Another update: A chicken writes in the comments:
For those who think the bargaining unit is inappropriate, I do think that individuals — not just the Admin. — have a formal right to object.
“Interested persons may notify the Board Agent of their specific objections. Such objections must also be served on the petitioner. Upon good cause shown, the Board Agent may call an interested person as a witness.” OAR 115-025-0030 (2)(e)
Lots more on the ERB’s rules and procedures http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/rules/oars_100/oar_115/115_025.html.
See e.g. OAR 115-025-0065(7) and OAR 115-025-0045 on hearings held in response to objections.
More still at http://www.oregon.gov/ERB/StatutesRules.shtml
I emailed Sandra Elliot at the ERB and she clarified this somewhat:
And it is correct “interested persons” may file objections . . . and MUST serve them on the petitioner. Most of the “objections” I am hearing are that people want an election and there is a process for that (see OAR 115-025-0075). If valid objections are filed this case will be assigned to an administrative law judge to resolve objections relating to the composure of the bargaining unit, etc.
And she then sent this:
If there is a “group” that can agree on a specific objection or objections perhaps a brief statement of the objection and then signatures (dated of course). Then a copy to the petitioner so it will be considered “served.” It would be best if they were in writing and hand-delivered or US Mail. That said, individuals could do a letter to ERB and copy the petitioner, but if the volume of paper can be kept to a minimum it would be nice. You might also give a copy to Mr. Geller’s office so he will be aware of what objections are out there.
We have no examples because usually the only interested party is the employer. Like I said above, the simplest format would be a brief statement and then signatures of those who support the objection.
Update: The ERB tells me that only the administration can object to the composition of the proposed bargaining unit, but they add:
You could certainly make your thoughts known to your employer. While we would put any comments we receive in the file, it is up to the employer to address the objections.
If anyone hears of the administration preparing an objection, please post a comment. I have public records requests in to UO and OUS for docs showing if they have hired consultants/lawyers to help write an objection, etc. This is not the sort of thing they would trust Randy Geller to do competently.
3/20/2012. Full pdf here. 
Dog
Thanks UOMatters for posting this – pretty
straight forward and clear language. Three
points:
1. The proposed bargaining unit does indeed seem to consist of most everyone including “adjunct
faculty”. I was never real clear on this, but this sounds like a 1-term adjunct is now in the Union.
2. I imagine the language “Principal Investigators with supervisory authority” is going to be open to a wide range of interpretation.
3. In practice, there is a large difference between research associates and research assistants. For instance, I frequently hire
undergrads as research assistants over the summer (and they are not enrolled). I guess that means that are in the union too?
Dog agrees with UOmatters
Yes – it appears, like some of us stated earlier, that the 30% rule
does apply. But, here is the problem
1) the next 2 weeks, most faculty will be gone so organization is likely
impossible.
2) Since we don’t know the actual size of the bargaining unit, we don’t know
a number that = 30%. If there are about 2000 in the bargaining unit (actually I now thinks its more, since it includes research help) – and
there are about 700 TTF well, 30% just isn’t going happen. In fact,
the whole TTF population may be less than 30%.
“the next 2 weeks, most faculty will be gone so organization is likely impossible.”
Certainly puts the union’s decision to submit the cards early into a new light.
30% is not going to happen, even in 3 months. But this notice reads as if people can complain about the bargaining unit composition – for example, argue that adjunct appointments below 0.5 or 0.25 should be excluded. The PSU union only includes those with 0.5 FTE or above.
Dog to anon at 09:53
Yes it might be possible to object in this manner. This is something our
ADMINISTRATION (in case they lurk here) should pay attention to. My take is
that the following should be excluded from the union.
1. < 0.5 FTE
2. research assistants
3. Supervised Postdocs (hence more PIs are in the Union which is good)
To me, the best (only?) reason for a union is to fix the egregious fact that many NTTFs have a 0.49 FTE contract. Why? Benefits start at 0.5 FTE. This is just flat out exploitation, and any DH which supports this kind of arrangement should be ashamed of themselves. So I think we should draw the line somewhere, but 0.5 FTE shouldn’t be it.
Now how grad students count as faculty, I just don’t understand. As a research university, aren’t most TTF faculty supervising research assistants/associates at some level (or aren’t they supposed to)?
dog wants clarification from anon at 5 pm
Are you talking about “fixed” NTTF (in which case I agree)
or 1 Term adjuncts that are on .49 1 term contract?
Reminds me of when Lariviere was fire right before vacation as well.
Seems Persteiner and the Union organizers have the same consultants….
:-)
What is very troubling for me here that after firing Lariviere,
the campus has become much easier target for the union representatives, and they have preyed here aggressively while some faculty here are demoralised because of the humiliation we have gone through, and frustration with the Persteiner and the Governor and the administration. The only chance the administration has to get some respect to show real leadership here and get the TTF out of the union.
Anyone have information on laws, precedents, administrative rules, etc. governing how the ERB judges the “appropriateness” of the bargaining unit?
I am on the Union Organizing Committee and I promise you the entire goal of the Union organizing effort was to precisely follow Oregon law and precedents in order to have our new Union easily certified.
The bargaining unit we filed for is the most appropriate one according to Oregon law and precedents. Several past efforts here on this campus have been defeated because the unit organized was deemed not appropriate (broad enough), or not enough cards were collected. Oregon law wants the broadest appropriate unit, and majorities across all categories.
We are quite sure we have filed for the most appropriate unit, and we are also very sure we have sufficient cards to be certified. We were able to file early because the faculty easily voted YES! This was not a hard sell–ample majorities of faculty and researchers across all categories want a union.
One can argue we were “sneaky” by filing before spring break, as indicated above. The reality is we cannot organize in secret. We must go out and collect cards from real people. We must have real conversations, as we have had with people for over two years.
With many people, when we asked them if they would sign, they not only said YES, they also said, “and thank you for all of your efforts to do this.” We feel like we have done a great service to the faculty, to our students and to this University. All I can say to the overwhelming negative voices here on this blog is that I wish I had time to answer all of your questions. Most of them can easily be answered at our website.
Finally, if the experience at other Universities who have organized is replicated here, almost all faculty will be very glad they have a Union within just a few years, and most faculty will choose to be full members and actively participate in the Union. I hope all of you find this to be true here at the UO. The Union organizers know the Union will only be strong if it works for everyone, and we plan to make that a reality.
I am not among those who challenge the good intentions of the people who have been organizing on behalf of the union, but it is not fair to make the claim that “the faculty easily voted YES” or that “ample majorities of faculty and researchers across all categories want a union” when, in fact, there is considerable evidence to suggest that if the law school and PIs had been included as part of the tenure-related faculty, there would not have been majority support for the union among TRF. If that supposition is wrong, then it seems the union needs to present evidence to the contrary. Moreover, simply referring people to the UAUO website is not a response to most of the points raised here and elsewhere. The website says nothing about why the law school faculty are more different from the rest of the TRFs than are the ORs. (Just because there are a few universities where the law school has been excluded does not mean that they had to be excluded.) The website says nothing about status of faculty who sometimes hire researchers, but sometimes don’t. It says nothing about the break-down of the vote, etc, etc. If the union wants to get off on the right foot here, it cannot duck these questions.
“Most [questions] can easily be answered at our website.”
Here are some questions that I would like to see answered by union supporters: if this is so clearly a great move for negotiating power and working conditions, why are the _only_ people on campus who had to take furloughs a couple of years ago the classified staff, who were also the only ones unionized? And note that our administration, deans and department heads managed a work-around for their furloughs. Do you think they’ll be so inclined next time around? Did unionization spare PSU from furloughs? (Or the feckless OSU administration spare their faculty?)
As far as I can tell, you are making it easier for the state to treat us as just another cog – supervised by a “middle manager” president.
Here’s another question: do you think we would have had equity raises during a wage freeze last year if we were part of a collective bargaining process? It is ironic that Portland State’s union used our President’s justification of pay raises during their negotiations. (See
http://www.psuaaup.net/U%20of%20O%20Pres%20Lariviere%20Letter%20re%202011%20Raises.pdf
In this form, it’s really clear that the bargaining unit is a fiasco. Research assistants? Defined how? And Principle Investigators in a whole different category? Will such folks move in and out of the union as their grant money waxes and wanes? The thing seems to make a mash of the whole TTF category, creating artificial exclusions that make no sense per se, chiefly in order to lump everyone else in (to garner votes?). And thus we’ve created a “faculty” union that doesn’t map on to the official definition of “Statutory Faculty” which governs our governance system–even as union organizers keep telling us that a union will strengthen faculty governance. Statutory faculty includes OAs but excludes ORs. The union includes ORs (though are research assistants even “officers”?) but excludes tenured OAs? It includes adjunct faculty who are not officially NTTF, though only NTTF count among statutory faculty. Huh? Whole chunks of one group serve on committees, etc., dutifully performing “service”, while many of the other categories do not. And so on. It simply makes no sense.
Do we really expect it to work, i.e., as a successful bargaining position, if what we really have is a bunch of separate subgroups with different wishes, little caucuses with different desiderata and a different set of compromises they’re willing to make? (And how clever of us to exclude the only group of faculty actually experienced at bargaining, i.e., the lawyers, who’s very ability to bargain themselves right out of the union testifies to their usefulness).
I agree that there’s no way 30% is going to happen. But someone I hope will file a serious objection to the bargaining unit. Tell me who and count Cat in.
“it is up to the employer to address the objections.”
Great. So I need to ask one anti-transparency and corrupt organization to challenge another anti-transparency organization to prove it isn’t corrupt too.
The rants on this comment line appear to have no difficulty in sounding like a Glenn Beck comment line: equate everything with the bad unions, union bosses, etc. never mind that a process unfolded for 3 years, open forums, invitations to attend public events, 2 major senate forums, etc. Wow, you would think that some outside force just swept in here, concealing their presence, and swooped up over 1100 signatures! Paranoia… Fact free blaming and unsubstantiated judgments? Are you sure you are faculty here?
Examples: “they have preyed here aggressively” or “Persteiner and the Union organizers have the same consultants..”
Actually, some outside organization did sweep in. And “United Academics” never emphasized that it was the AFL-CIO, who are listed in this document. And if you think they’re going to have spent all this time & money colonizing us and not get their payout you’re nuts. And tarring everyone who doesn’t agree with you with the Glenn Beck brush gets us dangerously close to Godwin’s law.
Why did United Academics file near the end of spring term instead of taking the full 90 days the law permits? First, we already had a majority. Second, we were working from the university’s lists of employees for winter quarter. That list changes each term and we’d have been faced with a shifting population of potential signers. The notion that we gamed the timing to catch the antis unaware just before spring break is fanciful, to put it mildly. I wouldn’t be so mild in characterizing claims that we’re in cahoots with Pernsteiner or language that calls us corrupt or says we “preyed here aggressively,” but this is a family blog, or so I used to think.
The notion that the timing was gamed can hardly be called fanciful. It may be incorrect, but if United Academics wanted to make it difficult for opposition to organize after the ERB filing, the timing couldn’t be more serendipitous. It is certainly possible that this is just luck on the part of UA.
The notion that this is the broadest possible unit bargaining doesn’t hold water. Including _all_ the TTF would have made for a broader unit. It also would have had the result that although the majority of the _unit_ would have supported unionization, the majority of the TTF would have opposed unionization. In other contexts this tactic is known as gerrymandering, and it can’t be just considered luck on the part of UA. It would be far better, both for the university and its faculty, to organize collective bargaining for the NTTF and (since the majority of the TTF oppose collective bargaining) _not_ for the TTF. This would also recognize the very different interests of these two groups. Claiming that the NTTF and the TTF have the same interests, but that somehow the Law School faculty has such different interests from the other TTF is arguing out of both sides of one’s mouth.
Finally, the organizers have argued that unionization will lead to the ability to press for greater transparency on campus. UA has already failed in their first opportunity to model transparency. There is a defensible argument for not revealing the identity of card signers before certification. There is no defensible argument for not posting (for example on the uauoregon.org website) the filing with ERB including the numbers in each category, the numbers exempted in each category (Law School faculty plus PIs), and the numbers signing cards in each category.
This comment has been removed by the author.
And the law school and science professors aren’t faculty??
Or did leaving them out give you a majority.
I met with a union rep and their answer was always, we’ll sort out what the union is after we get it. I would like a mission up front, otherwise why should I pay for an undefined quantity??
Yes, it is incorrect to say we filed at a time when it would be difficult to organize against us. It appears “fanciful” to us because we were not secret about card check, or about when we were ending card check. We told almost everyone we spoke with that OUR card check deadline was the first week in March. We had high hopes of ending as quickly as we could at the beginning of March. We proclaimed this constantly. Hardly a secret when we sent e-mail announcements out saying “card check will be over soon–get in your card.” OOOOO –we were sneaky. Caught you not lookin’. Crafty.
Arguments that we are being non-transparent about card numbers are silly. We have told everyone that we have clearly more than 50% in each category. We met our goals for each category–we filed with ample cards. Your insistence we say anymore than that is just to be strangely nasty, trying to tear us down however you can. There will be no pleasing the people on this web site.
We cannot lie about the cards. The ERB will check the cards. You will probably not believe the ERB, but the votes are in and our Union will be certified. We followed the law, and we got all of the cards we needed in order to comply with the most likely acceptable bargaining unit, as well as any other likely acceptable unit the administration wants to insist upon. Yes we filed before the deadline. Yes we all know of more TT cards we could have collected but left on the table because we failed to find this or that person before the deadline. Nonetheless, we filed when we met our goals because we believed it was best (and easiest legally) to go forward while classes were still in session.
Nothing nefarious. Nothing hidden. We have sufficient cards to include BOTH the PIs and the Law school. We believe we filed for the most legally appropriate bargaining unit.
Which somehow doesn’t include the law school because they aren’t TTF…..or PI’s because they aren’t TTF….
Is this intended to be a “Legal” union, or one that represents the interests of the faculty, including the TTF? If so, why are key elements of the TTF, the law school and the PI ommitted?
I have explained this elsewhere on this blog. You must look at the law. We followed the law.
Forming a Union is a democratic process. The Law School, through precedent, is considered to be dissimilar. If they wanted in, we could probably include them (although the administration could argue to get them out because of precedent.) However, since a majority of faculty over there did not want in, and they were going to legally file to be out, and there is a lot of precedent for Law Schools and some other professional schools to be out. We had no legal standing to argue they should be in. They would easily be able to argue they have different accreditation, different schedules, don’t teach undergrads, and the pile of other arguments that have been found to be legally correct to get them out. Their legal opposition would have delayed (but not derailed) our certification. Easier to get them out now than later. They legally could get out, and so they did.
From our end, we were not sure if they were really going to want out, or if the administration will argue to put them back in, so to be safe, we “organized around them.” We collected enough cards to have them out or in. Same with (the much smaller group) of PIs we think we cannot include (which is not all science faculty at all, but some legal category that is most often not in). We are fine and happy with them in. We have “organized around them.” We have enough cards with them in or out.
We filed for the bargaining unit we think will be deemed most appropriate legally, but we think we are ready for all challenges. Everyone can be suspicious of our filing and cards. We are not inventing this process. We are following the norms of filing, and the cards will be checked.
We believe we have filed for the most legally acceptable unit. No gaming. No gerrymandering. We think we have done it. We did not write the law. We have organized the unit that Oregon law seems to find most “legally appropriate.” There are gray areas, and we included all of the gray areas we think we could. Bigger unions are stronger unions. If we succeed, we will have successfully organized one of the biggest and most powerful higher ed unions around. This is historic and monumental. People all over the country are asking us how we did it. The real answer is–it was not difficult. The faculty at the University of Oregon WANT a union in unprecedented numbers. The cards speak for themselves.
Thank you. However, “We collected enough cards to have them out or in” is still ambiguous. Did UAUO obtain signed cards from a majority of all TTFs? Or only a majority of some subset of TTFs (for example, excluding law and PIs)?
I might point out that now it is the pro-union forces resorting to petty name-calling. Prof. Pope is awfully snide, wheras Prof. Sadofsky lays it out plainly. Thank you. My thinking exactly.
Meanwhile, I’m not sure I buy this shifting populations argument. Really, is the fluctuation that dramatic? Wouldn’t any folks who materialized among the eligible in the spring become part of the union anyway and therefore count toward the card check? Besides, weren’t there several weeks left of Winter quarter before you filed? Had the union filed just a couple of weeks later, then there would have been no overlap with finals week and spring break–when campus is empty. But go ahead: call me Glenn Beck again…
I tried to answer, but my answer never showed up….
Short answer: YES, fluctuations could be dramatic. Safest for complying with the law was to work from the list of employees provided for Winter term (supplied about the 3rd or 4th week of the term, I think), and then work, work, work to collect enough cards BEFORE classes ended to make sure we had enough cards consistent with the list provided for the term.
If we did not get enough, we could have gone longer and gotten more according to the next list, etc…but we knew this would get messy, and much more complicated. We told EVERYONE the date when we hoped to be done by–we were flooded with cards that came in in the last two weeks ahead of our announced deadline. Nothing secret. Lots of faculty overseas Fed-Exing cards to be in ahead of our deadline. Very dramatic. Nothing secret. If we had not met our goal, we could have kept going. We agreed if we met our goal, we would file and have a party! It was a great party! Yippee!!!
Dog barks again
first bark didn’t bite
some of us are concerned about the process precisely because the “list of employees” is so fluid.
The Union hopes to help fix “fluidity” by giving people more job security.
The University has created the fluidity of who is employed. It is not fair. The law allows workers to unionize to collectively make their job situation more fair.
A Union will work to help tenure track employees with pay, benefits, class size, shared governance and much more, and work to help non-tenure related faculty with pay, JOB SECURITY, benefits, class size and much more.
All faculty employed by the UO have more common interests than differences. We must work together to make this University a better place for everyone and our students. Don’t be scared of working with NTTFs–they are very nice people and we should treat them as colleagues, not as “others” we fear.
So where is it that Prof. Pope is calling you or anyone else names?
I think the point is simple, efforts to impute malicious intent on faculty union supporters and organizers just does not fit with reality. Good reasons, by good people, inspired folks to make this union campaign tick, aiming to bring greater accountability to this institution. That some worried and skeptical colleagues have not got an immediate response to their desire for a breakdown of the card check numbers does NOT mean the intent of your colleagues, the organizers, is manipulative; just careful, collaborative, and proceeding with care… and aware of this desire by our colleagues. Please, good people, we are your colleagues and have not had a meeting to seriously weigh this since submitting the cards.
The UO faculty seems to be intent on destroying the University. First this unionization, now it almost seems that there are calls for Berdahl’s head — not quite, but heading there.
The union vote itself was a sleazy, corrupt process. I for one will have no respect for the outcome if it succeeds.
No doubt the union organizers believe that their cause is a good thing. People who believe in a cause can often convince themselves that the ends justify the means.
In this case the means include:
-timing the filing so that it is difficult to muster a response.
-defining the bargaining unit so that it includes most TTF but selectively leaves out significant groups from departments (and in one case an entire college) who are known to be mostly opposed to collective bargaining.
-defining the bargaining unit so that it excludes some statutory faculty (OAs) and includes others who are not statutory faculty.
-repeatedly claiming to aim for greater accountability without any explanation about how adding another layer will lead to greater accountability.
-not sharing the information that was submitted to the Oregon ERB with the people that the organizers claim to be representing. (Thus immediately undercutting the spirit of accountability espoused by the organizers).
I have a simple but important question that is shared by several of my colleagues I’ve talked to: *Am I part of the proposed bargaining unit or not?*
Some elaboration (not necessary for answering the question):
— the ERB Notice states that “Principal Investigators with supervisory authority” are excluded. Supervisory authority over whom? Over what time period?
— The http://uauoregon.org/ web site returns no hits for the term “supervisory.” Its FAQ states that “all faculty” are part of the bargaining unit (item 2 of http://uauoregon.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/75/files/2012/02/Frequently-Asked-Questions.pdf ). This contradicts the ERB notice, since at a minimum, as several people have noted, supervision of postdocs / technicians seems to prevent union membership. I do not have any postdocs in my research group now, but I have in the recent past, and I may in the future. Will I drift in and out of the union? What about supervision of externally funded graduate students, or undergrad researchers? I can’t imagine excluding faculty based on this, but it doesn’t seem to be clarified anywhere. (Plus, in a very small group of people I’ve talked to, it seems that getting a ‘congratulatory’ email on the success of the card drive correlates with not supervising externally funded students.)
— The ERB notice states that the bargaining unit includes “post-retired and emeritus faculty.” Am I the only one who finds this absurd?
— I’ve been fairly agnostic / confused about the union. I strongly agree with those who pointed out that since the card check succeeded, we should all work together to make the union functional / productive. This will require clear statements about what the union composition is, and also why it is what it is. I also suggest that the exclusion of PI’s employing postdocs or technicians seems to bluntly contradict the philosophy that the union represents “all faculty”. When vast numbers of science faculty were at the Mac Court exorcism of the OUS board, or were having countless conversations about the future of the university, it seemed like faculty were one unit, at least in spirit. And now?
Prof. Parthasaraty –
Good questions, which I’ll try to answer as best I can.
Points 1 and 2 – this is quite up in the air, and not a decision the union organizers can make. State law says what it says, and things can be argued different ways. We tried to interpret this honestly, in a way that made sense to us, but the final determination on these matters will rest with the ERB or with an administrative law judge. So I’m afraid that how we might understand it is a bit irrelevant now. I know that those on the organizing committee would like to include as many faculty within the unit as possible, but state law is going to draw the line at some point and say who is supervisory and who is not. I think continuing to raise the issues you have, and perhaps helping the ERB suss out the complexities would be very helpful.
Retired and emeritus faculty – this doesn’t mean all retired and emeritus faculty, just the ones that are still actively teaching, I would think either on a 600 hour appointment, or continuing as adjuncts.
I agree that having a broadly inclusive unit that had PIs would be preferable, but as I said, it is not up to us.
Dear Peter,
Thanks for replying! I appreciate your points, but
(1) there must be someone out there who organized the card check who can answer the primary question of whether I’m in the proposed bargaining unit or not. (I.e.: was I in the “denominator” of the >50% calculation, which must have made some statement about what people on campus “count?”)
(2) What exactly is the state law, and what does it state? (Sorry if this has been posted; I haven’t seen it.)
(3) If we’re somehow constrained in what faculty are in/out by some odd laws on union composition, is this *because* postdocs / technicians are included in the bargaining unit? (I notice, for example, that Vermont’s union excludes postdocs and <75% FTE people -- http://www.unitedacademics.org/currentcontracts.html. Disclaimer: I only read the first few pages, quickly.)
— Raghu
In answer to (2) and (3), I believe PIs would be excluded whether or not postdocs are included. Not all states work this way. But in Oregon, PIs seem to meet the definition of “supervisory employee” (see below) and all supervisory employees are excluded from bargaining units per OAR 115-025-0050 (3). (Caveat: I am by no means an expert on the law, nor am I a union organizer, so don’t take this as any kind of official gospel.)
Definition of “supervisory employee” from ORS 243.650 (23)
“‘Supervisory employee’ means any individual having authority in the interest of the employer to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward or discipline other employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action, if in connection therewith, the exercise of the authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature but requires the use of independent judgment. …” ORS 243.650 (23) at http://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/243.650
“(3) Bargaining unit(s) shall not include elected officials, persons appointed to serve on boards and commissions, incarcerated persons working under Section 41, Article I of the Oregon Constitution, or managerial, confidential or supervisory employees….” OAR 115-025-0050 (3) at http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/rules/oars_100/oar_115/115_025.html
Dog to PhysicsRaghu
Many of us are concerned with the points you have raised and are seeking
clarity, So 1) your not absurd (well maybe you are in real life but not in
your post) and 2) the issue about supervising who and what is important. For me,
personally, I can’t believe that “research assistant” would be part of the
bargaining unit. Stay tuned …
For those who think the bargaining unit is inappropriate, I do think that individuals — not just the Admin. — have a formal right to object.
“Interested persons may notify the Board Agent of their specific objections. Such objections must also be served on the petitioner. Upon good cause shown, the Board Agent may call an interested person as a witness.” OAR 115-025-0030 (2)(e)
Lots more on the ERB’s rules and procedures http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/rules/oars_100/oar_115/115_025.html.
See e.g. OAR 115-025-0065(7) and OAR 115-025-0045 on hearings held in response to objections.
More still at http://www.oregon.gov/ERB/StatutesRules.shtml
There is a group working on an online petition that can be signed by faculty members that object to the inclusion of TTF in the proposed bargaining unit. It will likely be posted here tomorrow. Ms. Elliott from the ERB states that “It would be best if [the signatures] were in writing and hand-delivered or US Mail.” However, given the timing over finals week and spring break (not to mention the weather), hand collecting a large volume written signatures seems infeasible.
We would like to articulate the objection(s) in a very concise manner that everyone can agree on. Something on the order of a few sentences is what we have in mind. If anyone on this message board has proposals please reply to this post and we will take a look before we meet tomorrow at 10am.
My advice is to carry through with this petition and the electronic signatures, with the pithy statement you suggest–while also several subgroups of faculty follow-up on Chicken’s suggestion. There are basically two ways to go: one is an election (which would result from the petition), the other is to have a judge review the matter (rather than merely ERB staff), which would result from filing objections. Best to cover the bases by pursuing both options–especially since the outcome of the petition, both in terms of number of signatories and acceptabilty of signatures not in writing (and therefore not verifiable, as the card check is) is uncertain. Duggar’s statement could easily be submitted as a formal objection to the composition of the bargaining unit, with only minor tweaks. If there were a place to go to do so, there may be enough faculty in town to affix their signatures in person. The objections don’t have to meet the 30% thresshold.
“one is an election (which would result from the petition)” No. This petition will not result in an election.
“both in terms of number of signatories and acceptabilty of signatures not in writing (and therefore not verifiable, as the card check is) is uncertain.” The result is not uncertain: The ERB will only accept hard copy signatures. This is in the OAR’s. The ERB will reject it out of hand.
Please not that Cat’s comment above was written before the petition currently circulating was issued. Thus it is not referring to that petition, but the one discussed above (the formal petition requiring 30% signatures in writing). I am fully aware that “the petition” currently circulating does not call for an election. What it does do, is what the ERB staff suggested: it frames a specific objection and gathers names to support it. She was very clear that she did not want individual letters from all of these people, but for people to object as “groups”. The currently circulating petition satisfies that requirement. Whether the ERB rejects it “out of hand” will depend on how they read their own by-laws (thank you, Chicken) and deal with what they themselves admit is an unsual situation (usually the only compainant is the employer).