Wednesday, August 20, 1975
5
Views of 'union' mixed.
From page 3
Leban said, the faculty would have a voice in determining issues other than wages. "We're not talking of bola collar issues, but rather of the policy, policy and character of the University."
Five petitioners, the AAUP, Leban, the University administration, the School of Engineering and the School of Law at Amman University, will present different proposals for the bargaining unit.
There were three primary issues of disagreement in determining who would be included in a bargaining unit. The issues were whether the department chairmen, the faculty members, or all attending schools and faculty equivalents should be included in one bargaining unit.
THE INCLUSION OF chairmen in any proposed bargaining unit was a source of continuing controversy because the Public Library has served all units with supervisory capacities from all units.
Faculty equivalents include employees such as librarians and research associates who hold degrees in their field equivalent to those of faculty members.
The AAPU, represented by Inara Horton, a local lawyer, originally argued that department chairmen and other employees essential to the faculty's teaching functions, such as museum curators and librarians, should be included in the unit. However, only research associates whose work was direct related to the curriculum included in the AAPU's final proposal.
The act defines a supervisor as "any individual who normally performs work different from his subordinates, having authority in the interest of his employer, to transfer responsibility lay off, recall, promote, or dismiss assa, reward or discipline other employees."
All petitioners agreed the wording of the act wasn't easily applied to a university situation. but the AAUP defended including chairmen because University implementation of the tasks described in the act vary greatly in different departments. Furthermore, in the AAUP's opinion, the act should be effectively recommend anything to the administration, another provision of the act's definition of a supervisor.
THE ADMINISTRATION's position, presented by Mike Davis, University of Michigan, states that it would be established because it would be in conflict with University governance systems already in effect and because the university inappropriate to a university situation.
Nonetheless, the administration presented a proposal for a unit because of the possibility that the PERB board would decide a unit was appropriate.
The administration proposed that faculty equivalents, including research associates, be included and department chairmen be excluded.
Davis told the board all faculty equivalents merited inclusion because their work was a part of the University's overall mission of teaching and research.
Chairmen were excluded from the administrative proposal, Davis said, because they were more properly considered a part of the administration, approximating the department's staff. He said that chairmen control salary levels within the department, often have higher salaries themselves and have longer term contracts than other faculty members. Chairmen carry only a normal number of hours in an administrative work, he said.
RON CALGAARD, VICE chancellor for academic affairs, said the inclusion of chairmen in the bargaining unit might necessitate the creation of a new level of bureauracy to assume the chairman's supervisory functions.
The administration also favored including faculty of both the law and engineering schools in the faculty unit, maintaining they were no more autonomous than other divisions in the University. The AAUP took no position on the two schools.
Leban's proposal wasn't discussed at length because it was essentially the same as the administration's but more thorough, Leban said.
WILLIAM  HAYNES, attorney representing the engineering school, said the school opposed any bargaining units but was requesting one of its own if any were
Haynes said the school acted autonomously in determining tenure and promotions and therefore deserved a separate bargaining unit.
Final drafts of the proposals were submitted to the PERB board several days after the final draft.
Both the School of Engineering and the School of Law attempted to show that they each represented a significantly different body of interests from the rest of the University. They claimed this justified separate units.
Representatives of the law school also submitted documents citing legal precedents for separate units for law schools in collective bargaining situations.
The law school waived its right to present a proposal in open session to speed the conclusion of the hearings. In a brief closed session, the Board approved the administration on their proposals.
DONALD HOFFMAN, assistant attorney general of Kansas and PEBR hearing examiner, said the KU hearings were the most elaborate ever heard by PEBR.
Determining bargaining units at the University is more difficult than most other public employ situations, Hoffman said, because of the vaguely defined method of decision making between the administration and the faculty.
Faculty opinion concerning the establishment of bargaining units has been difficult to understand.
THE ONLY FORMAL survey of faculty opinion of collective bargaining was conducted by the AAPU in April 1974. The responses to 1,300 mailed questionnaires
At that time, 49.4 per cent of the faculty opposed collective bargaining, 47.4 per cent approved and 3.2 per cent preferred seeking other solutions.
Informally, one reason faculty members opposed collective bargaining was that the administration had been sufficiently responsive to faculty needs without a unit. Other faculty considered bargaining units unprofessional.
WILLIAM MITCHELL, associate Special Collections librarian, wrote an open letter to petitionsman and the PERB board saying he would remind him that remotely resembling a 'bargaining unit. He later said he thought the creation of a unit would formalize administration-faculty relations and would cause the faculty to lose the sense of being equal to the ad-
Leban, whose actions were cited in the letter, said, "The only tyranny that we all submit to is the tyranny of democracy"10
In addition, he needed to select a null representative.
The only other public statement made by the faculty concerning the collective bargaining was in a letter written by Ernest Knaier, professor of geology and Roger Kaesler, professors of geology.
The letter said, in part, "we wish to counter the impression that is being generated that the faculty supports the principle of collective bargaining. Many of us are strongly opposed to this approach to governance."
THE THREE ALSO stated that they thought uniform salary increases, which might result from a bargaining unit's failure would result in "planned medicatiority."
About one week after the hearings ended, the petitioners predicted the PBER board would decide to designate a unit and that it would follow the administration's proposal.
ONCE THE BOARD hands down its decision, sometime this fall, anyone involved who would like to contest it would have 30 days to do so.
Some of the organizations likely to be representatives for the unit, if it is a school, are the Association of Teachers and the National Education Association. In the AAUP's 1974 survey of faculty opinion, the AAUP was the most popular candidate, receiving 58.4 per cent.
However, according to Leban, the vote to select a representative probably wouldn't succeed until an administrative decision stirs the faculty's interest.
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