The Word from CSEA
Columbus State Education Association Newsletter of May 14, 2008
CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE
Negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement continue to make progress. Both Bargaining Teams will exchange economic proposals this Friday, May 16.
We have concluded tentative agreements on a number of key issues, including changes in grievance procedure, language clarifications in the promotion and tenure processes, composition and process of faculty hiring committees, and guidelines governing Association business. Last Friday we reached tentative agreement on procedures for assignments to the Delaware campus and changes to the college health care committee process. Your Bargaining Team continues to work on guidelines for control of intellectual property; it has made some progress on several workload concerns, but a number of important issues remain unresolved.
Bargaining has been difficult and time consuming, and your representatives have addressed many of the issues faculty raised in a CSEA survey earlier this year, one of which was governance. Still on the table is a CSEA proposal for the establishment of an Academic Council composed of faculty and academic administrators and that would deal only with academic and curricular issues.
It is evident that faculty have never bought-in to the current “governance” structure in which the President dictates both what issues can be raised and how they are to be dealt with. Further disenfranchising faculty is the fact that both the curriculum committee and the assessment committee have, on several occasions, been chaired by non-teaching staff members who have no standing on such matters. If curriculum and assessment don’t rightfully belong to the faculty, then what issues do?
We can’t avoid noting that faculty’s lack of buy-in to the imposed governance structure is reflected in the fact that in the upcoming Shared Governance elections, only 4 faculty are seeking election to 12 vacancies on the Instructional Support Council and only 7 faculty are standing for election to 13 open seats on the Instructional Council. We remain hopeful that our efforts to return issues that rightfully belong under the purview of the faculty, such as curriculum and assessment, will be negotiated in good faith by the college administration. Our proposal is reasonable and is common at institutions of higher education everywhere.
Bargaining will continue all day every Thursday and Friday until the end of this quarter and will resume July 3. Ground rules agreed to at the start of negotiations set a deadline of July 15 for conclusion of talks, after which a fact finder will consider and decide outstanding issues. The current terms, imposed by the College after faculty rejected a tentative agreement but chose not to strike in 2005, will expire June 30.
IMPORTANT CSEA MEMBER MEETING ON MONDAY, JUNE 2
The Association will hold a member meeting at 3 P.M. on Monday, June 2, to update members on the status of contract negotiations, including particular elements of tentative agreements reached so far. In addition, CSEA leadership will seek your input on the possibility of seeking a fair-share fee that would require non-members to pay for the representation and benefits they receive from CSEA. Your input on this issue will shape future initiatives.
Please mark your calendar and make a point of attending. The location for this meeting is forthcoming.
TIM MYERS ELECTED TO STRS BOARD
The results of the election for a seat on the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) Board election were certified May 10. Tim Myers, an active teacher from Elida, Ohio, and the only active classroom teacher running for the position, was elected by an overwhelming margin. CSEA appreciates that its members took the time to return their ballots and put a contributing member of the STRS system on its board. Myers’ term of office begins on Sept. 1, 2008, and runs through Aug. 31, 2012.
REMEMBER: PERSONAL LEAVE IS PERSONAL
Several faculty have had problems lately around what is considered “proper use” of personal leave, and one faculty member has filed a grievance based on a disagreement over what constitutes such “proper use.”
There is only one way to avoid such problems: when submitting the required paperwork to request leave, DO NOT DISCUSS THE REASON YOU ARE REQUESTING LEAVE. If you are asked for a reason, simply use language directly from the contract and state that it is to attend to “matters of a personal nature or for a religious observance that cannot be accomplished at times other than normal working hours.”
Personal Leave is PERSONAL. You are not required to provide a reason for requesting personal leave, and a chair can not deny leave simply because you respectfully decline to provide an explanation of how it will be used. Our contract language protects you from having leave unreasonably denied.
The Word is produced by the Communications Committee of the Columbus State Education Association. We welcome your comments, news, and insights.
Darrell Minor, President and President-elect/ x5310
Amy Brubaker, Vice-President / x5068
Susan Moran, Secretary / x5453
Phil MacLean, Treasurer / x5308
Mary Morgan, Parliamentarian-elect / x5768
Steve Abbott, Senior Association Representative / x5096
Gil Feiertag, Senior Association Representative / x5861
Judy Anderson, Association Representative / x5822
Liz Betzel, Association Representative / x5329
Mark Bocija, Association Representative / x5049
Dave Busch, Association Representative / x5079
T.J. Duda, Association Representative / x5309
Dr. Charlie Gallucci, Association Representative / x5499
Cindy Evans, Association Representative / x2435
Bob Mergel, Association Representative / x5034
Eric Nuebauer, Association Representative / x5698
Dona Reaser, Association Representative / x5475
Gilberto Serrano, Association Representative / x3863
Leslie Smith, Association Representative / x5302
Kathy Struve, Association Representative / x5330