Due in large part to IEA lobbying efforts, the Illinois state legislature has passed two laws recently that will facilitate organizing part-time faculty in public colleges and universities. This will have a direct effect on our IEA colleagues in the City College system and at the College of DuPage and will likely ease organizing efforts at other public colleges and universities in the Chicago area. Most recently, HB 1457 was passed by both houses on May 9 and is awaiting the (expected) governor’s signature. This bill would reduce the eligibility threshold from 6 semester hours to 3 semester hours. That is, those teaching only one class per semester would now be eligible to be part of a bargaining unit.
Last fall, HB 1720 was signed into law – this changed the language in the Illinois Education Labor Relations Act to say that part-time faculty who had a "reasonable expectation" of continued employment would be eligible for collective bargaining (the earlier, nearly-impossible, standard was an "assurance" of continued employment).
RAFO President Beverly Stewart, Secretary Frank Brooks, and Joe Berry met with President Middleton, Provost Thompson, and Associate Provost on April 28. Beverly asked for some clarification about "request registration," particularly its implications for course assignments and cancellations. Middleton and Love explained that the goal was to get a clearer sense early on which classes would make, which might need to be split, and also to make the system more accommodating for juniors and seniors nearing graduation. The new system also involves a "wait list" and the administration feels that so far this has been very popular with students and very helpful in course planning.
Beverly also asked whether the university was looking into establish new kinds of faculty lines, e.g. a "teaching track" tenure line. Middleton said that they would be, as part of the strategic planning process, but that this would require considerable discussion in the University Senate and that the new Provost would take a leading role in this. A similar response was given to Beverly’s question about "program reviews," suggested, as she pointed out, by language in the plan about "areas of excellence." In the next year, Middleton said, any program review would be primarily about "process," probably beginning with self-studies and with the first substantive reviews unlikely until Spring 2004.
Louise Love discussed a proposal by the university to require adjuncts to provide an e-mail contact address to the University (which could be their university e-mail). The university would then like to handle most essential communications with adjuncts by e-mail. RAFO had several concerns with this plan. Frank and Beverly worried that "essential" messages might get lost in a general flood of e-mails from the university and urged the university to limit messages and indicate their (real) urgency. Joe pointed out that not all adjuncts have ready access to e-mail (or even to computers) at home and urged the university to provide much better computer access to faculty on campus. Joe also presented an informal proposal to Roosevelt to host (probably in conjunction with Columbia College) the COCAL VI meeting next summer (2004). This will be a continent-wide gathering of contingent academic labor activists likely to draw several hundred people. President Middleton said that they’d need to look into the logistics and costs of this and would get back to us.
A final tally of the RAFO anti-war resolution was conducted in April (sorry for the late notice) and the vote was 44 in favor of supporting the anti-war resolution drafted by US Labor Against War and 31 opposed to the resolution.
Here are the results of elections for adjunct representatives to the University Senate and College Councils:
The by-law change was approved and the current slate of officers was re-elected, now to two-year terms (beginning in August 2003).
Those officers are:
| Beverly Stewart | President |
| Melinda Ince | Vice President / Grievance Chair |
| Vilma Chemers | Treasurer |
| Frank Brooks | Secretary |
| Mike Levy | IEA Regional Council Representative |
The executive committee met prior to the general membership meeting and began with an extended discussion of our impressions of Roosevelt’s new President. More particularly, we discussed the general direction of the university (e.g. the focus on student retention, shifts towards employing more full-time faculty, etc.). Joe Berry reported that planning is underway for Campus Equity Week in the fall of 2003 and for COCAL VI (a continental gathering of those interested in "contingent academic labor," to be held in Chicago in the summer of 2004). RAFO contributed $100 to the national Campus Equity Week organization.
HB 1457 (the Illinois bill which would lower the required teaching load for part-timers (in public colleges and universities) from 6 semester hours to 3) is moving through the General Assembly and IEA is mobilizing grass-roots lobbying efforts.
Roosevelt University has provided a list of faculty who might qualify under an expanded bargaining unit definition. Tom Suhrbur (our IEA organizer) will send a mailing to those people, along with "authorization cards" for them to sign. The executive committee began to make plans for follow-up calls. Beverly raised the issue of how much adjunct faculty ought to be paid for being "readers" on master’s theses and LuAnn (program rep in Liberal Studies) said she’d pursue this in that department.
Mike Levy delivered considerable paperwork from the IEA Regional Council meeting and reported that IEA was suffering a budget crisis, due mostly to layoffs in K-12 education. He also reported that he’d spoken to several adjuncts who were opposed to RAFO even considering an anti-war resolution. LuAnn led discussion on a portfolio evaluation document which had recently come to light. The executive committee, after airing some specific concerns, concluded that such changes needed to be handled formally through the bargaining process. She also reported on the training session she’d attended for the IDEA surveys (the new student evaluations), raising additional questions about the validity of results and therefore urging RAFO to be vigilant about how survey results are used in regard to adjuncts. Finally, Joe reported that CCCLOC (the IEA-affiliated group at City Colleges) won their representation election, but that AFSCME local 3506 (the adult educators there) was thwarted in their plans to strike.
Meeting in Schaumburg despite massive traffic delays on a Saturday afternoon, the executive committee began with a discussion of the Provost search. Beverly reported her impressions of the first candidate and said that she’d continue to attend the public sessions. RAFO’s concerns are obviously with how a new Provost would deal directly with adjunct faculty, but also how a new Provost’s style and agenda, as well as his/her role in taking the University in new directions, would affect us. This led to LuAnn’s discussion of the strategic planning process, a major goal of which is to make Roosevelt more attractive to students, not just a fallback position.
Beverly’s report focused on new policies for request registration, as well as more generally on planning for our meeting with President Middleton (April 28). Other issues to be discussed at that meeting are Roosevelt’s plan for expanding use of e-mail to contact adjuncts, the timing of contract negotiations, and program reviews. Unit expansion again came up (the next meeting with the university is planned for April 21), with some discussion of the tactics of collecting authorization cards and negotiating a new unit definition with the university. More broadly, we speculated on the university’s long-term goals – are they planning to hire more full-time faculty now that we’ve made part-time faculty more expensive to hire?
Vilma’s treasurer’s report had a few key expenses (mailing costs for the ballots, catering for the general membership meeting, Frank’s expenses for the Higher Education Conference in D.C.). She also reported that there were 36 new unit members for the spring, of whom 19 had still not responded to Vilma’s March letter. There are also several "delinquents" from the Fall 2002 term – if they don’t pay up, they will not be assigned classes for the Fall 2003 term. The IEA will hold a meeting on May 30 with treasurers and others from the part-time locals (us, Columbia College, and Oakton Community College) to discuss how to more effectively coordinate efforts between these locals and membership/treasury officials with IEA.
Frank reported on preparations for contract negotiations – we need to set up a broad negotiating committee and a much-smaller bargaining group (those who’ll be at the table with Roosevelt’s representatives). We discussed some specific negotiation issues (e.g. medical leave) as well as considering differences between this round of negotiations and the last (different people on the Roosevelt side, refining an existing contract vs. drafting a new one).
Meeting downtown, the initial discussion focused on the meeting with President Middleton on April 28. He said that he’d get back to us on the initial proposal to have Roosevelt host the COCAL VI meeting. In addition, he explained that the advance registration process was designed to make course scheduling more fluid and responsive to student needs (especially those nearing graduation). This reflects the major goal of the strategic plan, which has now been endorsed by the Board. Implementation of the plan, including such issues as program reviews and possible new faculty "tracks", will depend a great deal on the new Provost.
The executive committee again discussed the progress of the Provost search, which is evidently in the President’s hands now. We also considered the various possibilities of "teaching tracks" for full-time faculty or multi-year contracts for adjuncts.
Beverly reported also on the unit expansion meeting we’d had with the university on April 21. They came in with a counter-proposal to include those who’ve taught in 2 out of the last 6 semesters (including summer, but not if someone only teaches summer). RAFO sought some clarification of the rationale of their proposal, as well as the likely numbers involved. Diane Davis, our "Uniserve" director from IEA (who was also at the unit expansion meeting) said that we felt disappointed at their offer. In the meantime, there has been some discussion of whether to simply file our "authorization cards” and seek an election. Diane has spoken with IEA and Roosevelt lawyers on this and the issue is still in the air. We have another meeting scheduled with the university on June 3, and we’ll continue to collect cards. Diane will write a new draft proposal for our meeting on the 3rd.
In regard to a specific case of an adjunct not being rehired just before the current contract, the executive committee discussed how to get deans and program directors to be more sensitive to adjunct concerns, especially on course assignments. We considered a range of options, from informal contacts to formal orientation sessions.
Vilma reported that the treasury is pretty static now, as we haven’t yet received the big check from Roosevelt nor written the big check to IEA. There are still two delinquents from Fall 2002. Frank will mail out (in August) letters to new unit members from Spring 2003 who haven’t yet met their obligations.
Finally, a meeting of the broad contract negotiating committee will be held at the end of May. Possible/likely members include Bill Lannin (from Business), Mike Levy (from University College), and from Arts & Sciences: Jorge Rodriguez-Florido, Joe Berry, Beverly Stewart, Frank Brooks, LuAnn Swartzlander, Debby Sheridan, and Vilma Chemers.
HB 1457, which has passed the Illinois House, is now being considered by the state Senate. This bill would ease organizing of adjuncts in the public sector by reducing the number of credit hours one must teach in order to be eligible for bargaining unit status. Currently, adjuncts must teach 6 credit hours per semester; this bill would reduce that to three. RAFO members should support this - some also teach themselves in the public sector and even for those who don't, broader unionization of adjunct faculty raises the floor for wages and working conditions and thus benefits everyone.
Here is the message we've received from Donna Manering of IEA on March 21. You can follow the link below for more specific information about the bill and its status in the legislature:
As you probably recall, the HB passed the House and is now headed to the Senate. It is currently in the Rules Committee and will probably not be acted on in Rules for the next week or so. Then it will be sent to the Senator Labor Committee. Your cards, emails, phone calls, etc. will help to ensure the passage of this bill in the Senate. Go to the http://www.legis.state.il.us website to get names and contact information for the Rules Committee and the Senate Labor Committee and your own legislators (and also the full text of the bill).Please follow-up with at least one contact method for legislators in your area and on the committees. Contacts DO make a difference.
HB 1457 Legislative History and Update
Candidates for Provost will be on campus in the next few
weeks. Open forums will be held at
both the downtown and
* April 10, 4:15-5:30, Room 320 Chicago Campus Auditorium building
* April 11, 2:00-3:15, Room 706 Schaumburg Campus
* April 14, 4:15-5:30, Room 320 Chicago Campus Auditorium building
* April 15, 2:00-3:15, Room 706 Schaumburg Campus
* April 17, 4:15-5:30, Room 320 Chicago Campus Auditorium building
* April 18, 2:00-3:15, Room 706 Schaumburg Campus
For your information, the advertisement for the Provost’s position is available on Roosevelt University’s site and also here.
We are beginning to plan for negotiation of the next contract. The current contract expires in August 2004 and we plan to begin negotiations in the Fall of 2003. That means we have to put together a negotiating committee now. The actual bargaining group will be chosen from that broader group. If you are interested in being part of the committee or have issues that you believe need to be addressed, contact Frank Brooks (webmaster@rafo.org). In the next few weeks, we will prepare a survey of adjunct faculty to solicit more broadly your goals for the next contract.
The strategic planning process is almost complete, with the Board of Trustees set to discuss the documents next week and President Middleton planning on developing a final draft as well. The latest revisions (March 27) of the mission statement, vision statement, and goals and objectives are available here:
LuAnn Swartzlander is RAFO’s point person on the strategic planning process and will be attending a final meeting of the planning committee on Monday, the 14th. Send any comments to her at pr-libstudies1@rafo.org.
Elections for adjunct representatives on the University Senate and the
College Councils are being held online now by
Congratulations
to Christian Erickson, an adjunct in Policy Studies, whose course website was
recently recognized by
There was considerable discussion of the IDEA surveys at the executive committee meeting and general membership meeting on March 8. LuAnn Swartzlander reported that the IDEA training sessions in late February had revealed several key limitations to the validity of the IDEA reports . Most notably, classes need to be sufficiently large (around 15) so that outlying results from individual students aren’t weighted too much. Also, surveys must be considered over time (at least 5 or 6 sections) to filter out discrepancies from individual classes. The trainer from IDEA also recommended that IDEA reports should account for only 30% of any hiring decision. All this bolsters RAFO’s position (articulated in January at a meeting with the Provost) that we will resist the use of surveys in any hiring decisions. Moreover, all aspects of the evaluation process which the university intends to apply to adjuncts must be brought back to the negotiating table for formal inclusion in the contract.
Also emerging just this week from the Evaluation Task Force was a set of Portfolio Guidelines (actually drafted in January) While RAFO has some specific suggestions and concerns with that document, both the general membership meeting and the executive committee meeting reiterated that this is also something that must be formally bargained before it becomes binding on adjuncts. We think that it’s a good idea for adjuncts to assemble their own portfolios anyway, but this should not be a contractual obligation until it’s negotiated. To facilitate discussion of these portfolio guidelines, copies have been placed here on the RAFO Web site in Word and PDF formats: Word. PDF.
Send any comments to info@rafo.org.
The first issue of the Roosevelt Adjunct Faculty Organization News has now been sent out to campus mailboxes. If you haven't received yours or don't receive campus mail, it is available here as a download. This is a PDF file (a big one - 460k), and will probably look better when printed out than on screen. To download, click on the link below.
Our IEA colleagues at the City Colleges (i.e. the City Colleges Contingent Labor Organizing Committee) won the recent representation election. Congratulations and welcome to the growing movement to organize adjunct faculty in the Chicago area!
News Flash! John Stevenson, President of P-FAC, IEA/NEA (the adjunct union at Columbia College) has just released an open letter to the Columbia College community promoting participation in a March 5 teach-in. To read his letter, click here.
The February meeting of the RAFO Executive Committee decided to conduct the vote on RAFO’s anti-war resolution by mail-in ballot in order to maximize participation and the legitimacy of the statement. You should expect to see a copy of the resolution and a tear-off ballot included with your ballot for RAFO’s delegates to the July Representative Assembly in New Orleans. Only RAFO members may vote on these issues.
In order to facilitate discussion on the resolution, consult the text here. Other information can be found on the Anti-War Page. In addition, there is now a mailing list for RAFO members to discuss the war and this resolution. If you wish to subscribe to this mailing list, send an e-mail (no subject or message necessary) to RAFO-discuss-war-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. You will get a return e-mail, asking to confirm your request and giving you two choices: 1) join the group, which requires setting up a Yahoo! ID if you don’t have one, or 2) join the list, which simply requires your e-mail address. If you don’t subscribe in one of these ways, you won’t be able to send messages to the group, and you won’t receive messages from it. If you do subscribe, don’t be surprised if you get a lot of messages (the nature of any mailing list).
The RAFO Executive Committee discussed a wide range of issues at its February meeting in Schaumburg. Rumors of a new university policy to employ more full-time faculty led to discussion of assignment procedures, especially whether seniority is properly considered by program directors in hiring decisions. A likely demand in upcoming contract negotiations is thus to establish and use a seniority list. Another concern for those negotiations is how the university handles absences such as jury duty or military service for adjunct faculty.
RAFO’s meeting with the university on January 29 on the IDEA surveys (student evaluations) provided a forum to present several concerns. Because of ongoing questions about the validity of those surveys for small classes, and for faculty who hadn’t had a chance to synchronize course goals with the survey, RAFO president Beverly Stewart insisted that RAFO would vigorously oppose use of the surveys for any hiring decisions. The university responded that the surveys could only help adjuncts (because they were flexible) and that portfolio reviews would supplement these student evaluations. Beverly also demanded that the reports be returned to faculty in a timely fashion (early in the next semester). The university didn’t budge on requiring (or paying for) training in how to interpret the reports, but it has scheduled multiple training sessions at the end of February.
The executive committee also discussed how to promote discussion of the war on Iraq and how to handle a RAFO resolution, and possibly also to coordinate with our colleagues at Columbia College and elsewhere on symposia. Plans were made for establishing a printed newsletter and promoting elections to university offices such as the University Senate and College Councils. Debby Sheridan reported on the progress of the Provost Search Committee, on which she serves as an adjunct representative (with a vote). Finally, there was a brief discussion of the strategic planning committee – LuAnn Swartzlander reported that several drafts of a mission statement have now been developed.
Recent changes to the health insurance (not) offered by the National Adjunct Faculty Guild have led to changes in the benefits summary for adjuncts prepared by Roosevelt. Check out the new summary here.
Roosevelt University is again recommending that adjuncts put in their requests via the course preference form for Fall 2003 and Spring 2004 classes. It's online at www.roosevelt.edu/adjunct/course-pref.htm.
RAFO members are represented on several key committees that will help determine Roosevelt’s future. In addition to our Senators and representatives on the College Councils, we have people active on the task force on evaluation (Jerry Rosen, Joe Fedorko, etc.) and in the strategic planning process (especially LuAnn Swartzlander). However, we can always use more people – this is your union after all and our active involvement helps to ensure that changes at Roosevelt benefit adjuncts. We are currently looking for volunteers for the following:
RAFO sometimes gets job listings for full-time and part-time job listings, particularly from Roosevelt University. These are collected on our Jobs Page. According to the contract negotiated with the university, the administration is supposed to inform adjunct faculty of full-time job openings. Louise Love, the associate provost has recently asked whether RAFO believes the university is doing a good job on this. What do you think? Send your comments to us via the comment form.
By the way the contract language (Art. 4, Sec 2.1) is: "When a new full-time faculty position is authorized, or an existing vacant full-time faculty position is to be filled, a notification of such position will be posted on the Union bulletin boards and on the University Web-site. A copy of such notice will be sent to the Union President or designee. The program directors will make reasonable efforts to notify adjunct faculty of such vacant full-time faculty positions."
RAFO’s representative on the Provost Search Committee, Debby Sheridan, reports that they are already reviewing applications. She won’t be able to divulge any names until very late in the process, but has been instructed by RAFO’s executive committee to pay particular attention to candidates’ views on, and experiences with, adjunct faculty and unions. For your information, the advertisement for the Provost’s position is available on Roosevelt University’s site and also here.
Adjunct faculty are invited to nominate themselves or others for positions on the University Senate and/or their College Councils. One adjunct from each college will be elected in April to serve on the University Senate. Also, one adjunct will be elected to each of the College Councils. Generally, these bodies meet once a month and there may also be committee work involved. In the University Senate, one adjunct faculty member is entitled to sit on the Executive Committee. The university has recently sent out information on nominations and you should also expect to receive a flier and e-mail notification from RAFO as well. To nominate someone, follow this link: www.roosevelt.edu/provost/rafo.htm or download, print out and fill out the nomination form below. If you nominate someone other than yourself, please be sure to check if that person is willing.
These are the meeting times for the various positions:
For further information, download these PDF files:
In addition to elections for RAFO officers, several other elections are coming up this spring, so plan to vote!
As you may have heard from Roosevelt University or read about in the paper, Jacquelyn Strum, an adjunct professor in the College of Education won the contest to write lyrics for Roosevelt University’s new alma mater. In addition to the prize money ($250) and the inestimable glory, she deserves our congratulations for demonstrating once again the great pool of talent adjunct faculty provide to Roosevelt.
LuAnn Swartzlander, RAFO's representative on Roosevelt University's Strategic Planning Committee spoke to the executive committee and the general membership meeting about the documents finally emerging from that process. She urged people to attend town meetings being held this week to solicit comments. Here are the dates and times:
Wednesday, March 12: 4:30 to 6:00 PM
Thursday, March 13: 10:00 to 11:30 AM and 4:00 to 5:30 PM
All three meetings will be teleconferenced between all three Roosevelt sites (Auditorium Building room 309, Center for Professional Advancement, room 407, Robin campus room 377).
These are the documents being discussed:
| Vision Statement: | www.roosevelt.edu/strategicplan/vision.htm | |
| Mission Statement (short and long): | www.roosevelt.edu/strategicplan/mission.htm | |
| Planning Goals and Objectives | www.roosevelt.edu/strategicplan/goals.htm | |
| All Three Documents (collated) | Word | |
RAFO members should expect ballots this week in the mail. Those ballots will cover two issues: electing our delegate(s) to the NEA Representative Assembly this July in New Orleans, and the anti-war resolution. Please return these ASAP – we need to have results of the delegate election to IEA by March 19.
As seen in the Roosevelt Broadcast Digest, February 12, 2003
Have you ever said or thought any of the following:
If so, WE WANT YOU to join us and 60 of your colleagues!
The Effective Teaching Strategies Team of the Metropolitan Institute for Teaching and Learning (MITL)has funds from the Teacher Quality Enhancement (TQE) grant to initiate "Peer Coaching" with Roosevelt faculty. We can accommodate up to 60 TQE Fellows in this endeavor, for Spring, 2003. We will provide resources, workshops, books and other reading materials, a stipend and catered lunches.
Fellows must . . .
Fellows will . . .
Each Fellow will receive . . .
If you are interested, you will need to RSVP as soon as possible. Space is limited. RSVP to:
Constance Donovan, Ed.D
College of Education
847.619.8474
cdonovan@roosevelt.edu
Constance Donovan, College of Education
Heather Dalmage, Mansfield Institute for Social Justice
Address replies to cdonovan@roosevelt.edu
At its executive committee meeting on January 19, 2003, the Roosevelt Adjunct Faculty Organization passed the following resolution supporting the City Colleges Contingent Labor Organizing Committee (CCCLOC) in its upcoming representation election:
UPDATE: The officers and directors of the College of DuPage Adjuncts Association passed a similar resolution on January 28, 2003.
Several RAFO members have been attending meetings to build opposition to the planned war against Iraq. On January 11, over 100 union activists from across the country met to establish US Labor Against the War. Their resolution echoed that of many union locals and labor groups who've already come out in opposition, including Chicago's Teamsters Local 705 and the Chicago Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor. In coming weeks, RAFO will be seeking out the views of its members and trying to organize educational forums on the situation. Do you have views you'd like heard? Would you like to get involved? If so, fill out a comment form. In the meantime, check the Anti-War Page for news about the ongoing labor efforts, especially in Chicago and among faculty, to mobilize.
Roosevelt University invites all adjunct faculty members to attend the installation of the fifth president of the university, Charles Middleton. This grand event will be at 10am on Monday, March 10 in the Auditorium Theatre downtown. To facilitate attendance, the university has cancelled all classes (at both campuses) which meet before one p.m. on that day.
***Attention*** All faculty who taught fall semester 2002
Bill Palette of the IDEA Center will be on campus to conduct training sessions on the new student surveys at days and times listed below.
| Wednesday, February 26, 2003 | Thursday, February 27, 2003 |
| Schaumburg, Room 327 | Chicago, Gage 415 |
| 10:30 am – 12:00 noon | 9:30 am – 11:00 am |
| 1:00 pm –2:30 pm | 11:30 am – 1:00 pm |
| 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm | 2:00 pm-3:30 pm |
| 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm | 4:00 pm-5:30 pm |
Plan to attend if you would like to learn more about the surveys and how to interpret the results. Bring your report(s) from the fall term for clarification of specific questions. Faculty who did not teach in the fall are also welcome to attend.
RSVP mmeier@roosevelt.edu; 312-341-3613
In an e-mail on January 9, President Middleton announced the following:
Roosevelt will conduct a national search for a new Provost to succeed Vinton Thompson who at my request has agreed to head up a major University initiative in the sciences.
Vinton will remain as Provost until the new person takes over on or about July 1, 2003. During the next few months, we will conduct an accelerated search for an outstanding academic and administrative leader to succeed Vinton. A Search Committee, organized by the University Senate, will recommend candidates to me. The search process will be open to the entire University community and I welcome everyone's participation and suggestions about this vital position. I anticipate that on-campus interviews will be conducted during March and April and the person will be appointed in April or May.
The University Senate on January 15 put together the search committee, which includes RAFO member and University Senator Deborah Sheridan of the Computer Science and Telecommunications program.
To get a sense of what Roosevelt is looking for in a Provost, see the ad in the Chronicle of Higher Education or on the university's website.
It's time to gear up for another edition of Roosevelt People, our new publication with news on accomplishments/appointments/publications, etc., by faculty, administrators and staff. If you've got news or know someone who deserves to be recognized for his/her achievements, please email the information to ljanota@roosevelt.edu, call Laura Janota at 312-341-3511, or stop by Room 805 in the Auditorium Building no later than Jan. 31. For the upcoming edition, which will be published this spring, accomplishments/achievements/appointments should occur between Sept. 15, 2002, and March 1. Also, please do not send the same accomplishment/achievement if it's already been published. We're striving for a newsy publication that includes more people, more accomplishments.
Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Laura Janota, Public Relations ljanota@roosevelt.edu
Representatives of RAFO and Roosevelt University met on November 20, 2002 to formally discuss expansion of the bargaining unit. RAFO presented its goal of including all adjunct faculty in the bargaining unit, while the university expressed reservations about logistics and cost. RAFO has since presented a written proposal for language modifying Article I of the contract, most likely to be included in the new contract to be negotiated for 2004 and beyond.
This past fall, RAFO asked the university for an explanation of why it had not offered a 403b Retirement Plan (which would involve voluntary salary deductions), as mentioned in Article 7I of the contract. Marian Schranz-Messaris, in a letter of November 27, 2002 to Beverly Stewart, stated that the university had made a "good-faith effort" (as the contract language required) to do so, but had not been able to implement the necessary procedures. She explained that adjuncts’ irregular employment (no annual contract, changing salary rates) would create a "record-keeping nightmare" and suggested that RAFO look into other products such as the "Teacher’s Personal Annuity" offered by TIAA-CREF. After discussion at the December executive committee meeting, RAFO has filed a formal grievance with the university and is scheduling a meeting with university representatives for the end of January.
Tony Amberg, a long-time adjunct in English Composition passed away at his home in Hyde Park last fall. RAFO, along with Tony’s family and Roosevelt University (particularly the School of Liberal Studies) has organized a memorial service in his honor. This will be held on Wednesday, January 8 at 4:00 pm in the Sullivan Room downtown.
Several RAFO leaders are involved with an effort to expand labor participation in the movement against war on Iraq. A meeting will be held this Friday, January at 7pm in the Teamster 705 Auditorium at 300 S. Ashland in Chicago. For more information, consult the flyer (in PDF format).
Many of you have already gotten a letter explaining the dues increase that will go into effect with the Fall 2002 term. Up until now, dues payers and agency fee payers have been paying a reduced "organizing" rate to IEA and NEA. We are now required to be on the regular dues structure (actually one-quarter of full-time dues). In addition, both the IEA and NEA raised their dues for all members this year. Therefore, semester dues will now be $82.50 for members and $72.50 for agency fee payers. This includes $15.00 per term for local dues and must be paid every term that a bargaining unit member is teaching (except for summer). If you are not teaching in a particular term, you will not be required to pay.
The newest group of adjunct faculty to begin organizing in the Chicago area teach in the City College system. An organizing committee began meeting after last fall's Campus Equity Week and this spring chose the IEA-NEA to help them win recognition and negotiate a contract. Known as the City Colleges Contingent Labor Organizing Committee (CCCLOC), their slogan is "It's about time!" (hint: pronounce the acronym as "clock"). They are currently collecting cards to authorize a union recognition election, and have thus started down the same road RAFO did in 1999 (and P-FAC at Columbia College did before that). We welcome them to the growing movement of organized contingent faculty in the Chicago area and hope for great things from their efforts. To see their website, click the logo below or go to www.cccloc.org.
Chicago COCAL (of which RAFO is a member) has been meeting roughly every month since its formation at the end of Campus Equity Week last November. Its interim chair is our very own Joe Berry and it now has a website: www.chicagococal.org. If you teach at institutions besides Roosevelt, you are invited to fill out a contact form on that website, so that COCAL can begin developing a database of Chicago-area adjuncts. One of the main concerns of COCAL has been the organizing drive among adjuncts at the City Colleges. An organizing committee, CCCLOC, has been formed and has recently decided to affiliate with IEA. Also recently affiliated with our parent union are nontenure-track faculty at Illinois State University.
One other website recommendation: http://www.workplace-gsc.com/. This is "workplace: the journal of academic labor." Its most recent edition has articles by Joe Berry on Campus Equity Week and Helena Worthen on a training session she held for RAFO's program reps last fall.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.F.D.R., March 1, 1945