From Suriender Kumar: Unionization at UCHC [a response to an email inquiry from Bill Mohler]

Dear Dr. Mohler:  Dr. Langer forwarded your e-mail to me and to some other AAUP faculty. UMDNJ-AAUP came into being ~36 years ago. I have been with AAUP since that time and I was president of AAUP for the past one year. Initially, the impetus for this organizing effort was discrepancy in salaries being paid to newly hired faculty and merit increments being paid to pre-existing faculty. The salaries and merit increments were paid at the whim of the chair. After the faculty unionized, the administration had to be transparent and a salary structure was established and we managed to have 3 yr or 5 yr contract depending on the negotiations at that time. This system has worked well and has offered protection to the faculty. Here are some pros and cons:

 

Pros

 

1. When faculty needs support because of the unfair actions of the administration, they have a place to go and talk to an executive director. Our director happens to be a lawyer also.
2. The contract does not take the right of the chair to reward outstanding faculty. The deserving faculty can be given higher merit increments and out of cycle increments.
3. The clinical faculty has their base salary plus clinical supplements given at the discretion of the chair or administration.
4. The clinical faculty can not be rehired at a lower salary after their term contracts expire. If they are rehired, then it is counted as continuation of service rather than a break in service.
5. All procedures and guidelines such as dismissal for cause are under scrutiny by the AAUP, so the administration knows that they can't just fire somebody without going through proper investigation.
6. Under ideal conditions, having AAUP on campus keeps the lines of communication between faculty and administration open.
7. If a faculty member is dissatisfied by his/her annual evaluation by the chair, there is a mechanism for challenging such evaluation in front of a committee of the peers.
8. If there are faculty members who don't perform according to expectations, fault may fall on the chair. If in spite of all efforts of the chair, the faculty does not perform, there is a mechanism to remove them.

 

I am sure there are other Pros and I have asked our executive director, Alex Bernstein, to reach out to you when he comes back on Wednesday.

 

Cons:

 

1. The only Con that I can think of is that administration perceives AAUP as only a union who should be treated as any other union. However, we have been able to establish good rapport with faculty organizations of various schools (we have two medical schools, an osteopathic school, a dental school and a school of nursing) and this has given us academic support.

 

In general, the advantages of having AAUP on campus outweigh certain reluctance on the part of academia that dislikes being called union members. This is especially true of clinical faculty who until a few years ago expressed minimal interest in AAUP but who now are the major beneficiaries of such representation. I will request Alex to call you when he gets back but you could also get in touch with him at: 973-972-5875.

 

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to call me.

 

Suriender Kumar, Ph.D.

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Ph: 973-972-4750

Fax: 973-972-5594

e-mail: kumarsu@umdnj.edu