UNH union (unofficial) website - AFSCME supported

FROM: Robert Strobel (District 9)
Composed at home

POSTED: Monday, March 17, 2008 10:18 AM

 

Reading over your Why Unionize page http://unhunion.com/why.htm, I find some interesting points that I would like you to clarify your positions or intentions.

1)      “- Each December we must take personal time during Christmas week, whether we want to use personal time or not. What if the university could not require us to take personal time, but instead negotiated time off over the holiday?”

What is there to negotiate?

Campus could remain operating that week without students and with many FacStaff on vacation (by their choice), operating at reduced productivity (nationwide, that is one of the lowest productivity weeks due to the holidays and time off), all the while having by law to heat and light EVERY building that has a few staffers in it (to provide a safe working environment as legally required). That goes counter to the campuswide goal of energy efficiency as well as eliminating the $65,000 in energy savings (or whatever the figure is) for that week.

Does the union negotiate with Admin on which buildings will remain habitable and who gets to stay home? Is that done by majority vote of the occupants? What is fair? What is practical? What is the goal?

In the overall scheme, shutting down campus that week is the same as  a manufacturing plant shutting down for maintenance: make the least impact on the bottom line.  Part of that impact is requiring personal time to be used.

Of course, UNH could reply to your negotiations: “Fine. We will shift federal holidays around so you can get the whole week off: Show up bright and early on July 4^th, Memorial Day, and Labor Day (or MLK day).” How many staffers would appreciate having the few holidays we get (University of No Holidays) bunched together into Christmas Week?

Or, most likely, staff would just not get paid for those 3 days. That would really be appreciated on top of our union dues / collective bargaining fees as well as reduced dollar values. I can also easily see the extra utility costs coming out of the salary raise pool or added to student fees and increasing their costs unfairly.

Since you raise this ‘issue’, please clarify what options exist if staff were unionized.

2)  “- Have you noticed that we seem to be losing parking spaces in the core campus? How are decisions made to designate parking spaces for specific people or departments? How was the decision made to eliminate most of the metered parking at T-Hall?”

This is part of the Transportation Policy Committee. http://www.unh.edu/transportation/tpc/  Faculty, PAT Council and OS Council all sit at the table. It is a greater UNH community event, and even NHDOT is involved. No, meetings are not open to the public for good reason: it would become a bitch session about parking. That is why it is handled in the way it is: by interested persons who represent their constituencies, just like a union is supposed to do. I, for one, have been in contact with both the TPC Chair and my PAT council rep regarding the TPC plans. Feedback from the committee is quick, open and informative. And the goal is not just to deal with losing parking spaces in core campus, but the bigger picture of long-term transportation schemes. Will AFSCME put the good of the community ahead of its constituents?

So where would the staff union sit on the TPC? Who would represent us? We already have 2 each PAT and OS Council seats on the TPC. Does our possible union representative replace 1 or both seats? All 4? Who is the union rep(s)? Do they have the experience to deal knowledgably with transportation issues with the same experience as, say a Civil Engineer like me, or are they there just to represent the views of the staff union and turn it into the bitch session the TPC is trying to avoid.

3) You raise the issue of transparency at UNH. Specifically:

Injuries: NH state law requires injury reports to be filed or face fines each day after an injury is reported. That information then falls under the Right to Know statute so anyone can apply to see it if it is not publicly available from Dept of Labor (I have not checked with them). Each employer is required to have a safety program on file with Dept of Labor. 

Parking meters: Why is this even mentioned? Costs of parking meters is usually set by the manufacturer based on the number of slots needed for the coin size. Why is the union even involved in that decision? What is the problem with parking meters, and what can the union contribute?

Parking tickets: Enforcement of parking regulations is necessary just like any regulation; violators can weigh the risks (a ticket) against the benefit of they perceive by their actions (taking an illegal parking space). The cost of tickets is set to discourage repeat offenses. This is common knowledge amongst any professional dealing with transportation issues or law enforcement. The history of parking tickets costs may not be available directly from parking; I do not know. I do know that until UNH started holding transcripts and diplomas until all parking violations were settled, and a Denver boot was purchased, payment of the penalty was up to the honesty of the violator. Again, what role does the union see for itself in setting parking ticket rates and why?

Hiring: The University of New Hampshire is an Equal Opportunity/Equal Access/Affirmative Action institution. Taken from the UNHJOBS.com website. This means UNH is in compliance with federal EEOC laws http://www.eeoc.gov/abouteeo/overview_laws.html I will leave hiring practices up to HR to answer (although I am quite familiar with them). Posting of jobs depends upon the positions open (internal versus external). Sometimes a wider net is cast to find decent candidates, such as on a national level for higher positions. Other times, it is local posting only such as Fosters or Union Leader. Just like any job search, you have to know where to look. UNHJOBS works for all postings, internal and external. If employees feel the process is not legal, they can ask HR for details on the process, and complain to the EEOC if that is not satisfactory.

Curtailed operations: The office of VP, Dick Cannon, makes that decision as listed on the storm closing page. Again, what role does the union see for itself and employees in determining when to curtail operations? Given a vote by all employees, I am sure that many would choose to curtail operations based on when their kids had a snow day, or when they did not feel like shoveling out to get to work.

In general, since when do I have no voice or answers to these questions? Why do I need a union to ask those questions when I can find out the answers for myself as I have done. All of the above is available from UNH sources or my own personal, professional experience.

Does this information need to be available to all? Yes, it should be and already is.

The question is who gets to sit at the table. Do I need to educate myself on pavement management, transportation demand systems, law enforcement and finance so I can, as an amateur, sit in on the TPC meetings so I can discuss parking permit rates for staff? No, that is why the educated, informed professionals who are willing to deal with it are on the committee. My voice there is through my PAT Council rep. If I want to take on that mantle because I am not satisfied with their performance, I can run for a seat a PAT rep, subject myself to the vote of my colleagues and then serve them, just like our form of representative government.

If the role of the union is to ensure that we staff “have a seat at the table”, what difference is there between now and with a union? I already have a partial or full seat at the table where I care to. What can a union do that I have do not already have available to me? Answer me those questions rather than raise questions that already have an answer.

Robert Strobel

Well said, Bob. The http://unhunion.com page is extremely disingenuous and misleading, in particular by claiming "The only way we can change our situation is to "have a seat at the table" -- unionize". This must have been written by someone completely unfamiliar with the PAT council, and how the PAT/OS system works here at UNH (I suspect it was written by someone from AFSCME). Through the PAT Council, we have complete transparency - contradictory to the claims of the unhunion website. On the unhunion.com site, when analyzing salaries, they ignore the merit pay increases we can receive. Of course, this is not surprising since unions tend to advocate across-the-board increases only rather than any merit increase - which is a great way of encouraging mediocrity, since there is no incentive to do a good job. If you factor in merit pay, you get a vastly different picture than they present. People should really ask themselves this - WHY is AFSCME so interested in getting us to unionize? Is it altruism on their part, wanting to better our situation? Or is it because more union members means more union dues, paying the salaries of the union employees? Are there things I would like to see change at UNH? Of course - but we already have a "seat at the table" for discussing those things. Would you rather have those seats occupied by fellow UNH employees, elected to represent us - or by union employees who we may not be able to choose, who likely are not personally familiar with UNH, who are not personally impacted by decisions made "at the table", and with whom we may have no communication? Personally, the fact that the union proponents feel the need to completely misrepresent the current situation at UNH (as they have on unhunion.com) is something I find disconcerting. Mike Briggs

In response to: "This must have been written by someone completely unfamiliar with the PAT council, and how the PAT/OS system works here at UNH (I suspect it was written by someone from AFSCME). Through the PAT Council, we have complete transparency - contradictory to the claims of the unhunion website." Please note: Neither the PAT Council nor the OS Council have any role in decision-making other than ADVISORY to the President. Depending on the receptiveness of the President, advice from either or both Councils may fall on deaf ears. As a former Chair of the PAT Council, I recall a time when we had very receptive persons in the Presidency. As Interim Presidents, both Tom Fairchild and Walter Peterson met monthly one-on-one with me as Chair, something that I understand has fallen by the wayside. Being one of many advisory voices at the table is not the same as having power, and it is the sense of powerlessness that pushes folks toward a union. C. Spreeman

Hi. This is just a quick response to Mike Briggs. As I've said in other posts, the UNH union website is the work of a UNH staff person who prefers to remain anonymous. There are many of UNH staffers who are supportive of a UNH union who are NOT anonymous. I encourage you to have conversations with us. I believe that open, signed communications are much preferable. Re who the UNH union will be: it will be US. We will elect our officers, just as we have elected PAT council reps. UNH staff will lead our union. The major difference between the PAT Council and a UNH union is that the letter operates with the full legal protections guaranteed by the state of NH as monitored by the NH Public Employees Labor Relations Board. Our activities are protected by law and not advisory as Cathy Spreeman mentioned from her experience as a former PAT Council rep and chair. Suzanne Huard

Here's a concern I have with unionizing - whether intentionally or not, unions tend to encourage mediocrity (at least the ones that I am familiar with have). This is a result of focusing on across-the-board pay raises, and standardizing pay rates based almost entirely on years of employment, rather than based on qualifications and merit. What would the approach of a union here be? Would merit raises no longer exist? Would a PAT employee be able to take on greater job responsibilities in return for higher pay, worked out with their particular department? Or would pay be determined based on union-determined "pay grades" (which may not mesh well from one department to another) and years of service? Jobs at manufacturing plants (such as an automobile plant) may be easy to break up into neat categories (i.e. welder, etc.) - but that isn't really the case at a university, where what employees do can vary greatly from one department to another.

Here is a response to an anonymous message posted 4/9/08. First, I think it's most helpful to identify ourselves. I think if you don't put your name in the body of the message, it posts as an anonymous message. So Ms/Mr Anonymous, here are some comments. First re the mediocrity of unions. I'm not sure if this is based upon any studies, or just your own perceptions. I'll just point out the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is both a heavily unionized facility and known to be one of the most productive/efficient shipyards in the US. So, there's that to think about. Also, I've read studies that state that good workers are good no matter their pay (i.e., whether they get merit or not). I can't put my hands on these studies at the moment. But if anyone can cite studies about this situation, that would be helpful. Re whether or not a UNH staff union would want merit pay, that would depend upon the sense of the membership. I believe the faculty have some merit pay in the contract that they just signed (or are on the verge of signing). My own opinion is that all UNH staff should be paid at market wages before we entertain the notion of merit. We have a number of staff positions that are below market and there never seems to be enough salary dollars to bring them up to market. I don't think I've answered all questions, but the Red Sox game has just started so that's where my loyalties are at the moment. Suzanne Huard Office of Sponsored Researh

The UNH Union site is run by a group of long-time UNH employees, a number of whom have previously served on the councils, and there are reasons why we have remained anonymous. That should not, however, in any way negatively impact the work we have done with and the information on www.unhunion.com. We are not affiliated with either AFSCME or UAW. We have used our own time and money to run this site as a service to all UNH staff interested in a staff union.

What I'd like to hear is how the union has any more power than the "advisory" councils, since as public employees we are legally prohibited from striking, which is usually how unions exert power in negotiating with employers. If you can't threaten to hurt them, how do you have any more power? As far as I can see the faculty union didn't do them a bunch of good and their "work to rule" action (the closest you can get to striking) seemed to have almost no impact.