PAnorama: November 2001

• From the President's Desk by Ellis Gage Searles
• PA sends donation to 9-11 fund by Ellis Gage Searles
• New Members Feature: Caroline Lewis and Julie Lewis by Cynthia Villanti
• Grievance Report by Dennis Rahn
• Summary of membership survey responses
• It just keeps getting better by Moe Rale
• Community Outreach Committe holiday charity fundraising event by Luther Riedel
• Attention: NYS Teachers Retirement System Tier 1 members
• A Cingular cell phone source: Label Letter Sept/Oct 2001

Here are some numbers for your consideration:

220
970
73
12
8
5
1

These, obviously, aren't budget figures, enrollment statistics, salary adjustments, or class sizes. But they are numbers that can tell you something about your union and, in a way, about how we have an impact on those other numbers that affect our professional lives.

220 members make up the MVCC Professional Association. We spend many days and evenings on campus, but when we go home we are members of our local communities all across Central New York. We meet our neighbors, among whom are more than 8,000 NYSUT colleagues and thousands more fellow unionists from dozens of AFL-CIO locals. We belong to a wide variety of organizations and clubs. We volunteer in innumerable ways. And we vote. If we start to do the calculations, it's easy to see how broadly our voices can be heard. In these days of reduced funding and budget shortfalls, it's more important than ever that we let our neighbors and elected officials know that our institution-and, of course, the people who make it what it is-needs their support. And reaching out seems to come naturally to PA members.

970 is a number that underscores this point. Last week, we sent that many dollars to our New York City colleagues who were displaced by the September 11 tragedy. On a state-wide level, NYSUT is collecting and distributing those funds directly to the teachers and students who need them. I'm very proud that we were part of it. Special thanks to those who added their own contributions to the Association's donation.

73 represents another kind of giving that can be found among Professional Association members. This is the number who give generously of their time and energy to keep the PA strong. They are the committee members, committee chairs, area reps, and officers of this organization. Busy as they are with their professional and personal lives, they've made their union a priority. Performing the work of the Association in countless ways, they demonstrate their commitment to our common good every day, week, and month throughout the year. You may notice these folks sporting new MVCC PA lapel pins these days, our small gesture of thanks and recognition for their active involvement. Morale is good in the PA!

12 members spent a very productive October weekend at the NYSUT Regional Leadership Conference in Alexandria Bay. As we have for the last few years, we used this time to do long-range planning for the Association. Two important developments occupied our attention at this year's workshop: negotiations and grant funding.

Armed with the results of our membership survey, the new Negotiations Committee and the Executive Board discussed our priorities for the upcoming contract negotiations. The team then spent more time developing plans for completing the package that will be exchanged with the Administration as a first step toward our new collective bargaining agreement.

Another outcome of the Alex Bay weekend was the final draft of an application for a Local Action Project, which is a grant that NYSUT makes available to its affiliates. The purpose of these grants is to enable union locals to fund activities that will make them more effective in achieving their goals. If our proposal is approved, we'll receive grant money from NYSUT over the next three years that will allow us to continue to build on our growing identity as a local both within our membership and in the larger community around us. Our 13-page proposal will go out to NYSUT next month.

8 of us--Deb Cornish, Carolyn D'Argenio, Carm Lomeo, Gene Militello, Dennis Rahn, Anne Stepanick, Cynthia Villanti, and I--traveled to Cooperstown on October 19th to attend the Community College Conference sponsored by NYSUT. There, we attended workshops on conflict management, negotiations, and legal issues affecting community colleges. Moreover, we had the opportunity to network and share experiences with our colleagues around the state. As in the past, this year's conference was very worthwhile.

5 more events in the larger community involved representatives from the PA during the last month. I participated, as usual, in the NYSUT's Local Presidents Council and, with Bill Perrotti, attended the monthly meeting of the AFL-CIO Central New York Labor Council. Mid-month, the Oneida County Republican Party held its gala at Twin Ponds. NYSUT obtained two tickets for our use, so Gene Militello and Cynthia Villanti were able to attend on our behalf, the latest of our ongoing efforts at increased political action.

Millennium Project involved some of us as well. On November 5th, I attended the bi-monthly meeting of the Millennium Project Planning Board. Members of the Planning Board include President Schafer, Utica Superintendent Dan Lowengard, Legislator Bob Kelly, and members of the Boards of both the Utica School District and MVCC. Discussion at the meeting revolved around funding for the Project and the development of a timeline. As some of you may be aware, the presidents of the unions whose members will be affected by Millennium Project--the PA, AMVA, Utica Teachers, and BOCES--make up an Implementation Committee. Meetings of this committee are being planned. Millennium Project promises to offer a great deal to the community. To ensure the success of such an important project, the participation of the faculty and professional staff in both planning and implementation will be vital at every stage of its development.

The groundbreaking for the new Proctor High School stadium took place Tuesday, attracting a number of distinguished guests, including local legislators and many from both the MVCC and Proctor communities. The PA was invited, as well, and Arthur Friedberg assisted with the groundbreaking on our behalf.

1 That's you. Me. Our union. The number that represents us as a group. Through the unified voice, strong organization, and collective action that these other numbers so clearly demonstrate, we can have a positive effect on our own future and the future of our institution.

You can count on it.

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Last week, the PA sent a check for $970. to NYSUT's 9-11 Disaster Relief Fund.

I know that the many teachers and public employee union members and their families who have been struggling to recover from the World Trade Center disaster and its aftermath will appreciate this support. Our dollars will be added to the many thousands that NYSUT and AFT and union locals throughout the country are sending directly to those who need it.

Thanks very much for being a part of this important fund drive.

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This month, PAnorama features two new members of the Humanities Department: Caroline Lewis and Julie Lewis, aka "Las Dos Lewii" (that's SpaniLatin). If you've met these two PA members, you might suppose from the heavy dose of drama that they are related, but they're not. It's something about being a poet and a playwright....

Caroline Lewis

Caroline Lewis is the poet. She teaches Developmental Writing, Ideas & Values in Literature, Composition, and Creative Writing in the Humanities Department.

This semester, she is teaching her first MVCC Online course. Caroline earned her BA in English from the University of North Carolina/Wilmington and her MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts/ Amherst.

Last spring, her poem "Aubergine" which was published in the Indiana Review and is shared here:

In the grocery store, my self
slipped underneath the shopping cart
and lay flat as linoleum.

Get up, I demanded,
but she kept repeating words: marjoram,
aubergine, embryo, veve,
a sack of potatoes.

Such a child, I mumbled, no popsicles today.

My hands returned items to wrong shelves:
a carton of eggs behind the coffee cans,
ginger root in the candy by pound,
a plum in the freezer of packaged vegetables.

I found her in the eyes of a mackerel on ice.
Come back, I said, we
must check out.

A woman had a number before me,
and I watched a man in white cut off my head
before I could say, Stop,
she belongs to me.

Editor's Note: Not sure what this poem is about? Caroline says that you can feel free to ask her: clewis@mvcc.edu.

Julie Lewis

Julie Lewis is the playwright. She teaches Composition, Effective Speech, and Dramatic Literature in the Humanities Department.

Julie's play, Henry's Holiday, was chosen for the 1997 Perishable Theatres Women's Playwrighting Festival and was subsequently published by Rain City Projects. While living in New York, she directed and co-produced two showcases (American Fugue and On the Road), for Brooklyn College's Graduate Playwrighting Program and was a resident playwright at the Waterfront Ensemble.

Recently, her play Man Out was featured in the Samuel French Short Play Festival and her piece Open Slot was featured in the Manhattan Theatre Source's Estrogenius Festival 2000 and the 2001 AmeriCulture Festival. She produced her play Plastic Haircut last semester at the Community House Café through the MVCC Drama Club. As PAnorama goes to press, Julie is preparing her latest play, 300 Out of Hades, for performance on November 15-17.

Julie received her BA in English Writing Arts from SUNY Oswego and her MFA in Playwrighting from Brooklyn College. She joined the PA because, she says, "I have always been pro-union and like to fight against "The Man." Julie is an active member of the Political Action Committee.

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I attended the NYSUT Community College Conference and attended two sessions that pertain to grievance work.

At the first, John Crotty made several interesting points on PERB, the Public Employees Relations Board. He first explained the Public Employees Fair Employment Act, commonly called the Taylor Law, that governs the relationship between employees and public employers in New York State. The law basically has two sections. One establishes a system of mediation and fact finding when public employee unions and employers are at impasse during negotiations. The other section establishes a system of administrative law judges that hear complaints and render decisions on improper practices of employers.

The Public Employees Relations Board is an appeal body on decisions made by the administrative judges. PERB has recently been siding with employers' positions and has whittled away many of the protections unions thought they had. One important example is in the area of insubordination. PERB seems to be heading toward the old "shop rules" formula: If you are given an order, do it, then file a grievance. Otherwise you are considered insubordinate. This applies to all, but most importantly to union officials when performing union functions, which in the past were protected activities.

The second session focused on national issues that impact us locally, such as copyright laws, protections on being sued as a result of our work, etc.

Now for our grievance update.

• The College offered to settle the long-standing denial of two promotions grievance. In essence the College agreed to the basic redress demanded in the second grievance: a direct rebuttal to the Board of Trustees. This settlement does not establish a precedent. It is specific to the nature and developments in this particular case only. The unit member has submitted the rebuttal and we are awaiting action by the Board.
• The College has offered a tentative settlement on the coordinator agreement grievance. It came to the attention of the Association that the College was changing terms and conditions of coordinator agreements. Those changes might have been in load or stipend. The net effect was that faculty did not have accurate loads given to them in the spring for the following fall term. The redress sought that accurate loads be given faculty in spring for fall (or in fall for spring, as some agreements are only for a semester). This will ensure that faculty will have the opportunity to seek overload, knowing their accurate schedules, and load. The settlement should be signed shortly.
• The Association continues to apply pressure to get the College to reassign a member to a different retirement tier.
• The Association is looking into how departments are evaluating on-line courses.

Finally, our contract tip of the month:

• Non-teaching professionals who "cover" a class for a teaching faculty member are entitled to an hour of overload IF they extend their work day by an hour to fulfill their obligation OR, if they don't extend their workday, are entitled to the difference between their hourly rate and the overload rate.

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In October, the PA conducted a survey of the membership using our new and improved website (www.mvccpa.org) to collect data. Our thanks go to Rich Henry, who designed the survey form so that members could complete the survey online. Feedback from the membership indicates that people greatly appreciate the convenience afforded by the on-line survey as well as the handy links to the individual contract articles.

According to the PA Constitution, the results of the membership survey are to be made public. The following issues were reviewed by the Executive Board and given to the Negotiations Committee to inform their deliberations.

Editor's Note: The order of these items does not necessarily indicate degree of importance.

• teaching load; number of course preparations per semester
• compensation: increases for both faculty and staff; increases for teaching, for overloads, for advisement
• employee benefits: health, dental and vision; retirement benefits; tuition waivers; sexual orientation non-discrimination in healthcare
• dates of professional obligation
• evaluation: procedures, frequency, and scope for self-evaluations and for administrative evaluation
• job safety
• job descriptions/job titles; level/rank definitions, terms, periods/time
• class hour/practicum equity
• dual-credit courses (e.g., Millennium Project)
• web-based courses: administrative access/observation; technical support; voluntary participation; equity with on-campus courses; evaluation by adminis-trators; student evaluations; compensation: development stipend, teaching stipend, payment for ISP provider
• procedures for student evaluations
• promotion procedures
• terms for department heads; evaluation of administrators
• coordinator agreements
• seniority; committee work
• personal time (personal days); accrual of sick time
• procedures for overload postings
• Utica/Rome mileage rates
• issues regarding multiple courses taught by same instructor in same room
• car registration/parking fees
• organization and representation of part-time faculty
• expiration of contract
• evening administration

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Some things never change. I went to the "Welcome Back" breakfast in August and heard about the dire economic times the College is in. When was the last time I heard that? Last year I think. Oh, no, it was the year before that. Nope, it was three years ago. I've lost track of whose fault it is. One year it was enrollment, another it was the state, then the county. I'm not sure I know who the enemy is. (Yes I do. Some things never change.)

Maybe things really are bad this time. I have observed fewer faces in many offices and that a few faculty positions are not being filled. My department head told us that travel and office supplies are being cut. Oh darn! You mean the College won't fully fund me for that conference I want to attend? That saves me filling out all kinds of paper justifications and having to grub for the money.

It just keeps getting better and better. Just before the start of the term, one of the coordinators in my department got a letter praising his work but telling him that he'd be getting paid less for the same work this year. He is respected and very professional. He talked about helping students, wanting to do good things for the department, and sticking to his word. I wanted to tell him where I'd stick that coordinator agreement, but I'm a sensitive and caring person so I just shrugged and walked away. I didn't want to put a damper on his morale.

I am quite impressed with New Building. It is really a nice place to teach in. I can't say that I knew New. I am not sure who New was (or is) but rest assured that Mister or Missus New must have done great things for the College. There was talk about naming New Building after others who had done great things, given great service or money to the College. "Alumni" is already taken. "Trustee Center"--that is moving in the right direction: volunteers, no pay…. Say, I know: the "Performing Arts & Information Technology Building" (PAsIT in banner code). Once something gets a name, it tends to hang on for a long time. New Building will probably be called New Building even when it is old.

Somebody must not have figured out the total cost of New Building. I understand that the College is selling seats in the theater. The great piece is they want us to buy one. We were invited to a gala where we were whined (oops, maybe it is wined) and dined. I think I'll buy a seat as long as I can do it through a payroll deduction plan. I think that $10 at the start of each semester will be just the right deduction. Ten dollars a term to park my seat in my seat might not be a bad deal. Where else could you park yourself for ten bucks a semester? Pretty good deal, huh? Yup, that's going to be my contribution for a long time in this take-take-take-you give-you give-you give institution of ours.

Last month we voted and elected a new Negotiations Team. In some small way, voting reaffirmed what it means to live in America. We believe in equality and in sticking together in tough times. We believe in progress and that through our hard work things will get better. I am proud of all our Association leaders who give up their time and energy to make this College a better place. As the Negotiation Team gets busy and when tough times come, I for one am going to do anything they ask me to do. Somehow, someway, I know that I will feel empowered when I join them in an effort to make MVCC a fair and just workplace.

I can't imagine what condition my morale would be in if it weren't for them.

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PA Community Outreach Committee
& Utica Curling Club present

Annual PA Holiday Charity

Fundraising Event

CURLING!

Saturday, December 1st, 5 pm
@ Utica Curling Club
8300 Clark Mills Rd.
Whitesboro, NY
736.1724

receive an orientation to the sport of curling
at one of the nation's oldest curling facilities
plus enjoy a friendly game (think bowling on ice!)

~ or ~

just sit and relax in the lounge, enjoy good food
& drink, and watch your colleagues
slip and slide the night away

each participant must raise $20 in
sponsor donations

all proceeds to benefit
St. Francis Outreach Center

RSVP and questions to Luther Riedel
or Cynthia Villanti by November 29th

~ details on the event forthcoming
via campus email ~

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New York State Teachers Retirement System Tier 1 members who began contributing after June 17, 1971, may be affected by a division in the law governing the calculation of final average salaries.

According to this provision, any retirement incentive monies received by these retirees may not be included in the calculation of FAS, whereas Tier 1 retirees who began contributing before that date may use those incentives when they calculate their averages.

This obvious inequity has been in place for some time, but proposals to amend the statute so far have been unsuccessful. You can express your support for creating a more equitable system for Tier 1 retirees by contacting your legislators through the NYSUT website at www.nysut.org.

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A new three-year agreement between the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and BellSouth includes a neutrality agreement and provisions for card-check recognition for some 8,000 cellular phone workers in nine states employed by Cingular, a joint venture of BellSouth and SBC.

CWA had already achieved recognition for another 11,000 Cingular workers in states covered by the SBC agreement. CWA President Morton Bahr asserts that "Cingular Wireless...should be considered a wall-to-wall union company and thus a preferred provider for all unions and union members."

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