Word: membership
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Monday, June 26th, a "contract" was presented to Union membership to consider and vote on three days later. This document was an interpretive summary of good faith agreements between University and union negotiators regulating eight complex areas of management and staff interaction and legally binding for three years. It contained optimistic figures and best-case scenarios on pensions and salaries, and much vague language in the crucial areas of health and safety, affirmative action and family policy...
Union organizers and staff set up "drop in centers" campus wide to answer questions about the contract. But no membership meetings were called so that rank-and-file members could hear each other's concerns and opinions and debate with one another prior to the vote. Instead, the union office launched a vigorous pro-ratification campaign designed to guarantee acceptance of the contract and smother rank-and-file critical debate...
...Kris Rondeau and Marie Manna in a letter, which was followed up by a face-to-face meeting and round table discussion in April. In addition, all of us participated in area union committees and conversed weekly with union staff and other union members on union matters. We promoted membership participation in union affairs by organizing contract information meetings and worked to increase union membership in our buildings and departments...
...contract. We had serious questions about the strength and adequacy of the contract to support union members over the next three years in the face of Boston area costs of living and the threat of a national recession. We were outraged that no public debate was permitted the membership until after the voting on June 29. We wrote a collective statement, "We Can Do Better," presenting our analysis of the contract summary and urging voters to demand at least two more weeks to insure proper time to study and discuss the contract. Barring that, we urged a "No" vote...
...union, barely one-year old, is in trouble. The problem lies in the attitude of our leaders toward the membership, and the membership's acceptance of that attitude. Our leaders are manipulating us, and we are mired in the old pre-union habit of waiting for someone else to tell us what to do and think. Instead of Holyoke Center, we now wait for HUCTW staff to arrange our working lives for us. Union leadership must serve, not usurp, membership authority. We must empower our leaders to represent us, not replace us. If we will only...