Dear Colleagues:
As you may or may not know, there is a rule prohibiting mass communication regarding unionization after 5pm today in order to allow a silent period before the vote. (That sound you hear is a collective sigh of relief from our email In-boxes). Several faculty members have joined together in the last 24 hours to compose the attached anti-union message. Hand signatures could not be obtained due to time constraints but each name on the document has given support to the anti-union message. I suspect that many more names could have been obtained had more time been allowed. I hope you will all consider joining us to vote NO next week.
Respectfully,
Jason Ryan
Jason Ryan, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Cardiology Division
University of Connecticut Health Center
jaryan@uchc.edu
November 13th, 2009
Dear Colleagues:
There has been a great deal of email rhetoric on establishing a University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC) faculty union. It seems that most of the commentary has favored unionization of the UCHC faculty. However, there are many among us, particularly in the clinical faculty, who feel otherwise.
It is our belief that a faculty union would bring many more negatives than positives to the Health Center. Our missions as physicians, dentists, educators, and researchers are complex and a faculty union would add a layer of bureaucracy to our professional lives and detract from what we do for our clinical, educational, and research missions. Most of us believe that a union would make it more difficult to recruit and retain talented clinical and research faculty. As many are aware, clinical faculty candidates have good options elsewhere and may choose not to come here because our institution has a union while others do not.
We do not believe that a union will offer the security and protection it proposes it can, especially in the case of clinicians. If the Health Center is not productive enough and unable to generate adequate funds, a union cannot support a raise (or it can only do so at the expense of a layoff of faculty). Many faculty members should be able to negotiate salary raises based on productivity – this would not be feasible with collective bargaining. A union will not enhance our academic productivity nor will it make us more competitive in attracting extramural grant funding. There is no reason why a union would help to attract more patients to our highly competitive clinical care system.
We believe the union is attempting to provide a false sense of security. Furthermore, we have much concern regarding the manner in which the AAUP campaign has been conducted. There is cause for concern regarding both the process as well as the inflexibility on the timing of a faculty union vote, the result of which is binding for those who cannot even make it to the vote because of prior commitments.
All academic medical centers face major challenges. We agree that a strong level of advocacy of the faculty by our leadership is an important requirement for success at UCHC as well. We do not believe that organizing a faculty union is a substitute for this advocacy nor an answer to our challenges here – in contrast, unionization could undermine the future of our schools as well as our university hospital and faculty practices.
Thanks for considering a vote not to unionize the UCHC faculty.
Sincerely,
William White, M.D
Professor of Medicine
Jason Ryan, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
W. David Hager, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Robert Fuller, M.D.
Associate Professor
Traumatology and Emergency Medicine
Heiko Schmitt, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Joyce Meng, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Philip Kerr, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Dermatology
Michael Azrin, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Louise McCullough
Associate Professor Neurology
Brenton Graveley, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Genetic and Developmental Biology
Joseph E. Grasso, D.D.S.
Professor of Prosthosdontics
Robert Arciero, M.D.
Professor of Orthopaedics
Christopher Pickett, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Erick Avelar, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Hanspaul Makkar, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Dermatology
Dan Henry, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Kanwar Singh, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Dear Colleagues:
There has been a great deal of email rhetoric on establishing a University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC) faculty union. It seems that most of the commentary has favored unionization of the UCHC faculty. However, there are many among us, particularly in the clinical faculty, who feel otherwise.
It is our belief that a faculty union would bring many more negatives than positives to the Health Center. Our missions as physicians, dentists, educators, and researchers are complex and a faculty union would add a layer of bureaucracy to our professional lives and detract from what we do for our clinical, educational, and research missions. Most of us believe that a union would make it more difficult to recruit and retain talented clinical and research faculty. As many are aware, clinical faculty candidates have good options elsewhere and may choose not to come here because our institution has a union while others do not.
We do not believe that a union will offer the security and protection it proposes it can, especially in the case of clinicians. If the Health Center is not productive enough and unable to generate adequate funds, a union cannot support a raise (or it can only do so at the expense of a layoff of faculty). Many faculty members should be able to negotiate salary raises based on productivity – this would not be feasible with collective bargaining. A union will not enhance our academic productivity nor will it make us more competitive in attracting extramural grant funding. There is no reason why a union would help to attract more patients to our highly competitive clinical care system.
We believe the union is attempting to provide a false sense of security. Furthermore, we have much concern regarding the manner in which the AAUP campaign has been conducted. There is cause for concern regarding both the process as well as the inflexibility on the timing of a faculty union vote, the result of which is binding for those who cannot even make it to the vote because of prior commitments.
All academic medical centers face major challenges. We agree that a strong level of advocacy of the faculty by our leadership is an important requirement for success at UCHC as well. We do not believe that organizing a faculty union is a substitute for this advocacy nor an answer to our challenges here – in contrast, unionization could undermine the future of our schools as well as our university hospital and faculty practices.
Thanks for considering a vote not to unionize the UCHC faculty.
Sincerely,
William White, M.D
Professor of Medicine
Jason Ryan, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
W. David Hager, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Robert Fuller, M.D.
Associate Professor
Traumatology and Emergency Medicine
Heiko Schmitt, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Joyce Meng, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Philip Kerr, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Dermatology
Michael Azrin, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Louise McCullough
Associate Professor Neurology
Brenton Graveley, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Genetic and Developmental Biology
Joseph E. Grasso, D.D.S.
Professor of Prosthosdontics
Robert Arciero, M.D.
Professor of Orthopaedics
Christopher Pickett, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Erick Avelar, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Hanspaul Makkar, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Dermatology
Dan Henry, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Kanwar Singh, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
No comments:
Post a Comment