| BGSU faculty file unfair labor charge |
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| Written by Sentinel-Tribune Staff | ||
| Tuesday, 06 November 2012 11:35 | ||
“The reason for this filing is straightforward: the administration has violated state law by unreasonably delaying and refusing to give the Faculty Association basic information, including information about benefit plans,” Chief Negotiator Candace Archer wrote in an email sent to members late Monday afternoon. Archer said law requires this information be provided so that the union can make proposals on benefits. “Finalizing a mutually beneficial contract with the BGSU-FA is a top priority for Bowling Green State University, BGSU spokesperson David Kielmeyer said this morning. “The university has been negotiating in good faith and will continue to do so. In keeping with our agreement with the BGSU-FA to negotiate at the bargaining table and not through the media, we cannot comment further on the negotiations,” he said. Archer said “We would prefer to settle this issue without resorting to a ULP charge because these hearings can be lengthy and divert our attention away from finishing this contract, but the information is required to make accurate proposals and write fact-finding briefs. We have received assurances for months that the information is ‘in process’ or ‘we’ll have it next week’ and we have waited patiently.” Archer also informed membership that the BGSU-FA will make the administration’s proposals available to members. Until now the union had agreed to keep the proposals private. For legal reasons only members can receive the proposals. “I have been receiving messages from faculty who have been told by administrators that the FA’s communications are lies, and that we are misrepresenting the Mazey Administration’s proposals on post-tenure review, promotion, tenure and reappointment, salary and benefits, and many other issues. To put to rest these accusations, I have consulted with our attorney on the issue of releasing the administration’s proposals to our members,” Archer wrote. Archer also said BGSU-FA has openly shared its proposals, which are available at http://bgsu-fa.org/wp/bargaining/. |
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Comments
yest, of course it is thuggery when workers take on the rich and powerful. By that logic, the patriots in 1776 were thugs for going after King George.
And by the way - negotiating for 2 1/2 years on a first contract cannot be, under any stretch, the fault of the BGSU faculty union.
But money is free when it comes out of the sky! What?! The sky is not made of middle class students and their families? I like how these union members act like they stand up for the middle class, but want to stick it to the University and students at every turn.
The union has absolutely NOTHING to do with this, but your anti-union obsession simply makes you seem petty and ignorant.
Tough row you hoe with 198 of your peers having made $100K in 2010. I'm sure that number is well over 200 now. Crocodile tears all around.
Let's be honest. There's a documented overproduction of Ph.D's graduating from college every year in many disciplines. This is documented by your peers, not some right-wingers. When you have an oversupply of a good, the value of that good decreases as competition increases. See below article for information which rightly points out that salaries should be adjusted to the market:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/too-many-ph-d-’s-and-professionals/28236
I am saying something very simple: if you can't offer competitive salaries, you need to offer some other stake in the game, like the sense that there is respect for what people have been doing in their departments in their careers. A brain drain is not something BGSU--or the local community--can want if it is to maintain the real gains it has made in academic prestige since the 90s.
The market is saturated with mediocrity.
Here is your problem, as I see it: you really dislike the university because it employs many people who are more liberal than you and you see it as an assault on your values, as a leech on your community. You have no respect for the specific worth of the scholarship or individual qualities of anyone who works there. And you have no understanding of how the world of academia works. So you make fun of it and belittle it. Congratulations !
Was that AAUP survey about BGSU professors? It doesn't look like it. Assistant professors make in the 40s, Associates sometimes only in the 50s-60s, often $20K less on average than their peers at other institutions. They seek a role in governance in compensation for the fact they work at BGSU for so much less than they could elsewhere. Yes, professors can make more than many others in the community, but it is a DIFFERENT PROFESSION, populated with people who are leaders in their fields, who have 10+ years of post-college schooling on average, and these people are leading taxpayers in the community.
And, I repeat, the Popular Culture department is unique in the country and internationally respected. That is a fact, which does not matter to you.
The attitude that you should support your employer or leave, regardless of whether the employer acts in good faith or not, is a troubling one, but one found all too often in this community.
Is it because they would rather discredit him than do any homework themselves?
He really does know what he is talking about on this topic, and it really doesn't take that much time to comment on blog posts.
When you write "even better switch to administration positions," you fail to acknowledge that in educational institutions, the biggest salary bloat and greatest redundancy is contained in administration.
All full-time faculty find themselves on one kind of committee or other--curriculum, personnel, and so forth (I serve on a campus-wide committee on writing courses)--so your top-down assumption fails to account for the horizontal and cross-campus organization of university departments. Furthermore, department chairs are often rotated among all tenured faculty in a department.
1. Managers should have total control over workers at all times, workers should not have a say in the conditions under which they work, and if they don't like it they should leave because there are plenty of other people who want their job?
2. All unions are the same, whether on the floor of an auto factory or if they are professional guilds (like faculty unions)?
3. Once a person is part of a union they are no longer a person but a thug?
4. All of the above?
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