as of 10AM 3/24/2012. There are a few signatures that might reasonably be challenged, e.g.:
Name: Moe Ronn on Mar 23, 2012
Comments: I believe the state of Oregon and the university administration always has my best interests at heart and should make all decisions concerning my pay and benefits.
or provost Jim Bean, who seems to think that by setting up what is, in my opinion, an overpaid sham sick leave/sabbatical for himself he has earned a vote against a union of the same faculty that he claims he will back administering this summer:
Name: James C. Bean on Mar 23, 2012Comments: I am currently on leave as a professor of business
and there is also at least one part-time instructor who signed presumably by mistake and more than a few law school professors who are not in the proposed unit anyway.
But assuming the many anonymous signatories are legit 30-40% of the non-law TTF are saying they do *not* want to be in a union and I expect some further increase. This is generally consistent with the 2009 UO Matters and 2012 Tublitz polls and the report from the union that they had signatures from “more than half” of the non-law TTF supporting unionization. Link to signatories and petition here. A few faculty report that they signed a card but are now opposed given the bargaining unit definition. My guess is this is going to be a long fight for both sides.
I disagree with your assertion that the signature count on the petition is consistent with the union organizers claim that more than half of the TTF support unionization.
Note that in less than 24 hours on the Friday afternoon and Saturday morning between finals week and spring break, over 30% of the TTF signed this petition. Given also that there are probably some faculty members who don’t have an opinion either way, but apparently were told by organizers that not signing a card is voting no, I think this is actually _inconsistent_ with organizer claims that a majority of TTF support the union.
Note also that your contempt for Bean, combined with the fact that he opposes the union does not constitute an argument that adding another layer of bureaucracy to our lives (which we will pay for both directly
and indirectly) is a good idea.
Deep in UOMatters’s animal brain is a cluster of synapses programmed to be uncharitable to Jim Bean, and that cannot be mapped by even the most advanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques.
Actually the increased BOLD response shows up quite clearly, even in the old Siemens and with the Bonferroni correction set at 0.00001. For a larger within-subjects design see
The neural basis of altruistic punishment.
Science 305: 1254-1258. de Quervain DJF, Fischbacher U, Treyer V, Schellhammer M, Schnyder U, Buck A, Fehr E (2004)
Are you presuming that Law Fac signatures don’t count somehow? Moreover, if you’re excluding the signatories from Law, does it mean that PI signatures on the petition somehow also don’t count? I think it misses the point to exclude either group. This is not an internal poll within the bargaining unit, but a petition from UO faculty to the ERB. It will be up to them to assess the validity of Bean’s signature, as well as any others (including Prof. Ronn).
I likewise don’t see why you assume the part-time person signed “by mistake”. Although the petition was sent to TTF only by the organizers (I presume?), nothing it is presumes at TTF signator per se. There might well be NTTF or other non-TTF who do not want TTF in the same unit as themselves.
As for the numbers, it took less than 24 hours to get signatures from one third of all TTF. That’s pretty striking, especially given the holiday. I say we wait to pronounce upon the numbers, and how they stack up compared to the union claims after more time has passed. Right now there are still new signatures appearing at a steady pace.
Dear uo-matter, would you mind to post a link
http://TTFagainstUOunion.com
which would add more serious information to the discussion.
Maybe Moe and Bean are the same troll?
Let’s just hope there are no “troll cards” during the card check process.
Marian Friestad also supposedly signed. I’m skeptical of both the quantity and quality of the signers.
I hate to bring up something that is obvious to me, but might not be to others, but people do realize that you don’t have to pay anything to be in the Union, right? While there is such a thing as “fair-share”, this is something that bargained between the Union and the University. Until “fair-share” makes it into the Collective Bargaining Agreement, all union dues are solely voluntary.
I don’t understand your point (maybe it’s too obvious?). It’s true that dues are voluntary until specified in the CBA, but undoubtedly fair-share will be part of the CBA. Isn’t it a good bet all members of the bargaining unit will pay either full or fair share dues?
On most unionized campuses with which I am familiar, the “fair share” contribution is 90 – 95% of the membership dues. And I know of no instance where fair share contributions are not required. So it’s inaccurate to say that people won’t have to pay anything. The precise payment will have to be worked out, but it will probably be similar to Rutgers (where the faculty is represented by the same folks organizing here): members pay 1% of their salary; non-members pay 95% of what members pay as their “fair share.”
Non-members pay to support the union? Not that dues factor much in my thinking, but: huh?
Dues should factor a _little_ bit in your thinking. If you are going to spend 1-2% of your salary on something, you ought to get something in exchange.
But yes, if you are in the bargaining unit, you have to pay the union to bargain for you whether you want to or not. That’s how unions work. You have a choice about whether to _join_ the union, but not a choice about whether to pay the union for its “services.”
“But yes, if you are in the bargaining unit, you have to pay the union to bargain for you whether you want to or not. That’s how unions work. You have a choice about whether to _join_ the union, but not a choice about whether to pay the union for its “services.”” No. This is false. Until the union negotiates fair share, you don’t have to pay a dime. Based on my observation, it normally takes 5 – 10 years for a Union to reach the point where they can bring up fair-share in CBA negotiations. The University (or any employer) would give fair share in an act of benevolence, or if they are motivated by a credible threat of work disruption or strike. That’s how the bargaining process works.
There is no doubt that fair-share would be a high on the list of goals in the Union’s negotiating, but it is by no means a done deal. You have a voice, so use it.
Can you provide a link to support your observation that it takes 5-10 years for fair share to be in the CBA? The union wants their money – they’re going to go after fair share, otherwise most everyone will opt-out. And what’s the University’s role in negotiating union dues? Shouldn’t the union negotiates dues with its members – not with the University, which has no motivation one way or another?
Yes, please clarify. None of this makes clear sense to me. How can one not “join” if one is implicated by the “bargaining unit” and thus compelled by the ERB to be a part of the union? Is there some graded rank of membership?
As described above, you can be part of the bargaining unit but not a union member. In this case, you’ll pay what’s called “fair share” dues which are typically close to full member fees. The idea is that you’re benefiting from collective bargaining so you have to pay something. Anon @1:53 has posted several times on this and other posts that it takes a long time for fair share dues to be implemented in the CBA but I’m skeptical of that claim.
Okay, so what does “membership” get you that if you don’t have to be a member to be included in the bargaining unit?
Voting rights, etc.
As of 2:30 pm on Monday March 25, there are 270 signatures on the petition. I tabulated the signatures by department and the totals are listed below. Note there was one duplicate signature which I eliminated from this analysis. There were also 5 unknown names and 54 anonymous signatures. To insure the accuracy of the tabulation I looked every name up in the online directory (www.uoregon.edu/findpeople).
AAA (17)
Architecture 3
Art 4
Art History 3
Landscape Architecture 2
PPPM 4
Product Design 1
CAS (133)
Anthropology 3
Biology 17
Chemistry 20
Computer and Information Science 1
Creative Writing Program 3
East Asian Languages 1
Economics 12
English 1
Geography 7
Geological Sciences 7
History 3
Human Physiology 5
Linguistics 3
Mathematics 22
Physics 17
Political Science 3
Psychology 6
Religious Studies 1
Theater Arts 1
Education (10)
Center on Teaching and Learning 1
Counseling Psychology 4
Educational Methodology, Policy and Leadership 4
School Psychology 1
Journalism and Communication 4
Law 5
LCB (36)
Accounting 8
Business 3
Decision Sciences 7
Finance 8
Management 6
Marketing 4
Music 3
Dance 1
Physical Education and Recreation 1
Unknown 5
Anonymous 54
Looks like it is hard to be in the humanities and publicly put your name on an anti-union petition!
seems to me there aremultiple fatal snafus in the card check process, which wiil induce related snafus in te petition. what a mess! to clear the air, we need a secret ballot election on a well-defined bargaining unit. the card check cards clearly implied all TTF would be in bargaining unit along with all NTTF. should signatures on a card that is not the bargaining unit the union is petitioning for mean anything? electronic signatures of any ttf included in the unit specified on the union card should count in the petition to exclude ttf, since all ttf are included on the cards ttf signed supporting a union, but what the heck does anyone know? only a good secret ballot election on a preset bargaining unit has any chance to help clear the air. cheers to everyone, pro, anti, or just confused.
Can you report the percentage of votes in the departments? It looks to me, for example, that more than 90% of the people in Chemistry is against the unionization: maybe some other department besides Law could be excluded?