SUNY UCTs show off

Maybe it was the snakes on display from SUNY Cobleskill’s wildlife management program. Or the animated computer program featuring characters and sets completely created by students at SUNY Alfred. Perhaps it was the personal visits to lawmakers.

Whatever it was, showcasing the University Colleges of Technology (UCTs) at the Legislative Office Building in Albany drew enough attention and praise that it will be cast again next year, according to Membership Development Officer Fred Kowal, Cobleskill chapter president.

“We were able to showcase some excellent programs in a unique fashion and, even more importantly, many new activists were able to educate legislators and their staff members about the UCTs and our issues,” Kowal said.

Each of the five SUNY colleges of technology — Alfred, Canton, Cobleskill, Delhi and Morrisville — had representatives who touted both new technology programs and flagship courses.

Lawmakers were told of the plight facing the UCTs as the colleges venture to meet the new challenges that are the tenets of any expansion. SUNY has asked the UCTs to provide more four-year programs, but has not fortified that request with funding. And, UCT salaries are below that of academic and professional faculty at other SUNY campuses.

At SUNY Morrisville, college representatives talked up the school’s pending massage therapy degree and its proposal for an EMT degree program. No other state college offers massage therapy, according to college representatives.

Its new four-year programs include information technology, as well as equine science, which would educate students in managing a horse facility, breeding or artificial insemination, according to Morrisville UUPer Doug Langhans, an admissions advisor, who added that a new equine center was recently built using corporate funding. Morrisville is also trying to address the nationwide nursing shortage by starting a satellite program in Norwich (Chenango County) to meet the health care needs of rural areas.

The big-ticket items in quality nursing education are equipment and student-to-teacher ratio. A nursing lab requires computers, up-to-date software and equipment. Establishing an outreach campus requires double the amount of equipment. Additionally, training student nurses requires an 8-1 ratio of students to teacher, said UUPer Debora Kirsch, an assistant professor of nursing.

Thus, the pitch that Morrisville UUPers made to lawmakers echoed that of other UCTs: Specialized programs require more funding, both for technology and for more intensive training.

Steven Glasgow, a SUNY Canton admissions counselor, showed off a 1998 Toyota transmission as he explained how the college is constantly upgrading its automotive technology program with computerized diagnostic equipment because of the increase in electrical components in cars. He said the program of study is viable in today’s market.“Everybody has an automobile and everybody needs it fixed,” he said. “You expect who’s fixing it to know how to use computers to diagnose.”

Cobleskill, which changed its displays every few hours, showcased the college’s early childhood education program. Bound and illustrated children’s books, a panel of bright orange paper suns and art kits were all created by Cobleskill students in the vein of “how to bring the artist in every sense … into the world of the young child,” said Martha Price, dean of early childhood education.

She said the college has proposed a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education that would provide students with the training needed to become teachers or administrators.

Cobleskill also touted its herpetology program. UUPer Michael Losito, an associate professor of wildlife management, drew quite a crowd when he brought out a bull snake and two rat snakes, the latter native to New York.

At Alfred, four-year programs are also creating excitement and straining the budget. A bachelor’s program in architecture allows students to do “technical, virtual building,” according to UUPer Rex Simpson, an associate professor of civil engineering technology. Students learn to build first on the computer.

An Alfred computer art and design degree, in the process of becoming a four-year degree, allows students to design fully animated programs. They build these from platonic solids (cubes, spheres and cones), creating characters, houses, towns and full sets. Literature comes into play as they create stories. Graduates can work for TV studios, Web companies and animation companies, or make commercials or animated movies.

“We teach the technology first, and then how to apply it” to the animation and architecture, Simpson said. “Students can make and store parts. They can make anything they need for a building.” Interest from prospective students, he said, is “off the wall.”

The programs needed to educate these students are expensive, he said, and this is where the college needs support.

“We need high-end software,” Simpson said. “It’s a constant process of updating.” The software used for animation, he said, is the same as that used for such blockbuster movies as “The Matrix” and “Toy Story.”

At SUNY Delhi, the bachelor’s programs in the limelight were business administration, golf course management (the college has its own golf course) and computer information management.

“Our biggest challenge overall is changing perception so that people can see we offer four-year degrees,” said UUPer Jay Deitchman, a Delhi admissions advisor.

— Liza Frenette

Scheuerman testifies for Maryland faculty

UUP President William Scheuerman again assumed his role as a national spokesman for public higher education unionism last month, testifying in Maryland that faculty and staff in that state should have collective bargaining rights.

Scheuerman, an AFT vice president and chair of the AFT’s Program and Policy Council for higher education, appeared before a joint session of the Maryland Senate’s Finance, Budget and Education committees. He allayed concerns raised by critics that unionizing the state’s colleges and universities would compromise shared governance and academic standards.

“Collective bargaining acts to strengthen shared governance by establishing the ground rules and encouraging participation,” Scheuer-man testified.

He continued: “My own union and the national AFT have been active in efforts to raise the standards in higher education. For example, in teacher education, we are working to raise the entry and exit standards for students in teacher education programs. We are also working to strengthen the liberal arts curriculum within teacher education and to develop a core curriculum in pedagogy.”

The unionization measure before the Maryland Legislature would, for the first time, authorize collective bargaining for about 10,000 employees at St. Mary’s College, Morgan State University, Baltimore City Community College and the University System of Mary-land. It has the support of Gov. Parris Glendening, a former University of Maryland faculty member, and is expected to become law.

Maryland state workers gained the right to organize in 1996, when Glendening signed an executive order granting them limited bargaining rights. Those rights were written into state law in 1999, but the General Assembly refused to include employees of the university system, which operates under a 1952 state law granting it autonomy.

- Frank Maurizio

Higher ed colleagues share legislative goals

While the governor and state legislative leaders debated how much money is actually available to spend in the fiscal year that began April 1 and members of both houses worked to pass budget resolutions, UUPers continued to promote the union’s political program to lawmakers. In light of a revenue surplus that all sides agree exceeds $1.5 billion, UUP volunteer lobbyists have been busy advancing the union’s claim that now is the time to make SUNY a top priority in the state’s budget.

During the NYSUT-sponsored Higher Education Lobby Day, dozens of UUPers united with CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress and NYSUT’s Community College Council colleagues to advocate for the unions’ proposals, which include receiving the additional funding needed to restore full-time teaching faculty lines to 70 percent at New York’s public higher education institutions.

“In addition to this ‘overlap’ issue, which affects all of us, some concerns are very specific to SUNY — such as the deficit at our three teaching hospitals,” UUP President William Scheuerman said.

“The governor has taken steps to address the hospital shortfall with a proposed $51 million expenditure for 2001-02, but it’s not enough,” Scheuerman told the volunteer lobbyists, emphasizing that any resolution to the deficit must protect members’ state-employee status and the public mission of the health facilities.

The activists also sought lawmakers’ support for unfunded SUNY campus mandates — such as the new general education requirements and four-year programs at the UCTs — and an increase in base aid to community colleges.

“The issue for us has to be the quality of education,” NYSUT Community College Council President Louis Stollar said. “We can’t permit the state to allow the quality of higher education to deteriorate.”

UUPers also participated in another NYSUT event — the Committee of 100 lobby day — when hundreds of volunteer lobbyists brought the unions’ message for support for public education to lawmakers in Albany.

During one meeting, Sen. Raymond Meier (R-Western) noted his colleagues’ understanding of the need to enhance SUNY’s full-time faculty lines and to address the hospital shortfall to “make sure the hospitals survive” and their fiscal health is returned.

UUP lauds part-time faculty in testimony

Part-time faculty — who enrich and broaden programs and contribute to the quality and access that are the hallmarks of SUNY — are “crucial” to the University, UUP stated at a joint Assembly Higher Education and Labor committee hearing on the overreliance on adjuncts at SUNY and CUNY.

Nevertheless, UUP’s goal is to make part-time employment “less attractive to management” by making it more expensive and “limiting the exploitation of our valued part-time colleagues,” said Eileen Landy of Old Westbury, co-chair of UUP’s Part-time Concerns Committee, delivering the union’s testimony.

Citing UUP’s gains for part-timers in its current contract — which the union believes are the “best salary and benefits available to part-time faculty anywhere in the country” — Landy said “all part-time faculty at New York’s public higher education institutions should have access” to provisions like those in UUP’s agreement.

“In the spirit of solidarity, we call on (Assembly Higher Education Chair Edward) Sullivan to provide whatever help is necessary for the Professional Staff Congress to gain similar provisions for CUNY part-timers in its ongoing negotiations with the Giuliani administration,” Landy said.

Stating that full-time faculty is the “lifeblood” of the state university, SUNY Vice Provost Steven Poskanzer requested additional legislative funding for full-time lines and also supported UUP’s call for a five-year operating budget plan by noting that one-year appropriations for full-time lines prevent campuses from funding tenured, multiyear faculty positions.

“As Assemblyman Sullivan has observed on prior occasions, unpredictable or stop-and-start funding makes it very hard to run a world-class University system,” Poskanzer testified.

— Lisa Feldman Reich

Sharing their stories: SEFA an outlet for paying back

When Sharon Putney talks, people listen. Or, at least, that’s what she hopes. Because she’s talking for a good reason. Putney, a staff assistant in clinical pathology at Upstate Medical University and a UUP member, is a spokesperson for State Employees Federated Appeal (SEFA). She presents talks to groups of coworkers to let them know how the charity program works on a personal level; she also finds other presenters to talk to groups.

Personal experience, Putney finds, is the best motivator.

“When we have a (SEFA) kick-off, I invite anybody who has a story to tell to contact me,” she said. She then sets them up to speak to groups of state employees.

Putney’s own story is this: A couple years ago, she said, her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and hospice care helped to ease the pain.

“Toward the end of his life, my mother was able to care for his physical and emotional needs, but not medical needs. Hospice nurses and doctors made a real difference in my dad’s and mother’s comfort with him being at home. It was a tremendous support to my parents, but also to me and my sister who live in Syracuse — two and a half hours from home,” Putney said. “He died at home, which was exactly what he and my mom wanted.”

“The following year, when the SEFA info arrived, I noticed that hospice is an agency that I can designate my money to on an ongoing basis,” she said. So she began contributing money to SEFA, with the notion that she also wanted to do more.

Initially, she said, she was “just too emotional” from her father’s death to get more involved. But gradually, her spirit grew stronger. And she knew she wanted to share her experience, so she crafted a speakers program.

“It’s important for people to realize it’s not just ‘them’ (others) who need help,” Putney said. “You never know when you’re going to need it.”

One presenter that Putney recruited for SEFA has lupus. UUPer Kathy Nuffer-Davis, a senior staff assistant in clinical practice analysis, tells her colleagues how the Lupus Foundation helps her and others cope with the devastating disease. The foundation offers support meetings, educational seminars, newsletters and information, she said.

Another Putney recruit, UUP member Marcia Bellinger, a clinical lab technician, talks about how volunteers at the Rape Crisis Center buy sweatsuits for rape victims who come to the hospital and must leave their clothes for evidence. They also buy them food.

One UUPer among the Upstate Medical University physicians who speak out is William Williams, a professor of medicine and a hematologist. He talks to state employees about his involvement with support group for sickle cell anemia patients.

Getting coworkers active in SEFA is not only a way to share stories and encourage people to contribute, it is a way to build solidarity among coworkers and fellow union members. A woman who introduced Putney to her CSEA colleagues candidly told the group how she used to throw away the SEFA campaign material. Then, she became a department representative and figured she had better become acquainted with the campaign. When she saw that Catholic Charities was on the list of recipients, she knew she could not turn back. Catholic Charities did not turn back for her: It was responsible for bringing her to America from Italy as a 9-year-old orphan.

Syracuse HSC chapter member Zanette Howe, senior staff, marketing, is the campaign coordinator for SEFA at Upstate Medical University.

— Liza Frenette

Sidebar: Scheuerman to co-chair statewide campaign

UUP President William Scheuerman has been named co-chair of this year’s statewide SEFA campaign. He will serve for one year alongside state Education Commissioner Richard Mills.

“SEFA is just one more way for our members to show their activism, concern and solidarity across the state,” said Scheuerman, who had been vice chair of the just-concluded campaign.

The State Employees Federated Appeal, as it is formally called, is a joint venture of state employees, unions and not-for-profit groups that provides funding for more than 4,000 community-based programs.

Each year, UUP members are invited to kick-off events on campuses across the state, where they hear speakers and learn about different programs that SEFA helps to fund. This past year, state employees contributed a record amount of nearly $8.5 million. Many donate by using payroll deduction. Also last year, for the first time, UUP was featured in the SEFA campaign video through the testimony of UUP Vice President for Academics Phillip Smith, a SEFA activist at his Syracuse HSC chapter.

SEFA is striving to carry over the payroll deduction theme for retired state workers. Legislation has been proposed that would allow retirees to donate through deductions from their pension funds.

The outgoing co-chairs of the SEFA campaign are Barbara Zaron, president of the Organization of New York State Management/Confidential Employees, and Ray Martinez, state Department of Motor Vehicles commissioner.

— Liza Frenette

April is Link Fund Drive Month

UUP’s Eugene P. Link College Scholarship Trust Fund has helped make it possible for more than three dozen exceptional state university undergraduate students to pursue their dreams of a college education.

For more than a decade, UUP has turned to its members to raise money for its scholarship program, which is named after a founding member of the union. Eugene Link, a professor emeritus of history at SUNY Plattsburgh, continues to play a role in selecting scholarship recipients.

Scholarships of $650, for two semesters a year, are given annually to qualified SUNY students who maintain a 3.75 grade-point average and who exhibit a dedication to the goals of the labor union movement.

The Eugene P. Link College Scholarship Trust Fund Board of Trustees — comprised of the current UUP officers and honorary trustee Gertrude Butera of Alfred — has authorized various statewide appeals to entice members to contribute. Twice this academic year, The Voice has inserted a pledge card, asking members to donate to the scholarship fund. Many members have come through.

The union has also named April “Link Fund Drive Month” to increase awareness of the annual scholarship program.

“We want all UUP members to have the opportunity to donate to our scholarship fund,” Butera said. “It is one of the most important things we can do for our students.”

Butera reminds members that they can make memorial contributions in honor of family members, friends or colleagues, as well as donate to the scholarship fund as a way to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, birth or adoptions, job promotions, retirements and other commemorative events.

Checks or money orders — made payable to the Eugene P. Link College Scholarship Trust Fund — may be sent to the attention of Katherine Trudeau, UUP comptroller, c/o United University Professions, 159 Wolf Road, Albany, N.Y. 12205-1177. Contributions are tax deductible.

- Karen L. Mattison

Free money here

The UUP Benefit Trust Fund is looking to give away $500 scholarship awards to those who qualify.

To get an application for your dependent child, call the union’s Benefit Trust Fund Office at (800) 887-3863; e-mail benefits@uupmail.org; or print it off the UUP Web site at http://www.uupinfo.org. It can be found under Benefits; click on Benefit Forms.

To qualify for the $500 scholarship program, dependent children must meet the following criteria:

• The dependent child must be eligible for and enrolled in the UUP Benefit Fund on the last day of the semester for which he or she is applying.
• The dependent child must earn at least 12 undergraduate credit hours in the semester for which he or she is applying.
• The dependent child must have taken those credits at a state-operated SUNY school; this does not include, for example, any of SUNY’s community colleges.
• The dependent child must provide an official college transcript displaying a 2.0 grade-point average, or higher, in the semester for which he or she is applying.
• The application and official transcript must be postmarked within 60 days from the last day of the semester for which a dependent child is applying.

— Gail Maloy, UUP Director of Member Benefits and Services

Briefly:
New senior term life insurance available

UUP bargaining unit members between the ages of 65 and 84, who are interested in term life insurance, are encouraged to consider the newest benefit program available from NYSUT Member Benefits.

Depending on age when the plan is issued, a member may be eligible for coverage up to $30,000. The plan provides decreasing term coverage to age 85. Benefits decrease as age categories increase.

The NYSUT Senior Term Life Insurance Plan is available on a simplified application basis. Two health questions are all that are required on the application.

Spouses or domestic partners of members are also eligible to apply, even if the member chooses not to participate in the program.

All applicants must be between the ages of 65 and 84, and they must not be a current participant in NYSUT’s Term Life Insurance Plan.

Members who are receiving coverage under the term life plan will be given the opportunity to convert their coverage to the NYSUT Senior Term Life Insurance Plan at age 70.

For more information about this and other NYSUT benefits, contact NYSUT Member Benefits at (800) 626-8101 or e-mail to benefits@nysutmail.org.

Oneonta to host technology conference

SUNY Oneonta will host the third annual Conference of Teaching and Technology, co-sponsored by The Copyright Society of the U.S.A.

The conference, “Some Legal Guidelines for Higher Education in an Electronic Age,” is slated for April 20. The meeting will provide an opportunity for educators, administrators and technical staff to examine how colleges work in an electronic age and to build on their knowledge of legal guidelines for copyright and campus responsibilities for Web pages, e-mail and other electronic transmissions. Topics range from fair use to sovereign immunity.

“Networking time has also been included to encourage the development of useful professional relationships,” said Oneonta’s Janet Nepkie, conference director and chair of the union’s Technology in Higher Education Committee.

Principal speakers are attorneys Robert Clarida and Thomas Kjellberg, who specialize in copyright and intellectual property law for their firm, Cowan, Liebowitz and Latman.

Conference registration is $50; checks should be made payable to OAS. To register online, go to http://www.oneonta.edu/tltc/conference/copyright. To inquire about college housing, call (607) 436-2079.

For more information, contact Nepkie at (607) 436-3425, by fax at (607) 436-2718 or by e-mail at nepkiej@oneonta.edu.

Albany UUPer named new state Regent

A SUNY Albany UUPer has been appointed to the state Board of Regents. Joseph Bowman Jr., an assistant professor in the School of Education, is one of four Regents recently named to the 16-member board.

Bowman was appointed by the Senate and Assembly. He will serve as the Capital Region representative to fill the unexpired term (2004) of Eleanor Bartlett. He said his dual mission will be to ensure students have equitable access to computers and that teachers are trained in computer technology.

Regents, who are not paid, set education policy and hire the education commissioner, one of the few state commissioners the governor does not appoint.

In other state news, Gov. George Pataki has nominated Linda Angello as commissioner of the state Department of Labor. Angello has directed the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations since 1995 and served as chief negotiator for contracts with the state’s nine public employee unions. She was chief of staff to Sen. Caesar Trunzo and chaired the Civil Service and Pension Committee, which pushed for permanent cost-of-living increases for retirees and the veterans’ buy-back program.

Angello is a SUNY Stony Brook graduate.

State AFL-CIO offers four-year scholarship

The New York State AFL-CIO is awarding a four-year scholarship to a 2001 graduating high school senior who intends to pursue a career in labor relations or an associated field.

Applicants must have a parent or guardian who is a member of a union affiliated with the state AFL-CIO. The scholarship is $2,000 a year for four consecutive years, for a total of $8,000.

In addition, applicants must submit a letter of recommendation by a teacher or counselor, an official transcript and SAT scores. Also required is an essay of between 400 and 500 words on the topic of student activism and the labor movement.

Requests for applications should be directed to: Education Department, New York State AFL-CIO, 100 S. Swan St., Albany, N.Y. 12210.

Applications are due by Tuesday, May 15, to: New York State AFL-CIO Scholarship Selection Committee, c/o Lois Gray, Cornell University, ILR School, 16 E. 34th St., 4th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10016.

The Last Word
La lucha sigue!: Mexican workers determined to organize for living wage, dignity

“Fellow Worker! Only You Can Demand the Secret Ballot!” These were the words printed on the fliers that fired workers from Duro Bag Manufacturing Co. distributed last month. On March 2, the workers at Duro in Rio Bravo, Mexico — who make gift bags for companies like Hallmark — voted for the union that would hold the contract with the company. Since last summer, UUP has been supporting the Duro workers’ struggle for a union of their own choice.

On June 19, 2000, the Duro workers went on strike, calling for an increase in their $38-a-week salaries and better working conditions. The election was a climactic moment in that long and tortured process.

As UUP’s representative on the board of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, I was among the 40 observers from three countries who gathered outside company gates on election day to help ensure that workers’ rights were honored as they chose between the Duro Workers Union and the CTM or CROC, the two national unions that represent the company.

The election was scheduled for 9:30 a.m. When we arrived at the plant at 5:30 a.m., we learned that the second-shift workers had never been let go. They were being held prisoner in the factory. Reports from the six fired workers and three lawyers from the Duro Workers Union, who were allowed inside the plant to observe the election, told of massive fraud and intimidation.

There was no secret ballot. More than 150 “thugs” from Mexico City, hired by the CROC, lined the halls and escorted the workers through a gauntlet to speak their vote in front of a table of managers. Some workers were simply given a piece of paper with a number on it and told to submit this as their vote. The observers reported they could hear people shouting “Let us go!” before blasting music was turned on that would play throughout the “election.” The doors were blocked with metal sheeting; the windows papered over. Observers were kept in cubicles so they could not communicate with one another, and their objections to fraudulent voting were ignored.

The first votes were by supervisors and technical workers who were not qualified to vote. When the election results were announced — 498 votes in favor of the CROC and four in favor of the Duro Workers Union — it was obvious that winning was not simply about numbers, but about the workers gaining their dignity.

Because I was able to be in Rio Bravo to help with the organizing the week before, I got to know the workers and to witness the violence they faced in the days and nights before the election. Immediately after the election date was announced, hired corporate gangsters from Mexico City arrived to harass and intimidate the organizers, running them off the road as they tried to distribute fliers and removing all of the fliers within hours after they were put up. Local police collaborated with the thugs, arresting the organizers and refusing to accept their complaints of violence and intimidation. The day before the election, a car without plates arrived at the plant with six men who removed automatic rifles and pistols from the trunk and armed themselves in front of the organizers. The car left as the men and their guns entered the plant.

The day after I left Rio Bravo, one of the organizers was driven off the road by cars he recognized as belonging to the hired thugs. He was hospitalized with injuries. In the face of this repressive and fraudulent process, the workers view the election as a victory. “We didn’t lose,” they said. “We won, because we won our dignity.”

Despite their enormous sacrifices and meager resources, the workers in Rio Bravo are determined to carry on, knowing that this election was only a small step in a bigger struggle to build the labor movement. For union members in the North who can count on free union elections because of the determination of our grandparents in the labor movement, the courage of our Mexican sisters and brothers is a call for our continued support and solidarity, inspired by their cry: La lucha sigue! The struggle continues!

(Rosemary Hennessy is an associate professor of English at SUNY Albany. She also is a UUP delegate and member of the union’s statewide Solidarity Committee.)

To the Editor: UUP member clarifies story on federal ‘50 percent rule’

To the Editor:

I believe a statement in your article “AFT report questions if online ed is off course,” located on page 9 of the February 2001 issue of The Voice, is misleading.

At the bottom of column one, the article states: “One barrier noted by the commission is what is known as the ‘50 percent rule’ that prohibits the granting of federal student aid to students who are not in a classroom seat for at least 50 percent of their academic program.”

In fact, according to the Student Financial Aid Guide published by the U.S. Department of Education, Chapter 1, Institutional and Program Eligibility, “A school is not eligible for SFA Program participation if, during the school’s latest complete award year, more than 50 percent of its courses are taught through correspondence. ... A school is also not eligible for SFA Program participation if, for its latest complete award year, 50 percent or more of its regular students are enrolled in correspondence courses. ‘Telecommunications courses’ may be considered to be correspondence courses. ... A telecommunications course is considered to be a correspondence course if the sum of telecommunications courses and other correspondence courses provided by the school during its latest complete award year was equal to or more than 50 percent of the total courses provided that year.”

Thus, it’s not that students need to be in a classroom seat for at least 50 percent of their particular academic program, but that the college offering that online program must have more than 50 percent of its students in classroom seats on campus.

Hope this helps clarify what can be a confusing issue.

— Michelle Green, SUNY Alfred

To the Point: Democracy in action

By William E. Scheuerman
UUP President

Democracy is always hard won, and union democracy is sometimes even harder. For a case in point, just look at the recent elections to certify an independent union at the Duro Manufacturing Co. in Mexico. Workers at this maquiladora factory are little more than slaves. They work at least 48 hours a week for about 40 U.S. dollars. But sub-poverty wages are only part of their story.

Conditions at the maquiladoras are Dickensian, to say the least. Workers toil in unsafe and unsanitary conditions without health benefits or a retirement plan. They don’t get paid for overtime and must do whatever the boss says, or lose their jobs.

So, you ask, why does this happen? Where are the labor unions? This brings us to the nub of the issue. In Mexico, unions are mostly controlled by the state and dominated by the bosses. They’re not too unlike the unions in the former Soviet bloc countries. Internally, they are undemocratic and unresponsive to the needs of the workers and do little more than provide cover for the ongoing exploitation of the workers they’re supposed to protect. Mexico’s state-dominated unions give new meaning to the concept of “sweetheart” unionism.

The Duro workers don’t want an undemocratic sweetheart union. They seek a real union, independent of state and corporate control. They want a democratic organization responsive to their needs, rather than to the whims of the bosses. On March 4, they had a chance to turn their dream into reality when the state backed an election to pick an independent union. Guess what? They failed.

They failed because the election was blatantly undemocratic. It lacked even the most basic precepts of democracy. By democracy, I’m talking about a set of procedures that gives everyone an equal opportunity to influence the outcome of an election. The most obvious procedure is the ballot — the right to vote. But in the Duro election, there really was no right to vote because there was no secret ballot. Workers voted by voice in the presence of their bosses, who were ready to fire anyone brave enough to vote the “wrong” way. Other crucial rights, including the right to free speech and the right to assemble, were undercut by the state-dominated union when it brought in armed thugs to intimidate workers. Needless to say, this sham of an election squelched any chance of certifying an independent union. The bosses won — for now. The fight isn’t over yet. The Duro workers are committed to democratic unionism, and the negative publicity surrounding the unfair election only strengthens their position. Their struggle will continue. But the struggle for union democracy is endless, requiring vigilance, commitment, courage and lots of energy.

With elections for statewide positions coming up at UUP, it’s worthwhile to look at our election process to see what good unions can achieve. At UUP, all the basic procedures of democracy are alive and well. The right to vote is key to democracy. But without other protections, the vote is a sham. At UUP, we elect our leaders by secret ballot. As the Duro election shows, the secret ballot is crucial. So is the equal right for everyone to participate in free and open debate. At UUP, all are guaranteed the basic right of free speech. In fact, I invite you to attend a UUP Delegate Assembly to see the scope and intensity of the discussions. More, debate at UUP takes place on a level playing field; unlike federal and state elections in the U.S., money doesn’t play a meaningful role in our elections.

Democratic procedures don’t guarantee that your candidate or issue will win. But they do guarantee each of us the same opportunity to articulate a position, leaving it to the individual to convince others of its merits. That’s the nature of democracy. Democracy isn’t about the results of the process. It’s about the process itself. It’s about the equal opportunity for all of us to take a position, to debate the merits of that position and to act on it. Generations of American workers have fought for that right, and the Duro workers in Mexico are engaged in that struggle today. That’s why each of us must take full advantage of the democratic procedures.

At our upcoming Delegate Assembly, we’ll debate and discuss the issues; we’ll question the candidates; and then we’ll each cast a secret ballot for the candidates we think are best. Whatever the results, our elections are a celebration of democracy.