Posts Tagged ‘SEIU’

Administrators respond to demands of Campus Solidarity Working Group

November 5th, 2009 by Molly Turpin, Senior Editor

In a Nov. 3 letter to the Campus Solidarity Working Group, Dean of the College Chris Roellke, Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger and Dean of the Faculty Jon Chenette provided a written response to each demand made by the group.

The written response comes after an Oct. 30 meeting between about 15 members of the Campus Solidarity Working Group,  Roellke, Kitzinger, Chenette, Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Faculty Policy and Conference Committee Steve Rock, Vassar Student Association (VSA)  President Caitlin Ly ‘10 and VSA Vice President for Operations Brian Farkas ‘10. The meeting was intended to be a discussion clarifying demands, not a negotiation of them.

Members of the Campus Solidarity Working Group wished to video tape the discussion to be publicly available afterwards. The administrators present were hesitant and only agreed to allow the meeting to be taped if the tape would only be shared with members of the Campus Solidarity Working Group. Students present did not to agree to these conditions, and instead read a prepared response to questions about their demands—which had been sent to them prior to the meeting—before ending the meeting.

Along with their response to demands, Roellke, Chenette and Kitzinger also sent a letter to the group outlining their concerns with the group’s tactics of making demands occasionally disruptive proceedings. “We believe your actions are motivated by your deep commitment to your ideals of community you hlod dear,” they wrote. “However, your recent expression of those ideals in the form of demands impairs community by seeking to impose your will outside the representative and governance processes that are in place to ensure that a wide variety of voices inform decision-making.”

“At this point we offer you a written response to demands as the best option available, absent the opportunity for the conversation we had desired. If you wish to pursue a conversation that might provide for mutual understanding and compromise, we remain open to further exchanges,” senior officers wrote in the letter.

The demands included the “reinstatement of eliminated positions and cessation of job eliminations” as well as the inclusion of the unions on campus in all negotiations. The Officers replied that the compensation budget of the College represents too large a percent of the operating budget not to be reduced in the process of restructuring Vassar’s budget. In the response, they explain that because the restructuring of the budget must be permanent, temporary pay cuts across the College would not achieve the desired savings, and permanent pay cuts would render Vassar’s compensation of its employees uncompetitive.

The senior officers also listed measures to reduce the compensation budget that they exercised before eliminating positions, which included replacing vacant positions only when absolutely necessary, pay freezes for administrators earning more than $50,000 annually and a program of retirement incentives.

In response to the demand for direct negotiations with unions, the Officers clarified that there is a formal process for hearing union grievances. “The College stands ready to hear all grievances appealing staffing decisions that have resulted in layoffs, consistent with the established grievance process detailed in each union contract. Several grievances concerning some of the steps the college has taken were already in process prior to the receipt of the ‘list of demands,’” they wrote. ”The grievance process is a time‐tested method of settling disputes between labor and management. Each grievance focuses on addressing the individual request of an employee and how it complies with the mutually agreed up contract.”

Other demands included a thorough review of the new custodial schedule, the re-examination of expiring faculty contracts, financial transparency and an opportunity for members of the community to give suggestions about the financial decisions of the College. The senior officers responded to each one and reminded the group that the College is receptive to ideas through the e-mail address budget@vassar.edu or the Vassar and the Economy web site. According to the senior officers, they have received a variety of useful suggestions but did not feel that it was appropriate to share them publicly as they were not offered with the intention of being public.

In response to the first demand, the senior officers wrote that the College’s commitment is to the long-term fulfillment of the educational mission of the College, “There will be disagreement about what is essential to that mission and how to achieve it, and we welcome and depend upon discussions among members of the community that help to inform all of us about these differences.”

The complete response to the demands of the Campus Solidarity Working Group can be read after the jump:

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Students and staff demonstrate for ‘justice,’ job security

October 14th, 2009 by Ruby Cramer, Editor in Chief

A group of staff and students gathered outside Main Building on Oct. 14 at 3 p.m.

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On Wednesday, Oct. 14, at 3 p.m., approximately 100 members of the College community held a demonstration outside of Main Building; though there were several faculty members present, the group was primarily made up of students and staff from the two major campus unions, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

According to a list of demands read aloud at the start of the demonstration, those participating were advocating primarily for the suspension of all further position eliminations; the group also asked that those who have had their positions eliminated be reinstated in their former position or in another College position.

A draft of demands was discussed at an open meeting on Monday in the Gold Parlor, which was attended by about 10 students and briefly visited by All Campus Dining Center (ACDC) Chef’s Helper Cathy Bradford. After the demands were discussed and communally agreed upon, they were formatted on Tuesday by John Joyce ‘12 into the draft presented on Wednesday in front of Main Building.

At the start of the demonstration, Bradford was the first to speak. “Stop the laying off. We have families and children that we have to take care of,” she said. After further remarks from Bradford and from Anastasia Hardin ‘10, Sarah Muenzinger ‘10 and CWA Business Manager Carl Bertsche, the group explained that they would march first past ACDC, then Baldwin Hall and then Rockefeller Hall. Hardin said that once the group walked around campus, they would “present a copy of the demands to the senior officers in person.” All the senior officers, however, were scheduled to be in a faculty meeting in Rockefeller Hall until about 5 p.m.; the meeting was scheduled in May, according to the Dean of the Faculty office. Over the course of the group’s trip across campus, the demonstrators grew in number to over 200 people, according to students involved.

Update: By approximately 4:25 p.m., the group moved from the College Center to Rockefeller Hall, positioning themselves outside the building in hopes of attracting the attention of administrators and faculty meeting in Rockefeller 300. By 4:40 p.m. the group had disintegrated to about 25 people, and about five minutes later the demonstration ended officially.

Update: About mid-way through the faculty meeting, which lasted from about 3 to 5 p.m., the group of demonstrators gathered outside Rockefeller 300, where the faculty meeting was being held. President Hill reported that she heard banging on the double doors of the auditorium, at which point Dean of the College Chris Roellke exited to talk with the group. ”We requested that we deliver the demands to the senior officers,” said Joyce, “when others from the group demanded that President Hill come to us to receive them. Dean Roellke was already outside of the room at this point. President Hill met with the group briefly, and it was agreed that Stephen [Cheng '10] and I would enter Rocky 300 and the rest of the group would wait outside.”

According to Hill, at the time when Joyce and Cheng entered, Dean of the Faculty Jon Chenette was actually already halfway through reading the demands aloud to the faculty in attendance, as he had been forwarded a copy earlier that day.

When Joyce and Cheng entered the room, Chenette asked if they would like to finish reading through the demands and they declined, instead delivering a brief statement to the group. Joyce also presented President Hill, Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger and Vice President for Finance and Administration Betsey Eismeier with copies of the demands, which were also distributed to members of the faculty at the meeting. “I think it was really good that they sent two students in and that they were given the opportunity to speak,” said Director of Institutional Research David Davis Van Atta, who attended the meeting.

According to Van Atta, the rest of the meeting was spent discussing the original items on the meeting agenda.

This From the Newsroom entry has been updated with corrections and further information since it was first posted at the scene of the demonstration this afternoon. The last update was made at 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 14. Please continue checking miscellanynews.com for more breaking news throughout the week.

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MEChA, SAU and VACA host open meeting in ALANA center to discuss Vassar and the economy

October 8th, 2009 by Ruby Cramer, Editor in Chief

Picture 1Tonight on Oct. 8, a group of students, staff and faculty gathered in the ALANA center to “get to know each other, create some points of unity and share thoughts and ideas on what is happening to our community and how we might like to change it,” wrote one the event’s organizers, Anastasia Hardin ‘10, in an e-mail to various organization leaders on campus. Though  members of different constituencies on campus were in attendance, the meeting was formally hosted by M.E.Ch.A., the Student Activists’ Union and the Vassar Association of Class Activists.

At the meeting, one of the event’s other organizers, Robyn Smigel ‘12, began with introductory remarks, explaining that the meeting was initiated by students primarily as a result of the 13 position eliminations which were announced last week by President Catharine Bond Hill in an all-campus e-mail.

One of the first to speak was Science Support Technician Otto Bertsche, who serves as the business agent for one of the two prominent unions on campus, the Communication Workers of America (CWA). Bertsche claimed that since Hill announced the reduction of the 13 positions, three more had been eliminated and that the employees in those three positions had been given their notice without the usual representation by the CWA. “They should have been provided representation in those meetings,” said Bertsche, who explained that Associate Vice President for Human Resources Ruth Spencer has since apologized.

Several expressed concern that though the economic crisis has shown signs of improvement, the College has maintained the “same pace of job eliminations,” said the Business Agent for the Local 200, the Vassar chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Professor of English Donald Foster was also at the meeting. Although not present at the open forum with Senior Officers last Tuesday, Oct. 6, he was a major focus of the discussion. Over the course of the last month, Foster compiled sets of data in a document which he distributed at his discretion to students and other community members—major points of the letter were later refuted by Senior Officers, who made a formal written response, which they urged Foster to forward to all whom he had sent his initial document.

“When Frances Fergusson retired,” said Foster, speaking of Vassar’s ninth President, who resigned in 2006  after nearly 20 years of service to the College, “our giving dropped about 50 percent and stayed there. Our giving has collapsed. No one’s going out there schmoozing with the rich people. Our peers are, but we aren’t, and so our money is not coming in. The markets have come back up, but our fundraising has failed and our administrative costs have skyrocketed. Someone has to pay for that mistake, and it’s coming out of the wrong group,” said Foster.

Halfway through the hour-long meeting, Smigel redirected the conversation by suggesting that those present draft a list of “demands” that they would be able to deliver to the Senior Officers. Hardin began by suggesting that more transparency be a major priority. “One thing that we all share in common,” said Hardin, “is that we’re getting mixed messages, and we don’t have clear information or transparency.”

Though few others had suggestions for demands, all who spoke agreed that the group should work to increase the visibility of their message on campus. According to one student, Adjunct Associate Professor of English Judith Nichols will be working with a group of students to interview and take pictures of those who have recently lost their jobs in order to create “an instillation of posters in the College Center.” Next week, the group will be tabling and selling cupcakes to raise money for the posters.

Before the end of the meeting, one student called on the members of the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Executive Board—all but one of whom were present—to speak about how they were working with the administration and what they planned to tell the Board of Trustees during their scheduled October visit to campus next week. VSA President Caitlin Ly ‘10 rose to speak, reassuring those present that she and the other members of the Executive Board have been working closely with the Senior Officers to represent student opinion in the decision-making process.

Please continue to check miscellanynews.com and From the Newsroom throughout the coming week for further updates on these and other issues.

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