Update: Is it possible UO’s lawyers have a sense of humor? Check out their idea of who counts as university faculty, from the Excelsior file they gave the ERB:
4/5/2012: Will someone please email me their copy? uomatters at gmail dot com. I’ll keep you anonymous.
Thanks, that was quick. Four people sent me copies in 30 min. Excel here, pdf here. I get 492 TTF’s out of 1938 people.
Apparently the union asked the administration for a list of names that met some criteria – presumably no law, no PI’s, engaged in instruction and/or research, and this is what they gave them – yoga instructors? It excludes PIs, but it includes many department heads and among others John Moseley, Jim Bean, and Scott Coltrane. WTF?
I’m guessing this nonsense can only be the work of Randy Geller, especially since it contradicts the letter he wrote the letter we had to pay Sharon Rudnick to write for him to the ERB yesterday.
But does anyone know more? Such as what, exactly, the union asked the administration for that led them to create this file? Were there other files, say before the law profs were cut out?
And a helpful comment:
As a reminder, here’s the union’s proposed bargaining unit (the ERB petition): “All full-time and part-time research and instructional faculty. Including tenure-track faculty, non-tenure track faculty, adjunct faculty, post-retired or emeritus faculty, library faculty and officers of research including research assistants, research associates, and postdoctoral scholars, employed by theemployer and excluding Principal Investigators with supervisory authority and faculty in the School of Law.”
The first part says, “All full-time and part-time research and instructional faculty” so that should be pretty clear. The “including” part is weird as they are basically trying to define what the mean in the first sentence (what should be done with employees that fit the criteria of the first line but aren’t in the “included” line – or with employees that are in the “included” line but don’t fit the first line?). The last part is also important of course, “excluding Principal Investigators with supervisory authority and faculty in the School of Law.” There’s a lot of room for differing interpretations in this description.
And also from Terducken:
According to Oregon Administrative Rules 115-025-0065, “Within 7 days after a public employer receives notice under OAR 115-025-0030(2) that a petition has been filed seeking certification without an election, it will submit to the Board an alphabetical list of employees in the proposed bargaining unit…” Therefore, this Excelsior list is a list provided to the ERB by the administration and is a standard step in this process.
Simply because someone is not on this list, does not mean s/he is not in the bargaining unit. The list is not necessarily an accurate representation of the bargaining unit. It is what an employer chooses to submit.
does it have home address?
How is it nonsense? It’s the bargaining unit as specified by the union organizer’s petition to the ERB. The letter prepared by Rudnick doesn’t contradict the list – it points out that the members of that list constitute and inappropriate bargaining unit.
Ugh. As expected, this splits my department — some faculty are in, some are out. How is this not a recipe for chaos and division?
With all my respect to the people who would like to be protected by the union against the administration, the “chaos and division” is a reality what the unionization WILL BRING to this campus. It is already here.
Most of my friends here on campus are very angry and bitter about the unionization process. I have not seen these type of emotions for more than 20 years. I plea to everybody to exercise mutual respect. We all would like to see this university prosper, and for us to respect each other.
I get 492 TTF’s out of 1938 people in the bargaining unit.
The Union asked the administration for a list of names that met some definition – presumably no law, no PI’s, engaged in instruction and/or research, and this is what they gave them – yoga instructors?
I would like to know more about the provenance of this file if anyone has it.
dog says
right UOmatters and there are supposedly 697 TTF faculty
so that means 205 were left out
so if you put those 205 back in the denominator and assume they all
vote no for the union then your approaching less than 50%. I have no idea
of Postdocs/research assistants/research associates have been fully counted.
How could they? Our department has had 4-5 new hires in this category
during last term …
The “some definition” you are looking for is simply the union’s petition to the ERB, I believe.
Part-time yoga instructors were asked to sign cards by the union organizers. So, don’t blame the administration for that one.
Yes, but the administration gave the organizers the list. I want to know what the union asked for when requesting the list. Anyone know?
This is a rule-bound process. The union gives a description of the proposed bargaining unit to the ERB and the administration, then the administration assembles a list of the people it thinks meet the description of the proposed bargaining unit. It by no means the only possible list of the people that might meet the definition.
The union’s “request,” in other words, was none other than the legal description of the proposed bargaining unit that was presented to the ERB some weeks back.
As a reminder, here’s the union’s proposed bargaining unit (the ERB petition): “All full-time and part-time research and instructional faculty. Including tenure-track faculty, non-tenure track faculty, adjunct faculty, post-retired or emeritus faculty, library faculty and officers of research including research assistants, research associates, and postdoctoral scholars, employed by theemployer and excluding Principal Investigators with supervisory authority and faculty in the School of Law.”
The first part says, “All full-time and part-time research and instructional faculty” so that should be pretty clear. The “including” part is weird as they are basically trying to define what the mean in the first sentence (what should be done with employees that fit the criteria of the first line but aren’t in the “included” line – or with employees that are in the “included” line but don’t fit the first line?). The last part is also important of course, “excluding Principal Investigators with supervisory authority and faculty in the School of Law.” There’s a lot of room for differing interpretations in this description.
I was solicited by the union and I signed a card early in the process. My name is not on this list. Is it possible the union changed the definition of the bargaining unit as time went on? If I had known this list was going to be the bargaining unit I would have asked for my card back and signed to petition to exclude TTFs.
The bargaining unit changed dramatically after many cards were signed. For one thing, the law school was removed late in the game. This is one big problem with the card signing process – the bargaining unit can change out from under you.
And now perhaps we understand more clearly WHY the card itself did not spell out the bargaining unit (as Chicken pointed out in some other post): because it could–and did–change after some cards were signed. The card check “vote”, in other words, very explicitly did not constitute an endorsement of the bargaining unit. By signing it you simply agreed to have the new union, and the overarching organizations that will (presumably) run it, represent your interests.
I wonder how many others would withdraw their cards at this point? Probably that could have been a separate petition, or letter from such a group to the ERB–except that the window for such submissions has passed.
I think it’s important to understand what an Excelsior list is and is not. It is not an objective description of the personnel that constitute the bargaining unit; rather, it is what the administration thinks what group of people the proposed bargaining unit includes. What the administration thinks, in turn, reflects to some degree its strategy for combating the formation of a faculty union before the ERB — a path that it needn’t have chosen, but clearly did. The Excelsior list is subject to challenge by United Academics on various grounds — for example, the inclusion of presidents, deans, and provosts. Still, UO Matter’s puzzlement is understandable. The Excelsior list excludes PIs, which is to say that administration agrees with UA that faculty with independent and autonomous hiring and firing authority over other faculty should not be included in the bargaining unit. That’s normal for university bargaining units. On the other hand, the inclusion of upper administrators in the Excelsior list seems to suggest the exact opposite.
As I understand it, the Excelsior list is simply the people that would be in the bargaining unit as defined by the union’s petition to the ERB. So the university just assembled everyone that fit the petition’s description. Thus, it is incorrect to say that the ” agrees with UA that faculty with independent and autonomous hiring and firing authority over other faculty should not be included in the bargaining unit”. As to the inclusion of some administrators, I guess the university felt that those administrators fit the description as described in the petition.
“The Excelsior list is subject to challenge by United Academics on various grounds — for example, the inclusion of presidents, deans, and provosts.”
Was there something in the union’s definition of the bargaining unit that precludes including presidents, deans, and provosts in the list? Or was that to be inferred somehow? The union (and others – uomatters?) seems upset by this, but it’s the union’s own fault – they’re the ones that wrote the bargaining unit definition.
According to Oregon Administrative Rules 115-025-0065, “Within 7 days after a public employer receives notice under OAR 115-025-0030(2) that a petition has been filed seeking certification without an election, it will submit to the Board an alphabetical list of employees in the proposed bargaining unit…” Therefore, this Excelsior list is a list provided to the ERB by the administration and is a standard step in this process.
Simply because someone is not on this list, does not mean s/he is not in the bargaining unit. The list is not necessarily an accurate representation of the bargaining unit. It is what an employer chooses to submit.
Do note also that ERB rules, as reported by Terducken, require the employer to comply within 7 days. This presumably simply allows the ERB to begin counting cards and matching cards to names of people the employer certifies are, at least, employed here. But the window for the employer to file an objection is something like 14 days. So the law does not assume–and nor should anyone else–that the two lists are the same or represent equally the university’s position. Quite clearly, the letter from Geller officially states the university’s position, whereas the Excelsior list constitutes its purely pro forma compliance with ERB administrative rules.
The list is significant as it is the starting point for determining if there are enough signed cards and potentially for forming the bargaining unit. The union must make a formal challenge to change the list (from the same rule as above):
“(5) Challenges to the List of Eligible Employees.
(a) Challenges to the inclusion of a name on or exclusion of a name from the list of eligible employees must be filed with the Board within 7 days after the Board provides the labor organization a copy of the list under subsection (5) of this section.”
It will be interesting to see the union’s formal challenge. For example, I don’t see how they can legitimately challenge the inclusion of the administrators on the list unless they change the definition of the bargaining unit.
Dog to Terducken (a John Madden Favorite) and others
roger all of that. I think my point goes to point 2 of the objections
on what the Law considers as “faculty” for a faculty union. I don’t think
this process has properly differentiated between “faculty” and “non-faculty”.
UOMatters says “WTF” to Moseley, Bean, and Coltrane’s inclusion on the list but aren’t they part of the bargaining unit, as defined by the union? In that case, it would be incorrect not to include them.
Geller’s (or Rudnick’s) letter simply points out the many problems with this group of employees being in the same union. Nonsense? I don’t think so.
If the union doesn’t like the composition of the list, they should have written a better description of the bargaining unit (which is poorly worded in my opinion).
I don’t see anything in the union’s letter requiring Geller to use a definition of faculty that includes part-time yoga instructors.
Wouldn’t a part-time yoga instructor be NTTF? If so, they would be part of the union-defined bargaining unit.
Depends on how you define faculty. Geller seems to have gone with the most union-friendly definition. Makes me wonder if the JH opposition is sincere.
It seems fairly obvious to me that a part time yoga instructor would be NTTF. Why wouldn’t they – is it because they’re part time or because they teach yoga? Not including them doesn’t make any sense and JH has nothing to gain by doing so. The Excelsior list is as Cat describes above, “constitutes its purely pro forma compliance with ERB administrative rules.” Read Geller’s (Rudnick’s) letter for the objections to the bargaining unit – that’s the real opposition (and quite persuasive to this layman).
Geller blew it by filing this list with the ERB, thereby implicitly agreeing to the union’s most preferred definition of faculty. Rudnick’s letter is an attempt to backfill this mistake.
Unless you can backup your statements (what’s the “union’s most preferred definition of faculty”? how would Rudnick’s letter have looked different if this “mistake” hadn’t been made?), I’ll assume you just came here to sling mud (which is why you’ve mentioned Geller’s name twice now).
The university is legally obligated to present the Excelsior list. There was never an option not to supply a list.
Dog says to anon @12:06
I think its the Law’s definition of faculty that matters and I don’t know
what that is.
To Anon 12:06. I doubt that the Law has a definition of faculty other than the one in the UO Charter, which is “President plus Professors” (with power to govern the University). When DF was President, everyone except classified staff was called “faculty”. Current UO Constitution defines a STATUTORY FACULTY. “In this document, Statutory Faculty is defined as the body of professors consisting of the University President, tenure-related officers of instruction, career non-tenure-track officers of instruction, and officers of administration who are tenured in an academic department. Membership in the Statutory Faculty is retained during sabbatical leaves. Retired and emeriti faculty members are not members of the Statutory Faculty, whether or not they have teaching responsibilities. The University President is the President of the Statutory Faculty.”
To Anon 11:36 AM. Whether JH might WANT a union is a good question. Many in JH (try RG, for one) find the current UO Constitution a pain — it grants too much influence in matters of UO governance to the Statutory Faculty and gives the Senate too much leverage. I think those in JH who feel that way would be happy to see Faculty defined as wage earners rather than as governors of the University.. Should the Union become a reality, it’s a sure bet that our Constitution will suffer major weakening.
Yours truly, the Old Man
[Last comment was prematurely sent. Not sure where this comment belongs] I did not sign a card, because I am not convinced the union will fix anything, although I am ideologically neutral. Someone from the union did come to my office in the fall, asking me to sign *something*. I don’t know if this was a “card”, but the organizer (not a faculty member, but a union-paid organizer) described it more along the lines of a petition supporting the right to organize, not a “yes” vote for organizing. The conversation didn’t continue, because I am actually busy doing the work I am paid to do as a faculty member, and preferred to spend my time doing that at that moment. One thing UO matters may be interested in — he did claim that the proprietor of UOMatters had signed this thing (was it a “card”? something else?) –Frog
What people signed in the fall was a public petition, not cards.
I don’t get the joke – is it that there’s an ultimate frisbee instructor on the list? I don’t see how that’s funny.
You’re right, nothing funny about ultimate. Highly academic. UO Matters must be a snob, into cricket or some such. Not cool for UO to confuse ultimate and frisbee though, that’s a trademark violation. Whamo’s lawyers will come after them.
http://pages.uoregon.edu/frisbee/index.html
This is all a perfect example of how unions use as much, if not more, trickery and shenanigans to get people to join/support their cause than the administrators. I strongly believe that if any of you most vocal haters of the administration were asked to have any actual responsibility and accountability as to how the uo ran you would either curl up and die or be doing research for no one who cared…this is not how the real world works so get over yourself…being subversive and a thorn in everyones side is counterproductive at the very least and laughahle at best…go work somewhere else if you hate it here so much
Many of the readers and at least a few of the commentators on this blog have had very significant administrative experience at UO.
Everyone knows that professors love to bitch about administrators. But UO’s administration is considerably less functional than normal. No searches, no performance reviews, special post retirement appointments, etc.
The apparent success of the unionization campaign is testament to this. Faculty voted for a union for one simple reason: bad management. (I’m not saying it was a majority, but it was plenty.) Saying otherwise is just pretending.
It must be nice to have the “power” to justify your own existence…. its pretty easy to cast stones……this blog is like fox news in reverse…self aggrandizing and full of “facts” beneficial to your cause…just like the union machine….
and maybe, just maybe for once you could actually just let a post go through without your need to express your warped opinion on the matter as a reply and let people think for themselves for a change and actually have some sort of unbiased discourse on the matter….
Fail.