Thanks to the Invisible Adjunct, I ran across this article from Academe on unionization in higher education. The author, Daniel Julius, is quite bold in his predictions, but there's no question that unionization must effect changes in institutional practices. At the very least, as he suggests,"traditional" practices that are vague about whether participants in these institutions are working for themselves (research, athletics), for students (teaching, RA, tutors), or for the institution (committees, student supervision, teaching) and the blending of compensation and community status, will need to be clarified. Liability law alone demands clarification of the position of RAs in the university community/hierarchy.

I am one of the first to defend tradition and vagueness: our culture's drive to quantify and classify everything passed into pathology ages ago. But there's an element of"speed-up" in academia today: administrations and super-administrative bodies (boards, regents, state legislatures) are asking more of faculty -- technologically, pedagogically, productively, collegially -- and returning less, or at least no more than before. The use of contingent labor (and the not-so-subtle rises in tenure standards which result in higher untenured turnover, an as-yet unacknowledged form of contingent labor) is a part of that process, too, in ways both obvious and complex (and if you're not sure what I mean, you're not reading Invisible Adjunct).

This is not an abstract subject to me this week: the University of Hawai'i Professional Assembly (UHPA) is about to declare an impasse in negotiations with the state of Hawai'i. Actually, we've been in limbo for over half a year now: we ratified our current contract without an agreement on salary, so that our health benefits wouldn't get held up, but the grace period we agreed to for continued negotiation has passed without any movement, on either side. The state is offering a two year contract with no raise this year (which is what we've had for the last six months anyway) and a piddling 2% for next year; the union is asking for 5% this year (retroactivity negotiable) and 7% next year. The union position is based on the University administration's stated goals of raising our salary to, then beyond, the median for our"peer institutions"; the state position is based on a blanket refusal to consider raises (except for a few that they did raise) under" current fiscal conditions" (translation:"we don't want to have to work too hard at that messy budget stuff"). Irony Alert: UHPA endorsed the election campaign of the current Republican governor, after polling membership.

My feelings on the matter are decidedly mixed. I don't feel that most faculty here are paid particularly well, based on the work they do (our class sizes here at UH-Hilo have been creeping up for years as enrollments outstrip faculty hires; all the lower-division and most of the upper-division courses taught in history are at or near full enrollment; full and associate professors are grossly underpaid relative to peer institutions) and the value of the education provided to the state (not to mention the cost of living). The strike is a blunt instrument in education, a Weapon of Mass Negotiation, which affects the strikers and (mostly) innocent students much more than it affects the employer. Given that the only issue on the table is money, it's a little hard to justify drastic disruption of educational life, but money certainly is important, both practically and symbolically. No raise at all, when cost of living continues to rise, is essentially a pay cut, and it's hard to stomach, particularly when administrative salaries continue to rise and new administrative positions are being created, all on the backs of faculty accomplishments. Makes you wonder whether their committment to us is anything like our committment to them.

So there'll be meetings, including one on Wednesday to discuss whether the union should file"intent to strike" notification with the appropriate authorities. There's a few more steps after that: union board decides strike is a good idea; union membership authorizes strike including specific start date; strike actually begins. At any moment along the way, of course, negotiations might get serious. But there's a huge gap to bridge, and neither side seems inclined to split the difference.

I will post updates here, starting with the meeting Wednesday. My question, going into the meeting, is"are we being reasonable, in our negotiating position or our expectations?" I don't know if I'll bother asking it out loud, because the official answer will be a reiteration of our negotiating points, but it's what I'm listening for.