Guest Craig Flanery — Executive Director of the BFA, SCFA, CUCFA and West Coast Director of AAUP
Craig gave a brief history of the SCFA: founded in 1975, enabling legislation was passed in 1978 (HEERA) that meant UC had to recognize the UCSC faculty union. California is 1 of about 28 states that have passed enabling legislation. Because the whole UC system did not unionize, SCFA only has local bargaining rights. Most compensation issues have been established as systemwide issues, so SCFA can not bargain them. SCFA designated CUCFA as its collective bargaining agent. Using UCSC’s bargaining rights, CUCFA negotiated meet and confer rights on systemwide issues. Changes of terms of employment require advance notification to CUCFA. Thus CUCFA finds out about things faculty otherwise might not find out about – for example there was a benefits change at UCSC without any notification to anyone. Individual faculty came to collect on those benefits only to learn they had been written out. Because UC failed to notify CUCFA, they were required to restore those benefits. CUCFA also sued over arbitrary merit reductions in the early 1990s and got those restored.
Flanery was asked about dues at SCFA – he replied that SCFA dues are higher than most FAs, but he doesn’t know the exact number, something between $400 and $600 per year. Nationwide, association fees are usually in the range of .75% and 1.2% of payroll. If SCFA bargained more they would have to raise their dues. 50% of faculty must vote for representation, but those faculty who vote for representation are not required to join the FA. That said, Craig believes more than 50% of faculty did join SCFA in the 1970s. SCFA has been active enough on the significant issues that they have maintained good support. He thinks almost half of UCSC faculty are in SCFA.
Flanery was asked if the UCSC Academic Senate was less activist than at other campuses – if this could account for the higher participation rate at UCSC. Craig responded that UC is legally bound to negotiate with the SCFA while there is no legal requirement for UC to negotiate with the Academic Senate.
He was also asked how issues get arbitrated. Craig responded that arbitration was an expensive option for both parties, which creates an incentive for UC to bargain. He described how CUCFA can cooperate with the Academic Senate in the interests of faculty by taking an outlier position with UCOP and then agreeing to compromise with UCOP to abide by the Academic Senate’s vote.
Flanery was asked what is happening at UCSC with regards to the furloughs. He responded that they are currently forced to bargain for the right to bargain. When UCOP announced that furloughs would be decided at the local level that made it a local issue and SCFA notified UC of their intention to bargain the issue. UCOP now claims this is a systemwide issue and so not bargainable locally. SCFA’s goal is to have instructional day furloughs if the UCSC Senate votes to do so. SCFA may charge UC with unfair labor practices over this issue, or they may resolve this issue in exchange for something else.
Flanery was asked how the SCFA board manages a half-time unpaid job on top of their professorial duties. Craig described the work Bob Meister does on behalf of UCSC from his position as CUCFA President, as well as the fact that CUCFA has two staff members (himself and Eric Hays) to assist. He went on to say that, if the DFA were to collectively bargain, it would probably have to raise dues to pay stipends for faculty release time or to hire more staff.
Flanery was asked why Berkeley had not unionized. He responded that the BFA had become moribund for a time, but that now it had become rejuvenated and the issue of unionizing has been discussed again. Craig agreed that faculty don’t unionize when their pay falls behind peers, but they do when the whole structure seems threatened, when the university may become insolvent, when substantial loss of benefits are threatened, when significant changes in workload are threatened.
Since Craig, through his AAUP role, works with CSU faculty, he was asked about union action at CSU. Craig explained that the California Faculty Association represents both tenure and non-tenure track faculty at CSU (at UC non-tenure faculty are represented by AFT). The CFA is the most powerful faculty union in the US. Systemwide, 58% of CSU faculty are members of CFA. They have an agency fee of .75% of salary that all faculty pay (members and non-members), and a membership fee of 1% of salary. They are considering raising the agency fee to 1% of salary. CSU bargained furloughs with the CFA. They knew they had to. At CSU some furlough days are falling on instructional days.
Given that there are quite a few members of the DFA that are interested in unionizing, Flanery was asked what the next steps should be. He replied that he was not getting a strong sense that the majority of faculty are interested in unionizing on any of the campuses any time soon. However, the faculty at the University of Oregon, where things are much worse than at UC, is likely to unionize soon. If they do unionize, Oregon State is likely to follow. If those two systems unionize, the issue will rise again at UC. Unionization is a multiyear effort, so now is a good time to be laying the groundwork. Faculty visits sound awful, but they really aren’t. Stop in any faculty member’s office, ask them what they think about what is going on, and be prepared to listen for a long time.