Union contracts, what are they good for?

Last week, Erik Loomis posted a summary of an article about the ongoing pilots' union negotiations with Southwest.  Loomis' point (and the excellent article he links to) are that union negotiations are about more than money -- they are also about the conditions under which employees work.  In this case, pilots voted down a proposed contract that offered them a large raise in part because Southwest demanded far more flexibility on duty hours to match other airlines  (which had managed to force those concessions from bankruptcy judges).

With the constant refrain we hear about unions being all about grabbing money, this idea of the employment environment is extremely important. I would also add that rules about firing and hiring are very important as well. My old union at the University of Michigan just settled (and essentially won) a grievance filed by a Graduate Student Instructor named Alex Chen who was offered and accepted a job in the bargaining unit, before having that offer yanked by her supervisor for spurious reasons. 

Of course, Chen lost her health insurance and tuition waiver in addition to her salary. This situation is deadly to a graduate student, who probably would have to drop out of school facing a tuition bill of more than $10,000. I've known several students in situations like this; and the psychological stress they face is extreme.

Chen reached out to the union and found out that not only did contract language back her position, but that she also scores of fellow members willing to protest on her behalf.  That article, which details what happened in the meeting, contains several fabulous anecdotes about a department program chair behaving like a stubborn child who has been caught lying about doing her homework.

An interview with Chen outlining her particular situation is here.

Anyhow, I highly recommend Loomis' post -- and the excellent comment thread, which features a really good discussion of the nuts and bolts of work rules in a contract led by a freight pilot (Major Kong) who is often found in the comment threads of progressive blogs. The thread is doubly worthwhile because it brings in information from the union and not just from Southwest, as well as discussing how issues like codeshare and subcontracts with regional airlines can undercut airline unions.

And remember -- work rules and hiring practices are just as important as wages.

Sequester .... still biting

Jared Bernstein has the goods.

The irony is that the Sequester was supposed to be so bad that it would force everyone to make a deal or reject it. Apparently it wasn't bad enough.

Silver lining: it's hitting defense spending. But still, we should be spending more on public programs, not less, especially with the interest rate up against the zero bound, absolutely no sign of inflation and unemployment at unacceptable levels.

I've got a personal stake in this, because high unemployment and lack of public investment is one of the reasons I'm a "makeshift" academic and not a permanently employed one.

Could a union have prevented this adjunct's death? Maybe not -- but it could have helped.

Slate's LV Anderson has a really thoughtful and well-researched piece up on the circumstances surrounding the untimely death of recently dismissed Duquense adjunct professor Margaret Mary Vojtko.Vojtko's death became a national story when Daniel Kovalik, a lawyer for the United Steelworkers Union, wrote an op-ed about it in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, suggesting that the university's treatment of its adjuncts and its demoting of Vojtko (and non-renewal of her contract) played a large role in her desperate situation

Anderson chronicles the Duquense administration's attempts to aggressively block an adjunct union drive, by suing to overturn an National Labor Relations Boad-administered election in which 85 percent of adjuncts voted for a union. However, she also raises legitimate questions about whether a union could have averted Vojtko's personal tragedy.

I think the structure of a contract probably could have helped some, though it possibly might not have prevented Vojtko's untimely death or helped her accept support to treat her likely hoarding tendencies. 

Most labor contracts implement mandatory evaluation points for promotion/ or retention protections and a series of steps called progressive discipline for long-term workers who need to improve. The idea is that managers need to have a right to manage, workers need to have fair treatment and due process. Negotiating a labor contract ensures that both sides have a say and recourse in the matter.

One object of the evaluations and discipline process is for a worker to get useful objective feedback about her performance on a routine basis and given opportunities to improve if she's not meeting standards. Steadily increasing sanctions avoid arbitrary discipline or  at least provide contractually agreed upon discipline. Guidance and support should help a worker improve, or get treatment if necessary -- which is often helpful for employees who are battling addiction or other mental illnesses.

The process also provides worker protections: a clear, transparent grievance process would give the worker the chance to both productively discuss issues with her supervisor and confront them in a legally binding process if necessary, avoiding the clunky and slow appeal to the Employment Equal Opportunity Commission Vojtko was pursuing when she died. 

So instead of arbitrarily kicking her out and cutting her workload, Vojtko's supervisor could have instituted a formally agreed upon procedure, provided warnings and kick-started the evaluation process. Vojtko would have had representation, protection and retained much of her dignity in the proceedings. She also have the ability to keep administrators in line with the ability to file a grievance.

Additionally instead of ad-hoc attempts to help from various faculty, a clear process established by a mutually agreed upon contract and (hopefully good) working relationship would have been in place to determine precisely what support the college needed to provide.

In short, under a labor contract, managers would have guidance on and the ability to manage, and workers would have representation and access to protections and support.

And note how this entire discussion also omits the higher wages and better health insurance that union contracts often bring, both of which might have eased Vojtko's stress over paying for her cancer treatments and helped her get treatment for her hoarding tendencies.

I think it most certainly could have made a difference.

Afterword:

I should note that Anderson's article really gets at who Vojtko was as a person. Anderson doesn't lionize her as part of a cause, or engage in victim-blaming. It's wonderful chronicling, excellent storytelling and respectful to the many facets of Vojtko's life and her complicated situation.

Additionally, see Anderson's work on adjunct working conditions and options here. Slate, give this women a raise already.

Finally, kudos to Duquesne's student paper for first reporting on the story and hinting at some of the deeper issues surrounding Voktjo's dismissal and death. It's tough for novice reporters to handle a story like this, and they succeeded as well as anyone could expect them to do so -- especially with defensive administrators likely staring over their shoulders.

Thoughts on unemployment (specifically mine)

One of the points of this blog was for me to reflect upon what it feels like to be unemployed. I've gotten away from that over the last month or two as I've focused a lot on health care and a bit on local Houston politics.

But the unemployment frustration continues. Academic hiring processes move on very slow timeline. Even if I get a job, it won't start paying or providing health insurance until July 1, 2014 at the earliest.

Second, is that many institutions aren't looking to give new scholars fresh out of grad school a chance.

For example, there have been 23 jobs posted in American politics on APSA's job site over the last month that are hiring for tenure-track positions. However, one is for a full professor, which indicates that a school is looking for a senior level hire. Three more are for "open-and-multiple" ranks, which mean that the school is nominally looking for anyone who might be a good fit. However, everyone knows that these positions are reserved for mid-career or senior scholars.

That leaves 19 positions hiring for assistant professors, but based on the rejection letters I have received and informal conversations I've had with my colleagues, a substantial number of these slots will go to candidates who are already assistant professors at other institutions. Having had a year or two a research support, salary and other resources will make their CVs much stronger than those of us just out of grad school.

It seems that many institutions (by no means all, but enough) aren't really interested in rolling the dice on developing a new scholar when they can simply raid an established one from another school.

It's understandable -- department rankings in U.S. News and World Report are at stake here. 

So that's what happens in our field. Just like all the other fields, candidates who already hold down existing jobs get preferences, while those struggling to break into the field (or worse yet, those who have been unemployed for a year or two) don't have as much of a chance. The rich get richer and those of us struggling to get into the game lose what little we currently have.

A senior academic with whom I recently corresponded (not on my committee or at a school to which I have sent an application) tried to offer some emotional support. He suggested that the process is full of opaque things that are unobservable to me. He suggested that I should exercise to stay healthy and relieve my stress.

He meant well.

What would relieve my stress is being able to have a salary.

What would relieve my stress is being able to have affordable health insurance.

What would relieve my stress would be having research funding so I have a fighting chance of doing original work before some group of scholars who are better funded and better connected beat me to the punch again.

What would relieve my stress is being able to save for my retirement.

What would relieve my stress is not worrying about having to move my fiance all over the country
when she has her own career to develop.

What would relieve my stress is having a professional identity so I can stop changing the topic when people ask me what I do for a living.

.... which are all things that senior people in academia and other lines of work often take for granted every single day.

Sigh. But I guess, maybe the stress is my fault and if I were to start a regular program of exercise, I would be in a much better state of mind. Maybe like this guy.

This week I'll weigh in on a few ballot measures and some other health care issues. Sometime soon I hope to have a broader post up about the state of play in Texas politics for 2014.