Gripe v. Grievance

While every grievance begins as a complaint, all complaints do not become grievances.  In order to know what complaints can be processed as grievances, you will need to refer to the Collective Bargaining Agreement between Bergen Community College and the Bergen Community College Chapter of the United Adjunct Faculty of New Jersey.  (You can access the Agreement on this site under “Resources”.)

As you will see in Article VII of the contract, a grievance can arise from a violation, misinterpretation, or improper application of the Agreement or a violation of any rule or policy of the Administration affecting the terms and conditions of employment.

The purpose of the grievance procedure is to provide for the speedy, orderly and equitable resolution of disputes. Inherent in the grievance process is the remedy sought which must be identified in order to make the grievant whole.  In selecting an appropriate remedy, it is important to keep in mind that the purpose of the remedy is restoration not retribution.  The remedy should be consistent with the collective bargaining agreement in order to protect the integrity of the contract.

If you feel that the conditions for a grievance have been met, please do the following:

1. Carefully document all facts including dates and times pertaining to the grievance.

2. Contact one of your local stewards – their contact info can be found under “About Us”.

Remember that there is a big difference between a gripe and a grievance.  A grievance is a formal challenge to the employer that the contract or College policy has not been followed.

Fortunately, most problems can be settled informally without filing paperwork.  But it is imperative that you contact your local leadership as soon as possible when you have reason to believe you have a grievance.  There are strict timelines for the filing process (which you will also find under the grievance article in the contract), and they start the minute the violation takes place.

Lunch and Learn at Edison

Today I met with the Members at Edison Elementary for the first Lunch and Learn. I had the opportunity to meet with General Ed and Associate Teacher SSA's, Noon Hour Aides and Food Service members.  Information was shared and your concerns were heard.   It was great meeting you all!

AFT Michigan Staff Rep Liz Duhn was there to discuss the issue of the Right to Work law and how it will impact all members.

Special thanks to Building Rep Andella White for bringing it all together.

In Solidarity,

Donna Jackson

President

 

Rosters

Building Reps and Contact Persons please turn in your rosters.  Rosters were mailed to reps the end of September.  It is important that rosters are turned in so that our database can be updated with members current informaton.  If you have not returned your roster please turn in ASAP.

November 7 Building Rep Workshop is CANCELLED!!

Saturday, November 7 Building Reps workshop is CANCELLED.

No RSVP's.  Workshop will be rescheduled.

 

We Did It!


 


Paraprofessionls, Teachers, Food Service, Clerical, Noon Hour Aides, Special Ed., Social Workers, Academic Engagement Officers, community and many more were represented at Tuesday's rally in Lansing and the Fisher Building.

We came together as one to send a message to Emergency Manager Darnell Earley, Governor Snyder and Legislator's that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Stop the concessions and leave our healthcare alone! There were 71 schools and 2700 strong represented in Lansing.  It was truly a day of action.

Let's continue the fight, TOGETHER WE CAN WIN!

 

 

 

The Glorious 70s

I just recently watched Harlan County, U.S.A., directed by Barbara Kopple, about the mineworkers in Kentucky who endured a long and painful 13-month strike in 1974 to gain a contract from the mine operators. Kopple won an academy award for the film for Best Documentary Feature in 1976. If you want a quick introduction to the basics of organizing, this film instructs well, giving all the basic components: workers, owners, scabs, contract, union. It also got me to thinking about other films with a similar content that came readily to mind, like Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), Norma Rae (1979), and Silkwood (1983). It occurred to me that the 70s was a time for pro-labor films; and then I wondered what happened to that theme.

The 80s happened. Reagan happened. That’s what happened. What I had known as a young person, that Reagan turned the country markedly to the right culturally and politically, came back to me in a wholly new and fresh way. As the credits rolled on Harlan, I recursively reread the 80s; I always knew it was a reactionary time, but Harlan in retrospect drove home for me just how dangerously and consummately the 80s and Reaganomics effectively shut down a worker movement. In fact, even now, we reject the 70s as a horrible time for culture in general: disco and pop music, hairstyles, fashion all draw scornful laughter as we look back on it.

What if our disdain of disco duck and the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever is really born in the rejection of freedom movements? The 70s were, after all, the decade after the 60s. And freedom and civil and worker movements were gaining some real traction. Stonewall. Roe v. Wade. A look at 70s narrative fiction films attests to what is now for us an estranged discourse of social criticism and stories of the marginalized: The Deer Hunter, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Shaft, Soylent Green, Dog Day Afternoon, Saturday Night Fever.

So what to make of this? Workers surged in the 30s in America and then they were put down in the 40s and 50s, then they surged again in the 60s and 70s. And then we were shut down. And have been since. So, I say, get out your Bee Gees albums. Or download Too Much Heaven and Staying Alive from ITunes, and listen to those groovy sounds. Dance naked in your house and sing to the dog. Maybe even read up on Stonewall, and watch a Village People YouTube video, if you’re brave. The gay, bad taste of the 70s is actually a pinnacle of artistic, political, and social achievement that deserves not our scorn but our earnest admiration and a sincere revisit. Watch Harlan County, U.S.A.

Valerie Holliday
Vice President
UFCT 1130

 

 

Ruling vindicates Ill. adjunct's right to speak out

When Robin Meade became chair of the Moraine Valley Community College chapter of Cook County (Ill.) College Teachers Union, she had no idea she was putting her job—teaching business courses as an adjunct—on the line. When she said the college treats adjuncts like "disposable resources," she was sure she was within the bounds of her work as an advocate for better working conditions.

PATFA urges language change in UMS 'Unified Online' report

PATFA offered a formal comment to the draft version of the System's proposal for a new structure for its online teaching. The report, "Unified Online," dated October 2015, is in draft form and will be presented to the Board of Trustees later this fall.

While PATFA takes no position as to the proposed new structure, it noted draft language that called for creation of Online Faculty Ambassadors (a committee, really) to advise the System on online teaching. The language specifically said "full-time faculty" would be on the panel.

PATFA's statement, posted Nov. 2, 2015, reads:

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