
Dear AAUP Leadership
We received your letter
of April 14, 2016 regarding our request for support in developing a joint SEIU
925/AAUP UW advocacy chapter. It is precisely because we attach great
value the AAUP name and tradition that we were disappointed to learn that the
AAUPÕs leadership will not support this endeavor at this time. We do believe
that there is no organization that understands the academic setting better than
AAUP, though of course we wish you agreed about the potential for positive
collaboration between the two organizations.
In setting forth the
rationale for your decision we were dismayed to find a number of statements
that do not accord with as we know them. To help move toward a better
understanding of one another, we number and record your statements below
in italics and respond with a positive suggestions immediately
below.
1. Under AAUP
national policy, there is a process for the consideration of organizing
partnerships, and any joint partnership must be considered and approved by the
National Council.
Although AAUP apparently
has a national policy pertaining to organizing partnerships, we found nothing
to this effect on the AAUP webpage. Making that policy clearly visible for all
might helped avoid any missteps on the part of our chapter or SEIU 925 and
improved our negotiations. Current advice for organizations seeking to
become collective bargaining units makes no mention of policy regarding partner
organizations.
See: http://www.aaupcbc.org/get-organized/forming-new-union-chapter
Our best understanding
of written policies AAUP CBC constitution AAUP policy when informed of
preliminary discussions held betweenin the summer of 2015
2. With the UW
campaign, the national AAUP was not approached until well after the decision to
move forward with a campaign had already been made by SEIU.
Our advocacy chapter
contacted AAUP leadership in February 2015, promptly after having been
approached by SEIU 925. . We encountered significant reluctance to meet
and discuss the new possibilities that were overcome after several
entreaties. V
3. Because of
this, we were not able to discuss with the chapter members the viability of the
campaign, or the kind of structure that would be needed to be put in place in
order for such a campaign to be successful.
Howard Bunsis, Julie
Schmidt and Dawn Tefft did indeed meet with us of . This team made clear
their assessment of unionization as well as their unwillingness to allow
us to enter into a formal agreement beyond a statement of support. Our
subsequentcourse of action adhered to their paremeters.
4. Rather than
coming to AAUP to discuss collective bargaining as an option, the chapter
leadership decided to approach SEIU. If the chapter had contacted us first, we
would have explained that in our view it was highly unlikely, given the
particular language in the stateÕs enabling language, that a collective
bargaining drive would be successful at UW.
AAUP did not approach
SEIU 925, but instead received a proposal from that organization.
5. As
with the collective bargaining effort at UW, if SEIU 925 were interested in a
joint venture, why not discuss it with us well ahead of launching their Faculty
Forward advocacy chapter?
AAUP UW did contact the
national leadership as soon as this option began to take shape. As these
two entities are structurally separate and responsive to their respective
membership, we did not anticipate this would be a stumbling block to further
negotiations.
6. Why would
faculty want to pay $300 per year to an organization with no track record of
organizing an advocacy organization at an R-1 institution? This is
significantly higher than the dues for AAUP, an organization with great name
recognition and a long history of organizing advocacy chapters at R-1
institutions
We agree that it would
be best to work out a joint proposal on dues and we continue to want to discuss
those options with both sides. In asking why individuals might want to
pay $300 for dues to SEIU, we must respond that SEIU has invested signficant
staff time than AAUP has ever been able to provide. SEIU 925 has
succeeded in subscribing members who had not joined our advocacy chapter.
Obviously, those of us with long histories of AAUP involvement agree that
collaboration with AAUP has and numerous benefits, and it is WE, not SEIU 925,
who consistently press for collaboration. SEIU 925 continues to provide
organizing resources whether or not AAUP is involved.
Given that there is an
obvious need for confidence building steps, AAUP UW proposes that a first step
be a joint agreement to discount membership for individuals who choose to be
members of both organizations. AAUP UW is concerned that SEIU 925 has the
greater membership momentum and without an agreement between the two
organization, we expect that our local membership may .
7. We do
believe, however, that this is a good time to strengthen the AAUP chapter on
the UW campus. We have a newly hired lead organizer in the Northwest, and we
are happy to assist the chapter in building a stronger advocacy chapter at UW.
We also have some experience in building political alliances to work for
legislative change at the state level, and we would enthusiastically welcome
the opportunity to work with the chapter leadership to develop a long-term
strategy for changing the enabling legislation, so that in the future,
collective bargaining would be a realistic possibility.
Members of AAUP UW were
dismayed to hear that a coordinator for the Northwest was hired without
involving our local in any way. Unfortunately, this strengthens the
impression that the UW does not play a strategic role in the eyes of the
national leadership of the AAUP. That said, we are very interested in
advancing discussion that a) change the enabling legislations for collective
bargaining in Washington and improve ties SEIU 925.
AAUP members are pulled
between two organizations, one with a proud academic history that resonates
with our members, and another that has demonstrated it has considerable
resources and power to direct towards concerns that UW faculty have
expressed. We would certainly appreciate direct conversations that are
directed towards solutions.
*AAUP CBC Constitution
Article 3
C. An AAUP
chapter or group of chapters that is attempting to become a faculty collective
bargaining agent shall be allowed to send representatives to AAUP-CBC meetings.
Such a chapter or group of chapters may be designated a provisional member unit
by action of the Executive Committee of the AAUP-CBC. Provisional member units
shall have neither a dues obligation nor the right to vote.
APPENDIX
A.
--------
Forwarded Message --------
|
Subject: |
Re:
Unionization |
|
Date: |
Mon,
2 Mar 2015 14:48:03 -0500 |
|
From: |
Howard Bunsis <hbunsis@gmail.com> |
|
To: |
Rob
We
definitely want to come out there, and we can discuss some dates;
April
9-10 or April 30-May 1 work for me, and I will have to check with
Jamie
and/or Julie to get a firm date.
Howard
On Sat, Feb 28, 2015
at 3:49 PM, Robert Wood _<_robwood2@uw.edu> wrote:
Hi Howard,
I discussed the idea
of your offer to visit the University of Washington with our board members. I
think everyone would welcome such a visit from AAUP leadership.
We are moving forward
with a unionization probe with SEIU, which involves interviewing about 200
faculty across the various different colleges and schools, and expect that to
be completed in a month or so. They are providing a number of organizers and
researchers to help with this. In addition, we are looking at the language in
the 2003 enabling legislation to try to understand the extent to which clinical
faculty might be excluded from the unit because the nature of many clinical
faculty members' work is not academic or research in nature.
Some time in March we
will review the results of the probe and decide upon next steps. I'm wondering
if it might be possible to get Julie Schmidt or Jamie Daniel and you to visit
and try to figure out if there can be a way for AAUP national to provide
support, even if that doesn't mean putting an AAUP organizer on the ground. I
think that the AAUP "brand recognition" on our campus would provide
important credibility for any unionization effort. The organizing efforts at
another R-1 university (U. Minnesota) seem to be quite encouraging, even if we
are all aware that it will be a huge upward struggle to organize faculty at UW.
Regards
Rob
