Is the administration "forcing" the UICUF to strike?

It's more complicated than "yes" or "no," but I feel compelled to point out that if the union is being forced, it also has a choice.

In some ways, the administration--or "upper administration," a term I am hearing more and more now--is forcing the union to put up or shut up, and the union appears to be responding in kind.  It kind of "has to" make the response it's making.  Even I believe that if one grants the union is a good thing and that it is important to win a workable contract, the union can do no other than set a strike date in this situation.  And I should note that voting for a strike date is not necessarily the same as voting for a strike.  The vote last Wednesday was to continue to pursue negotiations and to ask the university one more time if it will submit to arbitration.  But if those fail, then the union will strike.

I have in recent days heard a lot of people saying the administration is "forcing" us to strike.  And the union's blog repeats that assertion in a post the day after the "we will strike if negotiations fail" vote [bold added by me]:

There is one other option–to submit to binding arbitration....but the administration has refused binding arbitration.  In that sense, the faculty union is demonstrating its concern for students and avoiding an end-of-semester strike.  The administration seems not to care about the students and is willing to force the faculty into this strike.

And again:

We undertook a short two-day strike earlier in the semester because we didn’t want to disrupt classes any more than necessary, but now our hand has been forced.  We’re having to plan for a potentially longer strike near the end of the semester, despite our earlier short-term strike.

And to be sure, if the administration really wishes to avoid a strike it would realize that the union cannot really accept the fair-share proposal and the "last best and final offer" to TT [tenure-track] faculty but not (yet) to the NTT [non-tenure-track] faculty.  My original view of the fair share offer was that it's not worth striking over, and I have partially retracted and qualified that view.  I have come to the conclusion that the main reason to offer the fair-share proposal was to instigate a strike.  Anyone who has studied labor relations or pays attention to what unions are and to local, state, and national politics knows, or ought to know, that no union in the UICUF's position can accept such a proposal and remain what it claims to be.  It's not a "right to work" or "Scott Walker Redux" proposal, but accepting it would establish a precedent and place a burden on the union.


As for the TT offer, I imagine there are a lot of reasons the union opposes it, but one deal-breaking reason appears to be that it would separate the TT's from the NTT's.  The threat of a strike by TT's and NTT's is much more likely to work than the threat of a strike by only one or the other.  For all my talk of "conflicts of interest," I have to acknowledge in this case makes the union stronger.



Why then do I insist that the administration is not "forcing" the union to strike?  Because the strike is a choice.  The union knows that if it happens, it will be disruptive.  It knows that it has staked out a claim and things are coming to a head.  It has made the decision that the temporary costs to students of a strike is worth the long term gain.  The union, in the name of improving things for the future, has stated that the bad effects on students is worth it.

Although I have a lot of reservations about the union, I speak this time not to denounce it, but to suggest it is facing one of the difficulties unions face generally when they decide to strike.  Strikes--unlike lockouts--require workers to take positive action.  Strikers have to make the decision to refuse to work.  Because the strikers have to actually make the decision, they are the most visible actors in the conflict.  Fairly or unfairly, they bear a default burden to justify their actions that the employers do not bear.  The employers can say--and the UIC administration has said in its emails to faculty--that the workers do not have to strike.  The strikers, by striking, have to make the case for the strike upfront while the employers can say they did all they could.  The decision to strike creates a rhetorical imbalance and puts the strikers on the defensive.  I believe this is generally true even if a strike is the most justifiable decision possible.

By saying this, I'm trying to acknowledge the difficult fix the union is in by striking.  I understand why it is adopting the language that its hand is being "forced," and I do not seriously expect it to go into "intersubjective discourse mode" and explore the nature of choice, free will, and institutional pathways in its public announcements.  There's a time for discussion and a time for action.  But the union is indeed making a decision.  It is calculating the odds of success and weighing the costs it will accept rather than suffer a contract it is designed to refuse.

What the UIC United Faculty Union is doing right

I've spent a lot of time on this blog criticizing the union.  Sometimes, I fear, it looks like to hear me, the union can do nothing right.  If the union wants "a" contract for "its" members, that's a conflict of interest.  If it wants two separate contracts for each of its major units, then that too is a conflict.  Or if the union relies too much on the "billion dollars in 'profits'" claim, it is being too simplistic.  If it admitted that funding decisions are not as simple as the claim implies, I would probably say something like "see, even the union admits that the 'profits' claim is wrong." 

There are some things, however, that the union is doing right.  And I'd like to note a few of them.

First, its members do seem sincerely concerned about the effect any strike will have on the students.  I hope it's not too much a violation of my pledge not to relate the content of union meetings if I relate some observations from the last meeting where April 23 was adopted as the date for a next strike if negotiations fail and UIC refuses to arbitrate.  The members were in my opinion very concerned how that strike might harm students.  This concern was more than "how will this look in the media," too.  People seemed really bothered by the fact that what might happen will harm students.  I personally believe overwhelming majority of the people at that meeting were mistaken that a strike is nevertheless worth the cost, and I was one of the very few who raised my hand against the plan.  But they recognize and regret the cost, and they aren't pursuing their measures flippantly.  That's all a subjective judgment on my part, so my readers will just have to take my word for it.

Second and for all my talk about conflicts of interest--and I believe the conflicts are real--the tenure track faculty [TT] seem to be willing to walk the talk when it comes to supporting the non-tenure-track faculty [NTT].  We'll see what actually happens and whether at the last minute the university might not successfully buy them off with a deal as long as they agree to let the NTT's negotiate for themselves (which, I guess, is in a sense what I want.....but see above about "to hear me, the union can do nothing right").  But as of now, they seem to sincerely support the NTT's.  I suspect that many of them see the TT part of the union as necessary to help the least well off, the NTT's.  And for all my concern about NTT's having to strike for TT's, it's also quite apparent that TT's are as a whole willing to strike for NTT's.

Third, the union as a whole and many of its more outspoken members see the contract as a way eventually to improve student experience.  I have a lot of doubts about that and fear a union, once established, will function as yet another claim on the already too-high tuition dollars that students have to pay.  It might become just a way to protect its members jobs, which unions do best because that's what they're designed to do.  But it is quite possible that I'm wrong and that the union could, say, compel a more meaningful conversation about redirecting the union's priorities.

Fourth and on a more individual level, the union has not been aggressive with me.  When I signed up with the union in January, I had to go out of my way to ask the steward for the union card.  And I've known one person in particular who has gone out of his or her way to listen to and relate many of my concerns to others.  He or she may not agree with me, and especially not with my more recent and punchy (once you get past my convoluted writing style) blog posts.  But he or she has been respectful of what I've been saying, and for that I'm grateful.

Again, I think the union is mistaken.  And as of now, I do not know what I'll do when or if a strike is called on April 23. I can say that for all my disagreements with the union, I will be satisfied (albeit still critical) if a strike can be avoided with a contract the union finds acceptable.

On the twoness of contracts and inherent conflicts of interest

I noted in my last post that the union appears to be negotiating two contracts and not one.  I don't know all the in's and out's of that and why the union and university are doing it that way.  I suspect the union would prefer to have one large contract--to be One Big Union--but for legal reasons has to settle for the two-contract approach.  One contract is for NTT's [non-tenure track] and the other is for TT's [tenure-track]. 

In that post, I called the union to task, saying (in a typically vague passive-voice construction) "more acknowledgment could have been given upfront about this distinction" between NTT and TT contracts.  I think I am right to be bit peeved that the union does not seem to have been as upfront about this as I would have preferred.  It's a "united faculty" but being united in this case can mean one faction striking for the interests of the other, or each faction negotiating alongside each other but for very different things.

But I have to admit that I can't blame the union for everything.  I ought to take responsibility for Googling my own knowledge.  I also have to admit that the two-contract approach challenges my notion about the inherent conflict of interest in the union.  For if there are two contracts, one tailored to NTT concerns and the other to TT concerns, then the conflict of interests between NTT and TT is not as bad as I had thought.

At least that's true when it comes to the contract.  It's less true when it comes to union organization and when it comes to actually working in the bargaining unit.  If the union strikes again, as it might on April 23, it will be the entire union, NTT's and TT's.  If, say, an NTT crosses the lines and thereby angers that set of TT's who exercise in some ways a supervisory function over the NTT, then the fact that separate contracts are being negotiated does only a little to palliate potentially bad consequences for the NTT.  I do assume that if NTT's win a contract, it would be harder to fire them for arbitrary reasons, and the NTT part of the union could defend the NTT from arbitrary firing.  But there's little else to repair the potential rift that crossing the line could raise.

(I'll repeat here what I've always said.  The TT's in my corner of UIC do not strike me as the retaliatory type.  Indeed, they strike me as fair-minded and not given to punishing others for not siding with them on this issue.  I would be very surprised, indeed, if they did not know and understand the difficult situation of an NTT who dissents from the union.  Also, those people who have the most direct "supervisory" authority over me seem to me to be particularly fair-minded and I trust their fairness.)

Perhaps by focusing on conflicts of interest and "people who exercise in some ways a supervisory function," I am misconceiving the nature of my work.  Perhaps I am focusing too much on the "job" aspect and not enough on the "career" or "professional" aspects of what I currently do for a living.  Conflicts of interest and supervisory functions are more characteristic of "jobs" than of the career-centered and profession-centered commitments implied by the term "faculty."  Perhaps I should just chill out and roll with what appears to be the clear majority of my fellow faculty members and the almost unanimous majority of union members.

But I ask my readers to keep in mind that unions by their very nature privilege the "job" aspect over the career or profession aspects.  The traditional model of unions is based on jobs-consciousness.  I'm not going to say it's impossible for someone to be both a professional and a worker.  I do believe one can be both.  And I'm not going to lay the blame entirely on the union.  The UIC administration seems determined--either by design or by incompetence or by a too narrow focus on short-term costs over long-term planning--to make the union's case for it, to make the case that only a contract can ensure a minimal level of fair treatment, and to make the case that at least the NTT's ought to look at their position more and more as a "job" than as a career or a profession. 

But whoever is to blame, the conflict of interest exists and the "job" aspect of NTT's position, reinforced in my opinion by the union, makes the conflict something to be considered.  My concerns so far are theoretical.  I don't see the conflict in practice so much as I see it on paper.  But if last-minute contracts and appeals to arbitration don't work and a strike happens, NTT's will be asked to strike for themselves but also for others very differently situated.

True rejections and the UIC Faculty Union

Ta-Nehisi Coates reflects on several points in a recent column in The Atlantic. One of those points is Thomas Hobbes's alleged propensity to be overly argumentative, or his "brilliance in controversy."  Quoting another, Coates writes, Hobbes "hated error more than he loved truth, and came to depend overmuch on the stimulus of opposition."  Coates's takeaway from that comment is

....I think the deeper point about "brilliance in controversy" is one for the ages. It's tough to remember that you must never do it for them. It's tough to remember why you came. Why you came was not to be lauded for "destroying," "owning," or otherwise sonning anyone. You must always define the debate and not allow the debate--and all its volume and spectacle--to define you.

That is perhaps a grandiose way for me to introduce this blog post.  I spend a lot of time on these (virtual) pages criticizing the union.  I stand by my criticisms generally, and when I change my mind, I endeavor to state so clearly so people are not misinformed on where I stand.  But the main gist of these posts has been a "kitchen sink and a cloud of dust" attack on the union.  Given (almost) every possible criticism that could be lodged against the union, I have lodged it.

The problem is, it is easy to criticize, to destroy.  Not so easy to build.  So it behooves me here to state what I see as my endgame, to state what it is I support and refrain from adopting only a contrarian view for the sake of contraianism.  Doing so will also better disclose my biases, so people can know what ulterior motives I may have in my criticisms of the union.  In the process, I can even see a role for a union.

One, there are indeed problems of poor working conditions, especially for some contingent faculty.  I see these problems as ones partially of pay, partially of large class sizes, and partially of little support from the UIC administration.

There is a tension between any given student's short-term interest in a good grade and the same student's and university's longer term interests in maintaining higher standards.  In short, the instructor sometimes needs support from somewhere when he or she has to discipline a student for plagiarism, or when he or she assigns a low grade then contested by the student.  And even the best administration cannot be reflexively supportive of the instructor because it needs to be fair to the student.  A union might be good for this role, as the advocate for the instructor.  However, this role of instructor advocacy is one that's difficult to sell to students, and I have not heard anyone make that argument on behalf of the union.

Two, race and gender discrimination is probably a real problem.  In an earlier post, I criticized one union member's speech that seemed to suggest blatant racial discrimination as the explanation for pay disparities between UIC and Urbana.  I personally believe that he was addressing what might be a real problem.  But in my view the problem is more systematic and structural, and not one of a small cabal of administrators seeking to pay people less.  I believe that racial and gender discrimination exist, but that they operate much more subtly than what that union member was describing.  And if I may say so, union representation might be one tool to combat it. 

Three, it is my belief that the system of tenure as it currently functions stifles creativity, denies opportunities to newer scholars, and makes it impossibly difficult to discipline the (admittedly very small number of) professors who irresponsibly shirk their teaching duties.  I also believe the tenure system should be radically revised or perhaps even abolished.  I would urge a gradual phasing out of the system, so that all who currently enjoy the protections of tenure would continue to through the rest of their career.  In such a situation, scholars would need protection to ensure their freedom of speech and their freedom to pursue their disciplines.  To ensure that protection, a union might very well be vital.

My position, which I don't seriously expect most others to support but which I do believe in, represents something of a paradox.  A union might be more necessary or justifiable if faculty lack the protections of tenure.  Yet recognizing the current union makes my "radical revision" less possible because it gives the union a strong institutional base.  And yet again, it would be hard enough to convince people to adopt any "radical revision" of tenure, and even harder if there is not already a union in place.

Four, I believe that faculty governance, especially at the department level, is implicated in the difficult situation facing non-tenure-track faculty today.  I suspect that part of the reason the university needs adjuncts is professors' obligation to devote so much time to research and publication.  And this obligation requires departments to rely on adjuncts and TA's, and in order for the reliance to make sense, those employees have to be paid a low wage.  Of course, this is also an opportunity for those same adjuncts and TA's to get teaching jobs and experience that they wouldn't otherwise have.

I do not think faculty governance is wholly at fault, and the requirement for research is not wholly a departmental project.  But I do think that governance has played a part in the UIC's repeated attempts to establish itself as a "Tier I" research institution.  It might succeed in that goal.

But being "Tier I" means, in my opinion, a turning away from the Chicago-area students whom the university allegedly is here to serve.  Re-focusing the university's priorities to, say, undergraduate and perhaps MA programs--instead of the many PHD programs--could if done rightly expand opportunities to the diverse student population UIC claims to serve.  I believe that at least for most of the liberal arts, the U of I system should consider having only one PHD program, and that program should probably be at Urbana.  (For full disclosure:  I received my PHD at UIC, and I realize that it is not entirely proper for me to deny others that which I've received from UIC.  If I had been a PHD student and my department had decided to phase out the PHD program, I would have been upset.)

I think this fourth point underscores one of my true rejections of the UICUF as it is presently constituted and as its demands are presently elucidated.  It would, in my view, ensconce some of the bad state of affairs without a corresponding benefit.

Five, the union as is presently constituted has an inherent conflict of interest.  The tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty may share some interests, but some of their interests are in conflict, with some tenure-track faculty having what amounts to a supervisory position over the non-tenured ones.  When I wrote my letter of February 8, I had believed that the union represented one bargaining unit, although I noted that it also appeared to recognize non-tenure-track faculty as a separate interest, with its own reps, for example.  But it is only with the UIC administration's "best and final offer" to the tenure track faculty that I have learned that two contract negotiations are taking place.  The union may have been upfront about this distinction from the beginning, but the distinction itself has not been obvious from my (admittedly casual, cursory, and selective) reading of their official website.

I do think I understand why the union has not emphasized this point.  It wants both kinds of faculty to work together on those areas where they share interests, with the hope the one could strengthen the other.  And I believe these goals were sincere.  But I also think more acknowledgment could have been given upfront about this distinction.  (And again, maybe it was.  My reading of the union's public announcements has been cursory at best.   And I frankly never raised the question to a union rep, who might have answered it quickly and honestly.)

"Nofacultyunion" responds

Recently, I emailed Nick Burbules and Joyce Tolliver of the "No Faculty Union in Illinois" blog.  Mr. Burbules responded to my post on where I differ from them.

He responded in two emails.  In my original post, I had failed to note that the authors distinguished between tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty.  Therefore, in one email, Mr. Burbules urged me to relate the following link to show their concerns about those not on the non-tenure track:  http://nofacultyunion.blogspot.com/2014/03/addressing-non-tenure-track-concerns.html

In another email, Mr. Burbules responded to the actual text of my post.  With his permission, I reprint his response in full, changing only the fonts to distinguish his responses from the text of my original criticisms:

One of the very few other voices I've found that dissent publicly from the unionization drive in the University of Illinois system is at the blog "No Faculty Union at Illinois."  That blog is written by two professors based at Urbana, and unlike me they blog under their own names and not a pseudonym.  I share with them a skepticism of some of the claims that are made on behalf of the union and I share with them an overall ambivalence about the union.  But I do see things very differently from the way they do.
First, the authors are based in Urbana and as far as I can tell, are tenured professors there.  Their perspective is that of people who are not contingent and who are most concerned with the way things work in Urbana.  That's not a bad thing.  But the concerns of tenured professors in my view are not always the same concerns of non-tenured or non-tenure track faculty.  And what is true of Urbana is not necessarily true of Chicago. 

We agree with you about both of these points. We resolved at the outset to limit our opinions to a possible tenure-track union on this campus. We refer to NTT issues, and the experience at UIC or other campuses, only in that context.

Still, they comment occasionally on UIC's unionization drive or on issues of concern shared throughout the U of I system, including, for example, the claim about the alleged one-billion dollar surplus.  For examples of their commentary on UIC, see here, here, here, and here.  For their commentary on the alleged surplus, see here.  The tone of the latter post concerns me.  They call discussion of the surplus a "hoax."  And they do in fact provide evidence that the surplus isn't all the union says it is.  Still, to call it a "hoax" is a bit too strong and worse, serves in my opinion to foreclose reasoned discussion.  And as I said in my last post, it's not unheard of to ask the university to reconsider its spending priorities.

We are planning a follow-up posting on this topic to provide additional information in support of our views. As we tried to make clear in the post, the “hoax” isn’t that there may be reserve funds in the overall university budget — clearly there are. The hoax is the idea that these are readily accessible funds that can simply be redirected to faculty salaries or other purposes. We use the term intentionally because the oft-repeated slogan “billion dollar surplus” is misleading and overly simplistic. It suggests that no hard budget choices need to be made because there is plenty of money in the system. We find that false, and in fact fiscally irresponsible.

Second, they appear to be skeptical about the union for different reasons from mine.  They seem to be very confident that faculty governance, what they call "shared governance," is a good thing and that unionization will weaken this good thing by making it more adversarial.  I, however, suspect that faculty governance as it exists now contributes to many of the problems we are experiencing and that unionization might strengthen its worst aspects.

Our shared governance situation is very different from yours at UIC. I won't comment on your senate or your senate leaders, but going back to the very origins of the union campaign at UIC a primary target was the senate and (according to organizers) its failure to protect faculty interests. I saw specific pre-union web sites at UIC attacking the senate (wish I could still find them, they seem to have been pulled down). 

Our senate at Urbana is strong and effective, and our shared governance system has been called one of the strongest in the country. It has a very clear record of working with the administration to promote faculty interests and concerns (both TT and NTT, by the way), and our view is that most if not all of the concerns raised by union advocates on this campus have been, or could be addressed successfully within the existing governance system. 

I am sad and sorry if this is not the case at UIC.

Take their view on what they call call "shared governance."  See, for example, their answer to "myth 6" in their takedown of "Myths about Faculty Unions."  They state that while the faculty senate and its leadership "do not engage in collective bargaining, we have frequent discussions in committee meetings and other venues with campus and university officers, advocating for tenure track and non-tenure track faculty."  They also fear that unionization will interject an unnecessarily adversarial element to faculty governance.  See here:  

There are differing views here about which comes first: Does an adversarial state already exist between faculty and administration, thus justifying the response of unionization – or does a decision to unionize create adversarial relations? It is unlikely that this chicken-and-egg debate can ever be settled, but our stance is clearly the latter, 

The authors do not, to my knowledge, discuss governance at the departmental level.  (I have, however, not read every one of their posts.)  And I don't know the contours of the "shared governance" they talk about.  In fact, I don't even know if UIUC and UIC have the same senate or if each campus has its own senate.

Third and finally, the authors seem to discount the very real degree to which many faculty, primarily the contingent ones, are in fact "workers" who are proper candidates for unionization.  They seem to insist on an idealized version of worker when they say, for example,

...it is precisely BECAUSE we are progressive academics from the working class that we oppose unionization for UIUC tenure-track faculty members. We know through experience what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck, to not know whether the doctor’s bills will be covered, and to come home bone-tired from a day of physical labor. We have worked in jobs where talking back to the boss meant getting fired, where the time we spent in bathroom breaks was carefully monitored, where there was serious risk of physical injury, where we were grateful for those days when there was time to chat with co-workers. We know what it is like to work in a job where workers really do need a union to fight for fair wages, to make sure overtime work is paid, and to promote safe working conditions. 
It is because we have had those experiences that we understand and appreciate the contributions made by labor unions in the history of this country. As minimum-wage workers, we benefited directly from many of those advances. And because we have had those experiences, we know that tenure-track professors are very far indeed from being exploited workers who need a collective bargaining unit to provide “voice” for them. The simple fact is that the life of a tenured faculty member, especially at an elite university like this one, is one of the most privileged jobs imaginable: extremely flexible hours, little to no supervision, an almost entirely self-directed work load, and a nine-month salary that, even at the lower ends, is well above the national average.

To be fair, in the same post they acknowledge things might be different for non-tenured-track faculty.  And in another post, they discuss the situation of such contingent faculty.  That discussion focuses much more on the Urbana campus and does not seem to address the situation at UIC.  This is all understandable, both because the authors are based in Urbana and because their primary concern seems to be unionization among tenure-track faculty and not contingent faculty.

The situation of NTTs is different in significant ways from that of TT faculty, and in my view requires different solutions. Unionization is too simple as a “one size fits all” solution to all faculty problems.

Furthermore, both Joyce and I have said in public and in writing, aside from this blog, that we fully support more rights, decent pay, and better protections for NTT faculty — and we both have worked hard to achieve that. 

But their view here leaves unanswered the questions of whether contingent faculty ought to be unionized and whether they might in some ways be subject to something approaching the living "from paycheck to paycheck," to not knowing "whether the doctor’s bills will be covered," and to coming "home bone-tired from a day of" if not physical labor, then mental labor.  (And let's not discount the latter.  Physical labor is probably indisputably more exhausting than mental labor.  But anyone who has worked, for example, at an inbound call-center, or at a bank, or as a "data entry specialist" might very well attest to exhaustion after hours of handling numbers and other minutiae.)

It is probably also true that there is little risk of physical injury at these job (unless, I suppose, it is a lab situation, or in a few other rare cases), and bathroom breaks and chat-time with co-workers are not monitored.  But I suspect that the contingent faculty has to show a certain kind of respect to his or her superiors in the department.  After all their contract may be up for renewal.

My main objection to their argument, then, is that they appear to insist on some idealized view of "worker."  That view neglects the situations that approximate being a worker who can benefit from a union.

That post specifically limits the frame to TT faculty:

 . . .because we have had those experiences, we know that tenure-track professors are very far indeed from being exploited workers who need a collective bargaining unit to provide “voice” for them. The simple fact is that the life of a tenured faculty member, especially at an elite university like this one, is one of the most privileged jobs imaginable: extremely flexible hours, little to no supervision, an almost entirely self-directed work load, and a nine-month salary that, even at the lower ends, is well above the national average. 

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t serious problems and inequities to work on, especially for our non-tenure-track colleagues. . . .

Why, then, do I, like these authors, have reservations about the union?  As I tried to argue in my letter of February 8, I believe that the current unionization drive involves an inherent conflict of interest and that the contingent faculty's interests are not fully represented therein.  If this were a union of only the contingent faculty, I would still have some reservations but the "inherent conflict of interest" concern would not be one of them.

There is room for discussion here.  And although I object to the tone and substance of some of what the authors at "No Faculty Union at Illinois" write, their ideas are worth engaging, if only because they may very well represent a view of others whose support the union needs.

We are not fully informed about the union process up at UIC, but my understanding is that the same committee is handling negotiations for both the TT and NTT contract, and that it is dominated by TT faculty. That seems contradictory for a movement that is ostensibly about giving power and voice to NTT faculty.

Personally, I agree with you that a union movement organized and owned by NTT faculty would look very different.

Finally, I respect that as a contingent faculty member, you need to keep your identity private. But perhaps you can answer a question for me — where are the other voices at UIC questioning the union drive and strategies? It can’t be unanimously supported, especially as the contract negotiations drag on and another strike looms.

Is your site the only place for contrary voices? Are there others? (TT or NTT)?

Nick

Fair share and Scottwalkerism: a partial retraction

In an earlier post, I discussed the part of the administration's "last best offer" to tenure-track faculty that would require the union to verify monthly that it has more than 50% of the membership in order to continue automatic fair-share checkoffs from all members of the bargaining unit.  I was too dismissive about how onerous such a requirement would be on the union.  Depending on how such a fair-share provision is structured, I imagine complying with that provision would indeed be onerous for the union.  I also read over-literally the union's website, which had stated that that no union "in Illinois" had such a contract provision.  I think from the context of the union's statement, the website's authors clearly meant no public union "in the Illinois."

Do I therefore go back on my statement that by itself, the university's fair-share offer is "not worth striking over"?

That depends.  If it is relatively easy for the union to comply, then I stand by my statement.  For example, if the union merely has to attest that as of x date in each month, it had y number of new members and z numbers of people who have left the union, then I don't find that a particularly onerous requirement.  If it is relatively hard, then the union has to almost be expected to strike over it.  For example, if the union has to draw up official lists of its bargaining unit, perhaps contesting with the university every month who is and who is not to be included in that lest, or if the union has to re-sign everyone every month, then that is way too much for the union to be expected to bear.

Still, onerous or not, it is quite apparent to me that the reason UIC made that fair share offer was to goad the union into striking.  It's hard to see what good would come of monthly re-verification other than to weaken the union.

This is all well and good if, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, one's ultimate resolve is to destroy the union.  This particular fair share proposal, represents a zero-sum mentality, an assumption that the union is sheerly bad and without any saving graces whatsoever and supported only in bad faith and must be opposed or hampered at every turn.

And yes, I disagree with the union, and fear that it does indeed have some of the structural flaws I mention in my letter of February 8 and that some of its demands threaten to ensconce bad practices or increase costs to the university. I also have reservations about the certification process and distrust the card-check system that led to recognition.  I believe the bargaining unit is too big and has too many conflicts of interest, and I believe that the union has been less than upfront about the fact that it is negotiating not one contract, but two (a tenure-track contract and a non-tenure-track contract).

But even I have to say that the union has jumped through all its hoops and signed its cards and negotiated in mostly good faith.  I may not like the card-check rules for recognition, but that is the procedure that was in place.  I may not like the contours of the bargaining unit, but that has been litigated in court.  I may not support the union, but the process and deserves better than a proposal designed with no other purpose than to force a showdown.

"Retaliation and Anti-union": an exploration of loaded words

In the public statements regarding the contract negotiations, those who are staking out positions use loaded words that ratchet up the tension without doing much of anything else.  Here are two examples.

Retaliation.  I might as well start with me.  In my letter of February 8, I raised the specter of retaliation, and I suggested retaliation was a real possibility from both the administration and the union.  But my concern was and remains on what union-friendly supervisors will do to those who are not on board with the union, especially to those non-tenure track or tenure-track, but not tenured faculty.

However, "retaliation" is a bit too ominous and perhaps I shouldn't have used it.  I strongly suspect that if retaliation happens at all, it will come under the radar and perhaps not represent a fully conscious decision.  I understand that those who decide to recommend the renewal of a contingent contract, or who vote on tenure, take into consideration a lot of things.  One of those is what in the private sector is often called "being a team player."  I suspect that being a vocal opponent of the union can in some cases count against team playerism.

It might turn out otherwise if one works in an less union friendly environment than I'm used to.  And I'll repeat here what I said in my letter.  The supervisors in my own department seem to fully support the union, but they also seem to be as fair-minded as possible in their treatment or evaluation of those who hold different views about the union.

Anti-union.  In the union's most recent statement, the union calls the "Scott Walker 'fair share' proposal" is "anti-union, plain and simple."  That "anti-union" phrasing is unhelpful.

Not that there's not some merit in the claim.  In most scenarios, the proposal, which I discuss here, would make things difficult for the union.  Fair share provisions or maintenance of membership clauses or union shop requirements are important tools for a union's continued solvency.  In my view, it's no surprise that so-called "right-to-work" states, which outlaw such clauses, tend to have lower rates of unionization.

However, I find the "anti-union" charge to usually be a too-sweeping statement.  I rarely encounter anyone who admits to being "anti-union."  Most people, in my experience, claim to support unions in some circumstances, or as an incident of freedom of assembly.  Or they might support unions for their work-related activism--such as winning contracts--and oppose any given union for its political positions.  In my view, people who oppose fair-share provisions in principle are mistaken and in practice are opposing an instrument that in most cases is essential to a union's survival.  But they don't necessary oppose any and all unions.  And the administration's "Scott Walker" proposal doesn't go quite that far anyway.

Why is this important?  I would be dense indeed not to recognize that supporting "unionism" while opposing one of unionism's most important tools might function as a way to forestall unionism altogether.  But people need to choose their words carefully.  Calling the administration's proposal "anti-union" draws certain lines and prepares us to accept a potential showdown later in the semester.  If this proposal is anti-union, then the administration cannot be spoken with.  If the proposal is a bad one, then there is still a possibility of resolution.  No doubt, the long months of fruitless "negotiations" during which, I'm told, the administration has almost always and until recently refused to act in good faith, raises questions about whether it can be spoken with at all.    And the administration's offer is supposedly its "last best offer," at least for tenure-track faculty.  So maybe the Rubicon has been crossed already.

Still, I can't help feeling that the union's supporters are drawing a narrative to make a strike inevitable.  Does the administration's "anti-unionism" extend to anyone who questions or dissents from the union?  That's partially a rhetorical question because my bias is to think that it does.  As discussion goes on over the next few weeks--and I stand by my original promise not to relate anything said at a union meeting or in communications directed to union members only--I urge the union and its supporters to remember that not all questioning is debate-ending anti-unionism and that even if the union decides differently from what I wish, it respects the sincerely held views of those who see it differently.