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(Every trade unionist in NY should rally to the defense of these
professors, especially those who are also college professors represented
by the PSC or any other union. As the IWW put it, an injury to one is an
injury to all. The Deborah Mutnick mentioned in the article was a member
of the CISPES chapter in NY back in the early 80s with me. She is still
fighting the good fight.)
NY Times, Sept. 7 2016
L.I.U.-Brooklyn Locks Out Professors Amid Contract Dispute
By LIZ ROBBINS
Classes will start on Wednesday at Long Island University-Brooklyn
without key participants: The professors.
After failing to reach an agreement on a new faculty union contract,
which expired on Aug. 31, the university’s administration then locked
faculty members out of their offices and their email accounts and
canceled their health insurance over the Labor Day weekend.
Those who teach at the Downtown Brooklyn campus, which serves many
black, Hispanic and immigrant students, said the lockout was an
unprecedented move intended to weaken the union, the Long Island
University Faculty Federation, which is part of the American Federation
of Teachers.
“That’s never happened before in the history of L.I.U. to my knowledge,
or in the history of higher education,” said Jessica Rosenberg, a
professor of social work and the president of the faculty federation,
which represents about 230 full-time faculty members and several hundred
adjunct professors.
On Tuesday, administrators for L.I.U. Brooklyn said that the lockout was
a pre-emptive move, given the faculty’s history in negotiations. “The
last five out of six contracts, the faculty has gone on strike, and they
have created chaos and virtually shut down the institution at the start
of classes,” said Gale Stevens Haynes, a vice president and university
counsel. The faculty went on strike in 2011 for five days.
She said that in May, the union had seemed to signal its intentions by
authorizing a strike at the end of bargaining.
But the union’s lawyer, Louie Nikolaidis, said that was a pro forma
action, “something to have in our back pocket.”
“We were intending on showing up for work,” said Emily Drabinski, an
associate professor and one of 12 librarians at the university. “You
don’t prevent a strike by locking out your employees.”
On Tuesday afternoon, the union membership rejected the administration’s
latest offer by a vote of 226 to 10. “The faculty has spoken,” Professor
Rosenberg said.
In that offer, according to the union, the administration asked for a
reduction in salaries for new adjuncts. It also eliminated a clause in
place since 2000 that promised parity in pay for Brooklyn faculty
members and those at the largest campus within the university’s system,
C. W. Post in Brookville, N.Y.
The union added that nearly half of the full-time faculty on the
Brooklyn campus make less money, some as much as 20 percent less, than
those at C. W. Post. That results in salaries’ being about $10,000
lower, Mr. Nikolaidis said.
“We’re the minority campus,” Syed Ali, a sociology professor, said.
“People get the feeling that they don’t care about the Brooklyn campus.”
Christopher Fevola, the university’s chief financial officer, said the
most recent offer addressed this issue, including increases in salary as
high as 22 percent over five years. The administration said the
disparity in wages between the campuses was because of previous union
decisions.
After the union vote, the L.I.U.-Brooklyn faculty senate voted 135 to 10
for no confidence in the L.I.U. president, Kimberly R. Cline, and its
vice president for academic affairs, Jeffrey Kane.
Deborah Mutnick, a professor of English for 30 years at L.I.U.-Brooklyn,
sits on the executive committee for both the union and senate. “They
precipitated a crisis,” she said of the administration’s lockout.
“There’s no going back.”
The university has been preparing to staff its classes with replacement
teachers, advertising on job websites and through its alumni network.
Ms. Haynes said that about 140 replacement teachers had been hired, and
that they all had the proper accreditation and licensing.
At one point, Ms. Haynes was scheduled to teach a yoga class. The dean
of students for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, David Cohen, a
botanist, was going to teach ballet.
Ms. Haynes acknowledged that those were errors, and have since been
corrected. She added that both positions have gone to “qualified”
instructors. In response to concerns about the faculty’s medical care,
Ms. Haynes said that Cobra benefits would be provided to cover health
insurance for the union members.
Steve Brier, a professor of urban education at the Graduate Center of
the City University of New York, said that according to his research,
the lockout had no precedent.
“This is an ominous step,” Professor Brier said.
“And it really fundamentally challenges the concept of collective
bargaining,” he added. “If L.I.U. succeeds in breaking this union and
succeeds in bringing in scabs — there is a giant pool of underemployed
Ph.D.s out there — this could have a serious impact, not only on the
university faculty, but it could spill out into public institutions.”
L.I.U. first sent a letter to students last week to say that it looked
forward “to welcoming the faculty back to campus” as soon as this
“situation” was resolved, and referred them to a website for updates.
“Every dollar spent of faculty salaries and benefits is a dollar not
spent on student scholarships, new labs and facilities or school
safety,” Mr. Kane wrote.
That outraged at least one student.
“The administrators are using students as scapegoats to place a guilt on
the faculty in order for them to accept whatever was offered,” Halim
Nurdin, 24, a student at the university, said in an email.
The next bargaining session is planned for Thursday. Ms. Haynes said
that was because the union had a protest planned for Wednesday, but Mr.
Nikolaidis, the union’s lawyer, said the union wanted to bargain sooner.
“They told us, ‘We can’t do it because we’re scheduled to teach classes
on Wednesday,’” Mr. Nikolaidis said, referring to administrators on the
bargaining committee.
“The first thing they need to do is terminate the lockout,” he added.
“While there is a lockout, it’s difficult to see a path of negotiating
in good faith.”
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