Ballots!

Have you received your election ballot?

Ballots were mailed from the 4C’s office on March 23rd. If you have not yet received yours, contact Kit Collette, the union office manager, by phone at 1-800-822-2363 or via email to Kit.

Not a member? You can become one and vote in the current election. Membership costs nothing more than the 1% you now pay in fees. (The fees just become dues.) Download a membership form from the 4C’s website and fax it to (860) 296-6219.

Remember to follow all the instructions for voting you receive with your ballot or your ballot will NOT be counted, as per the 4C’s Constitution.

Ballots must be received in the union office by Thursday, April 12.

NEXT: The Sad Truth

Debunking a Few Myths

The following are some myths you might encounter about our system:

Myth: AFT faculty teach five classes.
Not True: The AFT adopted our Additional Responsibilities (i.e. 20%) language in the 1990’s. AFT faculty teach four classes and perform AR duties as their regular workload.

Myth: Professionals work until the job is done and are not paid based on the hours worked.
Not True: Management often promulgates this myth. They use it to try to shame us into working for nothing. The truth is that professionals get paid. Only amateurs work for free. (Check your pay stub to see your hourly rate of pay.)

Myth: Blue-collar, non-professional employees pay attention to time spent on the job. We are not like them, so we should not pay attention to time spent on the job.
Not True: Lawyers bill by time. Check what your surgeon’s bill is for a few hours spent in the operating room. The more professional preparation one has, the more his/her time is worth.

Myth: The Community College system lacks resources.
Not True: Our system has a cash reserve of over $35 million, up from $4 million just a few years ago. We see management has money for their needs and desires. They only cry poverty when it comes to our needs and desires or the needs and desires of our students.

Myth: By making a wage concession in 2003, we saved the system.
Not True: We are the system. No student comes to our colleges to see a dean, a president, or a system office manager. When we, the human capital of the system, are injured, the system is injured. (By the way, when will it be management’s turn to save the system?)

NEXT: Ballots!

What a Strong Union Can Do--Keep Management Honest

A strong 4C’s can play a vital role in our system beyond advocating for members’ salaries, benefits, working conditions and job security—it can keep management honest.

This is not to say management is engaging in theft. Rather, we are simply acknowledging that human nature dictates that unchecked power leads to abuses. The BOT does not supervise the managers closely, but a strong 4C’s can publicly challenge self-serving management decisions that benefit them at the expense of our students. A strong union can bring checks and balances to managerial power.

A strong 4C’s can ask how the Resource Allocation Model, supposedly used by management to determine staffing levels, can allow Quinebaug Valley Community College to not have ANY counselors on staff while retiring managers all across the system return to work on endlessly renewable 120-day contracts?

A strong 4C’s can ask why managers’ annual raises since 1998 have averaged over 7.1%?

A strong 4C’s can ask why management’s reserve funds have grown from $4 million a few years ago to over $35 million recently?

A strong 4C’s can bring balance to our system.

We need a strong 4C’s. Our students need a strong 4C’s. Taxpayers need a strong 4C’s. Paradoxically, even management needs a strong 4C’s, so we can prevent them from destroying the system we all work in.

NEXT: Debunking a Few Myths.

Making the 4C’s a Strong Union--Part IV: Working With Our Allies

Our current union leaders hold the AFT at arm’s length. Not only do they choose not to work with our union brothers and sisters, they watch passively as management tries to take from the AFT the superior contract language they already possess.

Management just began contract negotiations with the AFT, and they demanded the AFT accept the inferior contract language our leaders just agreed to for us! (In response, the AFT negotiators tossed the management negotiators out and told them they’d see them again in arbitration.)

Our leaders, in effect, are complicit in aiding management to whipsaw the two bargaining units. This is wrong. This is self-defeating.

Our natural allies are the AFT members, and the New Leadership Slate understands this. We will work with the AFT to whipsaw management. By working together, we can play a kind of contract leapfrog, so that both bargaining units’ members benefit over time.

By the way, there is bad blood between our current union leaders and the AFT leadership. This has hurt all of us. Fortunately, the members of the New Leadership Slate have great regard and respect for the AFT leadership. We will work with them willingly.

We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: working together, we’ll do better.

NEXT: What a Strong Union Can Do--Keep Management Honest

Making the 4C’s a Strong Union--Part III: Involving and Empowering our Members

For the 4C’s to be a strong union, our members must be more involved and empowered.

Transparency and communication will help, but even more is needed. We must ASK members to be more involved, and we must provide incentives for member involvement.

AFT chapter chairs are elected, just as ours are, but they are also compensated. Our Delegate Assembly members are elected, and they too should receive some form of compensation. (It is worth noting that many colleges do not have full complements of Delegates and that our Delegate Assembly meetings are only half-full much of the time. Too often, entire colleges are not represented.)

Our members must identify with our union and believe union involvement benefits everyone. Currently, all too many of our members identify with management. This is understandable, as management doles out promotions, merit awards, etc. What does our union provide? To many members, the benefits of union membership are simply too intangible.

The New Leadership Slate will make the benefits of union membership more tangible. We’ll provide scholarships for our members’ children, just as the AFT does. We have the money; we only need the will. We’ll provide union cards for our members, so members can take advantage of the discounts and special offers available to card-carrying union members. We’ll provide emblems of union membership for people to wear.

We’ll demonstrate pride, purpose, and strength.

Our members must be sufficiently empowered to scrutinize the actions of our leaders. We must make certain we never again endure what we are now enduring. We’ll propose statewide officer term limits, we’ll propose other revisions to the 4C’s Constitution to keep members empowered, and we’ll work to ensure our leaders never forget the interests of our members.

Working together, we’ll do better.

NEXT: Making the 4C’s a Strong Union--Part IV: Working With Our Allies

Making the 4C’s a Strong Union--Part II: Communication

For the 4C’s to be a strong union, there must be clear channels of communication open between our leaders and our members.

First, our leaders must be accessible.

Many of our current union leaders have been in office for decades, yet how many of you know them or even see them regularly on your campuses?

If elected, the New Leadership Slate will visit campuses and talk with our members. We must do this because our “system” really functions as twelve semi-autonomous fiefdoms in loose confederation with the System Office. Consequently, our contract language is applied thirteen different ways. Without clear communication, we will not understand the unique issues facing our members on their particular campuses. With clear communication, our union can act proactively rather than reactively. A proactive union is a stronger union.

Second, our union leaders must be willing to listen to member input.

As our current leaders prepared for our contract negotiations, they surveyed us for our contract priorities. Did you ever see the results reported? Why not? Did you know that enhanced job security was one of your top priorities? Despite this, when the New Leadership Slate’s members tried to make this a contract negotiation issue, our current leaders shouted us down and said members didn’t want enhanced job security.

If elected, the New Leadership Slate pledges to listen to, publicize, and to respect the input of our members. We will engage in online conversations with our members using our website. Surveys will be conducted, and results will be widely disseminated. Member priorities and ideas will be discussed at chapter meetings.

None of us have monopolies on knowledge or wisdom, and the New Leadership Slate understands that your input is crucial to making our union stronger.

Working together, we’ll do better.

NEXT: Making the 4C’s a Strong Union—Part III: Involving and Empowering our Members

Making the 4C’s a Strong Union--Part I: Transparency

For three weeks, we have discussed the contract inadequacies 4C’s members face because of our current leaders’ performance.

Now, the New Leadership Slate articulates for you our vision for creating a better future for 4C’s members.

We must become a strong union. Strong unions obtain strong contracts. To become strong, we must allow members to see how their union works, how their dues are spent, and how the decisions that affect their professional lives are made.

Here’s a test of our current level of union transparency. Our union president is paid a salary by the union, and the money comes from our dues. What is the salary paid to the 4C’s union president?

If you don’t know the answer, it is not your fault. It is the fault of our current union leaders, who keep members in the dark. You cannot find the answer to this question in our contract. You cannot find it on the 4C’s website. You have to be one of the few who are “in the know” to even understand that our president is paid a salary out of our dues!

(The answer to the question is the cash equivalent of five part-time lecturer sections, or 5 x $3726, or $18, 630 this contract year. The president also receives a mileage allowance of almost $300 per month, paid by your dues. These are in addition to a full state salary.)

The New Leadership Slate pledges to provide complete transparency in all union matters. We will:

* Put our annual budget (currently about $1 million) on the union website, with an explanation of each budget item in plain English for everyone to understand,

* Put complete balance statements and independent audit results on our website, with explanations in plain English for everyone to understand,

* Update you regularly on the status of our union’s reserve funds (currently about $1.4 million),

* Publish statewide union meeting agendas in advance for all to see,

* Publish accurate, complete, and up-to-date minutes of all statewide union meetings,

* Put union correspondence with management on the union website, just as the AFT does.

By the way, our current leaders have been announcing at candidate forums they have a “deal’ with management that 4C’s full-time faculty will not be required to teach a fifth course for the next three years. They did this deal “in the dark,” with no input or involvement from our Delegate Assembly, our Negotiating Committee, or our Table Team. Given that management does not give away anything for free, we can only wonder what price our members are paying for this “deal.”

NEXT: Making the 4C’s a Strong Union--Part II: Communication

Our Most Abused Members—Educational Assistants

As our campuses have grown in enrollment, we have seen more and more Educational Assistants—EA’s—hired. These part-time, non-teaching professionals carry more and more of the workload on our campuses, as management hires them rather than additional full-timers.

Working under annual contracts, often with no fringe benefits, and most times at rates of pay less than those their colleagues earn, our EA’s are the most exploited members of the 4C’s.

At Norwalk, management reduced our writing center tutors’ pay by shifting them from part-time lecturers to EA’s. Instead of working nine hours per week, they work eight hours per week. An 11% cut in hours resulted in a 22% cut in pay because of their change from part-time lecturers to EA’s

Those EA’s who are eventually hired as full-time employees see their working experience ignored when they are hired at salary step one.

When our colleges close on “snow days,” 4C’s EA’s are told they must make up their hours. AFT members are paid when our colleges close.

We believe it is wrong to exploit and abuse people this way.

We want to see career paths for our EA’s. We want to see them paid proportionally to our other members, so management will have less incentive to hire EA’s.

We want decent treatment, fairness and justice for all of our members.

NEXT: Making the 4C’s a Strong Union--Part I: Transparency

Our Ignored Colleagues: Part-Time Faculty

On our campuses, we see 40-plus% of our sections taught by part-time faculty. In required general education courses on some campuses, 90% of the sections are taught by part-time faculty.

Over twenty years ago, our union’s long-serving leaders pledged to make part-time faculty pay proportionate to full-time faculty pay. In other words, each three-credit course worth of compensation would equal one tenth of a full-time faculty member’s salary.

Had this promise been kept, one three-credit course today would carry a compensation rate of $4300 as opposed to the current $3700.

Furthermore, part-time faculty in our system have uneven access to clerical support, computers, and even work stations.

Finally, we see our current union leaders settling for 5% raises for part-timers while fighting for 8 3/4% (plus retro money), 6 1/4% and 6 1/4% for full-timers. Not only is this wrong, it is self-defeating, as our arbitrator will understand the message we send about the raises we all should get—5%.

Strong unions do not ignore the promises they make to their members. Strong unions do not settle for less for some of their members. Strong unions advocate for all of their members fairly and equally.

When will the 4C’s be a strong union?

NEXT: Our Most Abused Members—Educational Assistants

Fiction, Fantasy, and Reality: ACL Job Descriptions and Workload

Many ACL’s in our system work under the provisions of job descriptions that are, at best, open-ended summaries of what they do.

Other ACL’s work under the provisions of job descriptions that are absolutely unrelated to their actual duties.

Virtually all ACL’s are told to put in time sheets showing 35 hours worked per week, regardless of the (almost always greater) number of hours actually worked.

We also see the unique and often multi-job ACL positions found at our smaller campuses.

And of course, ACL job descriptions allow for the addition of “other duties as assigned.”

Because management chooses not to employ sufficient numbers of people to do the work of the system, many of our ACL’s have seen their workloads increase and increase with no relief given or extra pay earned. (Of course, this does not apply to the management ranks; at Norwalk, two managers retired and were replaced—with five new managers!)

The New Leadership Slate’s presidential candidate, Steve Cohen, was once an ACL in the CSU system. There, he had a specific job description listing all required duties and ending with, “and other duties as per mutual agreement.” In other words, extra duties carried extra pay. (And in the CSU, if a supervisor missed more than four weeks of work, subordinates were given an automatic 7 1/2% bump in pay, as it was understood they were taking on additional duties.)

The New Leadership Slate pledges to work for specific and factual ACL job descriptions, for honest time sheets, and for additional ACL positions, so the people who do the real work of the system--union members--don’t have to struggle to complete their job duties each day while superfluous deans try to justify their own existence.

Oh, and lest we forget, the AFT has specific contract language limiting them to a strict 35 hour work week. After 35 hours, they go home, or they get paid extra.

NEXT: Our Ignored Colleagues: Part-Time Faculty

Department Chairs and Program Coordinators--Unequal Pay for Equal Work

4C’s department chairs earn less release time than do AFT department chairs.

A 4C’s member receiving 12 credits of release time per year watches with dismay as his/her AFT successor earns 15 credits of release time for doing the same job, with the same colleagues, while working for the same employer. The chart on page 110 of the 4C’s contract shows this disparity.

Furthermore, many AFT coordinators receive four credits per release time while their 4C’s counterparts receive three credits per release time.

The New Leadership Slate believes in equal pay for equal work.

You may have heard that negotiations are ongoing concerning DC’s and PC’s. Unfortunately, these negotiations, according to presentations made by our current union leaders at Tunxis and Quinebaug, involve additional release time for some coordinators, nothing for others, and compensation being reduced for department chairs in order to provide additional compensation to select PC’s.

The New Leadership Slate believes this is wrong. Taking from one type of member to give to another is not what we consider to be progress. (Fortunately, it appears this negotiation will not be completed and instead left as a reopener for next year.)

If elected, the New Leadership Slate pledges to fight for enhanced compensation for ALL members.

NEXT: Fiction, Fantasy, and Reality: ACL Job Descriptions and Workload

Our Missing Job Security

As we examined earlier, tenure for 4C’s members offers no protection against layoffs; it only provides us with one extra month of notice in the case of layoffs. In fact, 4C’s members around our system who have alienated their college presidents have been advised not to apply for tenure. The benefit of tenure is too weak to risk being placed on a terminal contract as the tenure review allows.

Layoffs in the 4C’s are based purely on managerial whim.

In the AFT, not only is tenure systemwide, it also provides the foundation for job security. It is why the AFT refused to make a concession agreement in 2003. (Some folks might have you believe other things, but the reality is that in 2003 management wanted the AFT to give up their raises AND their superior contract language in return for the weak and temporary language we agreed to. The AFT declined, and none of their members were laid off.)

AFT Contract Article XXII-Layoffs details the hierarchy to be followed if layoffs are unavoidable. It reads as follows:

…the order of layoff of bargaining unit members shall be as follows:
a. Part-time employees on special appointment
b. Full-time employees on special appointment
c. Part-time employees on terminal appointment
d. Full-time employees on terminal appointment
e. Part-time members on regular appointment
f. Full-time members on regular appointment
g. Employees on tenured appointment

Layoffs in each category listed above in this section shall be based upon both the academic needs of the System and seniority.

Admittedly, a seniority-based system for determining layoffs is imperfect. However, the New Leadership Slate believes it is better than managerial whim. (Management knows this too; it is why they tried to get the AFT to abandon their contract language.) We pledge to work to achieve meaningful job security language for 4C’s members.

NEXT: Department Chairs and Program Coordinators--Unequal Pay for Equal Work

The Price of Failing to Work with the AFT--$2500 per Promotion

We know that AFT members have been promoted more rapidly than 4C’s members, but until 2006, their superior contract language also benefited them by providing for a minimum dollar value per promotion--$2500.

While we were receiving one extra step, worth about 2 1/2% per promotion, they were receiving multiple steps in order to achieve the required minimum $2500 value for their promotions.

From the 1992 merger through 2006, two things happened.

First, management tried to take the $2500 promotion language away from the AFT and replace it with our single step language.

Second, our current union leaders did nothing. For fourteen years, they did not make any contract demand for the 4C's to receive promotions worth a minimum of $2500. Our current union leaders refused to join with the AFT in this battle. They refused to fight for us.

In a 2006 arbitration decision, the AFT lost their $2500 minimum dollar value for promotion. Management’s strategy of whipsawing the two unions’ contracts worked.

A strong 4C’s union would have worked to whipsaw management so as to get a minimum dollar value per promotion for our members too. Instead, our leaders watched from the sidelines and the members of both unions suffered.

How did we benefit from watching the AFT lose this fight? Could the fact that our current union leaders have received all of their available promotions be why they took no interest in improved promotion language for the rest of us? Were they unwilling to admit the superiority of AFT contract language? We don’t know the answers to these questions. Here is what we do know:

The members of the New Leadership Slate pledge to work with any and all potential allies to get our members the best possible contract language.

NEXT: Our Missing Job Security

Mileage Matters

When 4C’s members travel from our home campus to an offsite location, we are entitled to mileage reimbursement. Period.

AFT members earn a $500/semester bonus if they travel to a worksite 15 or more miles from their home campus. They also get mileage reimbursement from their homes to their other work site. If they travel from 5 to 15 miles, they get only mileage reimbursement. (See AFT Contract Article 8.3.4. In this Article, there is also language indicating no AFT member, “…shall be required to teach at more than one College or other location without his/her written consent.”)

In the AFT’s new contract demands, they want the $500/semester bonus to change to $200/credit, and the 15-mile restriction on this compensation to be eliminated.

The AFT keeps trying to move the ball down this field for their members, but the 4C’s is not even in this game. Why not?

NEXT: The Price of Failing to Work with the AFT--$2500 per Promotion

Our Sick Bank is Broke(n)

Our Sick Bank runs on BOT policy, not specific contract language. When one of us needs extra sick days, local and system management must agree to set up a Sick Bank—it is not mandatory. (A Sick Bank request has been denied recently for a colleague at Three Rivers.) After management approves the request, sick day donations must be solicited, and these are limited by BOT policy.

While our new agreement extends the limit beyond the previous BOT policy of 100 days, our Sick Bank is dramatically inferior to the AFT Sick Bank.

The AFT Sick Bank functions like an insurance policy. AFT members can choose to donate three days to it, and if they do, the bank is available for their use. A joint union-management committee grants benefits upon request. Annually, AFT members may be asked to donate three additional days to maintain the health of the bank. With fewer than 200 full-time members, the AFT Sick Bank now contains in excess of 6000 sick days, according to AFT president Dennis Bogusky. He also tells us the joint labor-management committee has never caused AFT members a problem in receiving benefits.

To read the AFT summary of their Sick Bank, click on this link.

By the way, our candidate for 4C’s president, Steve Cohen, noticed this deficiency when he joined our system in 1988. (He had been an ACL in the CSU, and his AFSCME bargaining unit had an AFT-style Sick Bank.) Steve pointed out this difference to management and our union at that time…to no avail.

NEXT: Mileage Matters

Our New Sick Leave Language Leaves Us Ill

For faculty, our new language includes the following:

There shall be no charge to a sick leave balance for days following the date on which grades are due or the date on which the semester ends, whichever is sooner.

This IS an improvement, but it falls far short of AFT language.

The AFT contract specifies in 8.3.12, “No Faculty Member shall be required to be on campus when he/she is not responsible for scheduled class and office hours, or for other professional obligations,” and a post-1992 merger grievance clarified this in terms of sick leave thusly:

AFT faculty are only charged for sick leave on the days they are scheduled to work.

For most AFT faculty, this means they are only charged for four days per week, plus any scheduled final exam days. 4C’s faculty are charged five days per week, leading up to the new language.

Again, our current union leaders agreed to less than what the AFT already has.

NEXT: Our Sick Bank is Broke(n)

Snowed: The New Inclement Weather Language

Here is the short, sweet, and simple AFT contract language:

When classes are cancelled or the college is closed due to weather or other circumstances, all Faculty members (both teaching and non-teaching) need not report to work and shall suffer no loss of pay or charge to any other leave.

Ours is more complicated. It is also seriously flawed. Our language begins, “Pursuant to Board policy…” In other words, our contract language is not set, but rather is variable, depending on the BOT policy in effect at that time. The BOT is notorious for not following their own policies, and an early, though eventually abandoned, contract demand for us was the right to grieve the BOT when they failed to follow their own policies.

In other words, the AFT has clear contract language, and we have whatever the BOT decides their policy to be at that time.

To make matters worse, 4C’s members who apply for vacation or PL days in advance of a college closing are still charged for this time. The AFT is not.

Here is a portion of the HR email to NCC staff after the 2/26/07 snow day:

Employees scheduled for a day off (i.e. personal leave or vacation day), are to charge the full day to accrued leave as originally planned. AFT Counselors and Librarians who were scheduled for the day off are not required to charge this day to accrued time.

The bottom line is that our current union leaders agreed to take less than what our AFT colleagues already have—again.

NEXT: Our New Sick Leave Language Leaves Us Ill

The Trouble with Tenure

Our current union leaders tout the new Transfer language they have agreed to which involves tenure. The tenure subsection reads, in part:

A tenured employee who accepts a transfer without tenure [emphasis added] may apply for tenure when he/she will have, by September 1 of the year such appointment is to be effective, completed three (3) years of full-time employment in the same job function at the receiving college.

This language only serves to reinforce the primary weakness of tenure for 4C’s members. As we see on page 19 of our current contract:

Tenure is granted by the President and relates only to the college and not the System.

Our AFT colleagues have systemwide tenure, and this serves as the foundation of their job security language—more on this in a later blog post.

Tenure for 4C’s members offers no protection against layoffs; it only provides us with one extra month of notice in the case of layoffs.

Strong unions have strong tenure contract provisions.

Why isn’t the 4C’s a strong union?

NEXT: Snowed: The New Inclement Weather Language

Losses in Longevity

After ten years of state service, we are eligible for Longevity Pay. (Note that this state service need not be exclusively in the community college system, that part-time state employment counts on a pro-rated basis, and qualifying military service time may also be included.)

Different campuses handle longevity pay notification differently, but the bottom line is we must notify our Human Resources offices if we believe we are eligible for Longevity Pay. Once H.R. confirms our eligibility, we will automatically receive Longevity Pay. Thereafter, twice per year in the fall and spring, we will receive a bonus. The amount of this bonus is determined by our pay grade and our service time.

To find the current 4C’s and AFT longevity rates, go to this page of the 4C’s website and click on “2006-7 Longevity Rates.”

Looking at the 4C’s Longevity Category II, a full professor with 25 years of service receives $1712 in Longevity Pay twice per academic year, for a total of $3424.

In the AFT Bargaining Unit Longevity Pay chart, we see a full professor with 25 years of service receives $2316 in Longevity Pay twice per academic year, for a total of $4632.

In other words, an AFT member with the same rank and length of service as a 4C’s member receives $1208 more per year than does the 4C’s member, or $100 more per month.

By the way, our current union leaders downplay this difference by comparing $1712 with $2316 and claiming our member “only” earns $600 less than does an AFT member. Leaving this bit of misinformation aside, whether the difference is $1200 per year, $600 per year, or $20 per year, why do 4C’s members receive less?

We are first-class professionals, so why do our current union leaders allow us to be treated as second-class employees?

NEXT: The Trouble with Tenure.

The Promotion Problem—Part II

But, you ask, didn’t our current union leaders just reach an agreement with the BOT to solve this problem?

NO!

What has been agreed to with management is inferior to what the AFT has.

First, our new language reads, “The normal expectation for promotion is after three (3) years of service.” This applies to all the promotions we can receive.

The AFT contract reads, “The normal expectation for promotion from Instructor to Assistant Professor is after three (3) years of service.” This is the only promotion in the AFT contract where time in rank is even mentioned.

More importantly, our current leaders have agreed to the following:

The supervising dean shall, by March 15 or, if there is a procedural
appeal under subsection (3) above, as soon as possible after the
President has responded to such appeal, review the promotion
application file for each applicant and shall:

a. Make a recommendation for or against promotion;
b. Inform each applicant, in writing, of the recommendation made;
c. If the dean has recommended against promotion, provide
specific written suggestions for areas of improvement.

If the supervising dean makes a recommendation against promotion,
the applicant shall have the opportunity to submit a written response which shall be
included in the promotion application file before the file is transmitted to the President.

What we see, therefore, is that our current union leaders have empowered our deans!

The net effects here will be:

1. Fewer promotions for 4C’s members, as deans give presidents “cover” for denying promotions to our members, and

2. Every 4C’s member eligible for promotion will have to fear his or her dean asking him or her to work additional duties without additional compensation. (Said deans will, of course, promise to remember these favors come promotion recommendation time.)

The AFT contract does not involve deans in the promotion process. The AFT does not seek to empower management.

Promotion is an issue our union should have arbitrated. Just about the easiest arbitration to win is one based on existing contract language binding on the same employer! Our current union leaders chose not to arbitrate.

Finally, our current union leaders have spread some disinformation concerning AFT promotions.

Our current union leaders have claimed only 50% of AFT members applying for promotion are promoted.

NOT TRUE. AFT President Bogusky informs us that over 90% of AFT members who apply for promotion are promoted, just as is the case for 4C’s members.

Our current union leaders have claimed that only about 20 promotions were granted to AFT members from 1998-2006.

NOT TRUE. In the last three years there have been roughly 20 AFT promotions at Norwalk Community College alone.

The New Leadership Slate makes you this promise: We will never settle for inferior contract language.

NEXT: Losses in Longevity.

The Promotion Problem--Part I

On merged campuses, 4C’s members have watched with dismay as AFT members have been promoted more quickly. It is not unusual to see an AFT member who was hired after a 4C’s member earning more money because of more rapid promotions. (The AFT contract cites qualification as the eligibility criterion for promotion; our contract currently demands we serve three years in rank as the eligibility criterion for promotion.)

Our Norwalk colleague H. Steve Dashefsky decided to examine this issue in a very direct and personal way. He approached an AFT member who was hired at the same time, at the same rank, and at the same step as he was. He received her permission to obtain her salary history from Human Resources, and he then compiled a graph documenting the difference in their earnings. After seven years, Steve was earning $7000 per year less than his AFT counterpart. She had been promoted twice to his once, and she had earned over $22,000 more than he had. (Note that our 2003 concession agreement does impact Steve, but it has only a secondary effect on his comparative earnings.)

When Steve brought this analysis to the attention of our union’s current leaders, he was vilified. They argued his analysis was misleading, mostly wrong, and that there was no real difference in earnings between 4C’s and AFT members based on promotion. Eventually, they realized Steve’s work was irrefutable, and they changed their tune and began to demand “equity” for 4C’s members. In fact, for a brief time, Steve’s chart was on the 4C’s website, though it is no longer.

It was only because of the tenacious efforts of Steve and many others, that our current leaders were forced to admit promotion differences between the 4C’s and the AFT constituted a problem.

This link will take you to the AFT website where Steve's analysis has been posted and where AFT President Dennis Bogusky advocates for 4C’s members.

By the way, extrapolating out to twenty years, Steve estimates he will earn approximately $90,000 less than will his AFT counterpart due to our contract’s promotion language.

NEXT: The problem with our new contract language on promotion.

It is Time to Lead and Not Follow.

This is the campaign theme of the New Leadership Slate.

In what ways do we need to lead?

First, we need to lead by being the strongest union in our system.

To become strong, we need:

* transparency in all union matters, especially in the realm of how the union spends and invests members’ dues

* communication, with an emphasis on communication from members to elected officers

* member involvement on campuses and especially within the union itself

By strengthening our union, we will then be able to lead in a second real--by having the best contract language in the system.

Now, fifteen years after the State Technical College system and Community College system merger, we still lag behind the major union of the former technical colleges--the American Federation of Teachers (the AFT)--in wages, working conditions, and job security.

Our current leaders have failed to make us a strong union, and they have failed to even achieve contract parity with the AFT.

In our next few entries, we’ll examine the language of the 4C’s and AFT contracts. This should be especially enlightening to 4C’s members on non-merged campuses. (Our merged campuses are Capital, Gateway, Naugatuck, Norwalk, and Three Rivers.)

In later entries, we’ll outline our vision for strengthening our union.

Working together, we will do better.