Theme: Labor, past and present

Union message has no borders

So long as there is a labor force, there will be issues with labor. It's as sure as death and taxes. Concerns range from working conditions to the affect of economic forces on trade which, in turn, affect labor. Look at what's happening at Verizon Communications, which recently merged with Bell Atlantic and GTE. As The Voice went to press, more than 87,000 workers in 12 states went on strike to protest the rerouting of service calls (more accurately put - jobs) to other areas.

In the 200-plus years since this nation was created, the work force has been affected by huge shifts -- including the change from manual to industrial labor; from industrial to technological. Wars, Wall Street and the Web have taken their toll on the work force.

Throughout the years, unions have been on the job advocating for workers' rights, safe working environments, child labor laws, decent wages and benefits. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement, that role has become even more global.

UUP stays in the nexus of that advocacy. For the last several years, delegations of unionists have joined other social activists to visit the border towns of Mexico, where factory workers churn out goods for high-profit American companies while living and working in abysmal conditions. Members of UUP have met the workers, heard their stories, supported them in advocating for their rights and have returned with the message that this situation must be righted.

Closer to home, UUPers have been on the scene making noise for other distressed laborers. At SUNY Albany, UUPers have joined other unions, students and community groups throughout the past year in protesting the repressive conditions under which the cafeteria workers employed by Sodexho-Marriott have been working. That company's contract has finally been terminated, and the cafeteria workers union has finally been recognized. UUPers also joined workers protesting at Days Inn in Albany after new owners of the hotel would not recognize the union and fired eight people. In addition to picketing, UUP officers spoke directly with hotel management. Union leaders credit UUP's intervention for the acceptance of a new contract.

Solidarity in today's world means action. A wrong against one worker means a wrong against all workers.

Life on the edge: UUPer tells the sad tale of workers along the Mexico border

By Michael Silverberg

The purpose of this article is to make you uncomfortable. It tells the story of a trip into the reality that lies behind the bright facade of free trade and the global economy. This reality is not far away - it lies just across our southern boundary in the border towns of Mexico.

The journey

Earlier this year, in mid-February, I left the house at 4:30 a.m., the car laden with cartons, tied and taped for travel. For days, my spare bedroom had been overflowing with paper, pens, crayons, soaps, shampoos and cosmetics, all donated by UUP members. Now they were all packed into seven large boxes and en route to Mexico. After a quick trip to pick up my colleague Judy Wishnia, we headed to the South Shore of Long Island to collect another member of our delegation, Dianne Lysaght, a Central Islip schoolteacher and NYSUT activist. By 5 a.m., we were on our way to Newark Airport, the first leg of our journey to Matamoros, Mexico.

At Newark, we lined up the cartons. My suspicions were correct; thanks to the generosity of UUP members, we had a stack of goods almost as tall as Judy. At Newark, we also met the rest of our delegation, led by Maureen Casey of the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition. From NYSUT, we had two field reps - Peter Ludden from Syracuse and Pat Domaratz from Rochester - and Denise Clapham from NYSUT's media relations office in Albany. The other members of the team were Ken Cielatka, one of the famous Greenberg 11; Ann Miller, a student writing a senior thesis on Mexican labor laws; Sister Linda Neil, who teaches at Catholic Central High School in Troy; and Terry Sullivan, who works with the Bread And Roses Cultural Project in New York City.

Despite Newark's reputation of late departures, we arrived at the George Bush International Airport in Houston in good time for our flight to McAllen, Texas. There, with our luggage and our now 15 boxes of supplies, we were loaded into a rented van and the pickup truck of Martha Ojeda. Martha, as we were to learn later, grew up in Nuevo Laredo and came of age working in the Maquiladoras. Like other activists and organizers we were to meet, Martha did not accept the corrupt business-as-usual system under which government, unions and employers conspired to virtually enslave the Mexican work force along the border. Eventually, Martha was forced to leave her Mexican home and move to the United States.

After dinner, we traveled the highway to Brownsville, where we crossed the border to Matamoros and settled into "The Ritz." We were at work almost immediately, meeting Manuel Mondragon and his coworkers in the Pastoral Juvenil Obrera (PJO), receiving thick packets of briefing materials and listening to the first of many presentations. One, on the political and legal background and history, made it clear to us that these workers see NAFTA and the free trade forces as an unmitigated disaster.

Bearing witness

Our first working evening set the tone for the rest of our visit. Each day after breakfast, we piled into the van and set out for a tour of one of the industrial parks around Matamoros or Valle Hermoso, then visited one of the colonias to meet with workers, or ex-workers, in their homes. Dinner was also spent with workers listening to their stories of life and death in the Maquiladoras. Rarely would we arrive back at the hotel before 10 p.m.

The factories we saw in the industrial parks had familiar household names transplanted from the United States to take advantage of a work force that could be had for rock-bottom wages, no benefits and a compliant non-representative union. Their names included General Motors, Trico and Fruit of the Loom, as well as factories we never heard of, but which make many of the parts that eventually are assembled into "American" automobiles - windshields, plastic trim and other body parts. The worst stories of all came from workers at a pair of plants that make leather-covered steering wheels. Without adequate ventilation, the workers spend all day using solvents and glues whose hazardous properties are concealed from them. An epidemic of birth defects among the children of these factory workers speaks for itself.

The textile industry is rather different. Clothes are sewn under contract by companies that come and go, sometimes closing up shop and then reopening under a different name so that workers can never attain seniority. By chance, we were able to visit one such factory. It was being occupied by the workers because the owners had done a "midnight flight," thus avoiding not only severance pay but also a week's wages. In a large, windowless and airless structure, hundreds of sewing machines were arrayed in long lines. The labels and production schedules for JCPenney were still strewn about. In the first-aid office, a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff were lying abandoned on top of the log, showing names of workers, dates and dispensed drugs. There was no record of complaint or symptom; the purpose of the log seemed economic rather than clinical. In the medicine cabinet, I found boxes of drugs - an inspection showed that the same drug, Metamizol, was dispensed under three different brand names. When I returned to Stony Brook HSC, I tried to learn about this drug. I discovered that it is a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug - like Motrin or Advil - but with an unacceptable incidence of side effects, the worst of which is a lethal destruction of the bone marrow.

Arithmetic

So, let us ask about the economics of this textile subcontracting. One in our delegation wore a pair of Ralph Lauren shorts that cost him $60 - a figure that left our worker hosts gasping. They explained that in this very factory, they had sewn clothes for Ralph Lauren in the past - at 37 pesos a day. Typically, a piece was assembled by a line of 28 workers with a daily production quota of 1,200 pieces. The arithmetic is simple - at about nine pesos to the U.S. dollar, the total labor cost of the garment is well below 10 cents.

So, imagine you are a budding Maquiladora owner. You rent a factory - a cheap, windowless building with a little bit of air conditioning for the manager - recruit workers for about $50 for a six-day week (and then charge them $10 a week for the bus that brings them to work every day) and set your production quotas. If the pace of work and the lack of safe conditions result in an occupational injury, you get the workers quickly back on the line with cheap drugs that may kill them in the long term. No problem because, by then, their kids will be old enough to lie about their age and work illegally, but docilely, in their place. If workers are upset about their conditions - say they ask to see the union contract - their union "representatives" identify them as troublemakers so they can be fired. Real troublemakers, the kind of people who want to teach workers about their rights, are blacklisted when they go to their weekly meeting of the Association of Maquiladoras.

What kind of life can one live on 30 or 40 pesos a day? Workers in the colonias we visited were trying to gain land titles by paying absentee owners. In many cases, the land had been used as a garbage dump that was bulldozed flat and covered with slag from the local freon plant. On tiny plots, people had created dwellings from scrap wood (the factories sell used pallets to the workers as building material), galvanized sheets and even cardboard. In some colonias, electricity had been brought in; in others, people had to rely on generators. None had running water; instead, they bought water from a water truck and stored it in a plastic barrel standing uncovered in the yard.

One of the most compelling exercises was a trip to the market to see if 150 pesos could feed a family of four. The money barely covered the basics - rice, beans, tortillas. Where, we wondered, did the money come for meat or clothes or shoes for the children? Members of the team left shirts, T-shirts and even sneakers behind.

Glimmers of hope

Despite the grimness of life at the border, there are elements of hope. People we met, despite blacklisting and harassment, are organizing and educating workers - the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, United Front of Workers for Labor Rights and the PJO. In the colonias, we met some remarkably energetic women who organized their communities in order to prod the Mexican government into providing the schools to which they are entitled under the law. Our gifts and donations went primarily to these leaders, to distribute to the families and children of the colonias. The money donated by UUPers and others also helped to pay for these schools as part of the Rainbow project.

Reflections - What do we do now?

I was hardest hit by the sense of complicity; the sense that our insatiable appetite for material comfort, for as cheap as we can get it, leads directly to the Modas La Reina factory - where the medicine cabinet had killer drugs and the workers waited in vain for the little that was their due. My car was assembled in Mexico and, yes, it has a leather-covered steering wheel. I cringe every time I take a shirt from the drawer and the label says "Assembled in Mexico of U.S. components." Should we stop buying such goods? For Martha, the answer is an unequivocal "yes!" For others, it is not so simple. The workers continue to come to the factories from the interior because they see no alternative. Should we take their jobs away? Should we tell the companies that we are prepared to pay more for goods produced by a work force that is treated decently? But aren't they already making huge profits?

One of our tasks as a delegation was simply to bear witness - to come home and tell what we saw. So that when you read scathing op-ed articles in the New York Times about the misguided trade unionists and environmentalists demonstrating against NAFTA and the World Trade Organization in Seattle and Washington, you would know a little more than the platitudes about how free trade will lift our neighbors out of poverty. And, to add our voices to the demands for that most precious of societal commodities - justice.

(UUPer Michael Silverberg is vice president for academics at Stony Brook HSC.)

Editor's note: Trouble continues to brew in the Maquiladoras. Striking workers at the Duro Bag Manufacturing Co. have been blocked from organizing by the government of the state of Tamaulipas and face increased threats of violence.

Organizers - including Martha Ojeda, director of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras - has been specifically targeted for arrest.

UUPers are being urged to bring this repression into public view by sending e-mails and faxes to Mexican authorities. Go to UUP's Web site - www.uupinfo.org - for sample letters, e-mail addresses of the Tamaulipas governor and the president-elect of Mexico, and for links to relevant Web sites.

On display: UUP archives become part of larger labor collection

The underground gestation period of the cicada insect is anywhere from two to 17 years, depending on the species. That's about how long UUP's history has been buried, and now it's time for it to surface.

When it's ready, the cicada tunnels up to the surface, flies to a tree, sheds its skin and is ready for the world. Likewise, the records of UUP's 25-plus years toward becoming the nation's largest public higher education union are finally ready for the world to see and read. Microfilm, photos, posters, past issues of The Voice and The Connection, and memorabilia join dozens of boxes of paper records at SUNY Albany's M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives.

Cindy Sauer, who has been compiling the records as an archives/records management intern at UUP while pursuing master's degrees in library science and history at SUNY Albany, can probably most relate to the feeling of being buried. For the past few years, her desk and the meager hallway outside it have been barricaded by stacks of cardboard boxes holding vintage photographs, Delegate Assembly packets, negotiations transcripts and countless file folders crammed with other old records. She flits from UUP's warehouse to the UUP Administrative Office to SUNY Albany - sorting and organizing, organizing and sorting.

Ivan Steen, Albany chapter president and director of the campus' Public History Program, tapped Sauer to do the job. More than a decade ago, he was instrumental in getting UUP started on an archives program. The project had many stops and starts before Sauer finally began the home stretch. UUP's archives comprise the largest collection in the department of special collections.

Lest you fear that acres of the printed word might not fully portray the spitfire of UUP, a complementary collection gives a voice to the union. Steen helped coordinate an oral history project, with the stories of 40 different academics and professionals, that was completed in 1990.

"When you combine interviews with documentary records, you get a multidimensional history," Steen said. "The paper records will tell you what was done, but it won't tell you why individuals pushed for one thing or another." The tapes and transcripts for the oral history interviews are also available at the department.

The UUP archives are in good company. Brian Keough, curator of manuscripts at SUNY Albany and a UUPer, takes special pride in the department's growing Archives of Public Affairs and Policy (APAP), which he is actively seeking to expand. So far, APAP includes records relating to politics, labor, women's rights, civil rights and social activism in New York. UUPers Dorothy Christiansen, Mary Osielski and Geoffrey Williams all work in the department, along with David Mitchell.

"These things will be even more valuable in 100 years," Keough said. "They give insight into the legislative process, the political process, lobbying, and special and public interest in New York."

At her UUP post, Sauer not only appraises the historical value of UUP records, but has created a records management program for the UUP Administrative Office. The ongoing task at UUP will be to maintain the records within each department and make future additions to the archives. However, not all records will end up there. Some, such as most benefits and financial records, are held in a sort of records purgatory for several years for legal and financial reasons and are then destroyed.

Researchers interested in mining UUP's archival records can link to a finding aid from either the union or department Web sites - www.uupinfo.org and www.albany.edu/library/divs/speccoll, respectively. Access to certain documents is restricted, and researchers must sign an agreement not to disclose any personal information obtained in their treasure hunting.

UUP announces higher ed alliance

If the weather was an indicator of things to come, then the partnership forged in May between UUP and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) - a national, not-for-profit higher education organization - is a sure bet. A warm breeze and a blue, cloudless sky greeted UUP President William Scheuerman as he announced the alliance before dozens of reporters, union members and officials at a press conference outside the SUNY System Administration building in Albany.

"Through this relationship, UUP and AAUP will speak with one voice to protect the principles of academic freedom and shared governance," Scheuerman said. "We've learned that when we speak loudly, forcefully and with clarity to the SUNY trustees, we often get results. This alliance will only strengthen us."

Flanked at the podium by AAUP's General Secretary Mary Burgan and President Jane Buck, Scheuerman said the alliance is a response, in part, to the diminished academic voice faculty have under the current SUNY Board of Trustees. In 1998, the trustees developed and approved a core curriculum without faculty discussion, debate or input. All 29 SUNY state-operated campuses passed no-confidence votes against the trustees in response.

Vincent Aceto -- who, as the immediate past president of the SUNY Faculty Senate, played a leading role in the no-confidence decision -- explained that while faculty members don't oppose a core curriculum, they resent the closed-door way the measure was approved, as well as their shrinking role in academic decision making.

"Disagreement, and the sharing of different points of view, creates a stronger product - the best ideas are brought forward this way," Aceto said. "Academic freedom can only flourish when due process and autonomy are assured."

The UUP/AAUP partnership puts the trustees on notice that their future actions -- or inactions -- will be closely observed, and that their meddling in areas traditionally handled by faculty must come to an end, AAUP General Secretary Burgan said.

"The SUNY trustees have inappropriately involved themselves in faculty concerns and we intend to bring national attention to this," she said.

Buck said these goals would be more easily attained by working in partnership with a union organization.

"It's hard enough to effect change with collective bargaining; it's even harder without it," she said. Although AAUP has long been identified as an academic organization, the partnership will not diminish the role of UUP's professional members. Before forming the alliance, UUP leaders underscored that non-teaching union members are an intrinsic part of the organization, said Thomas Matthews, the union's former vice president for professionals.

"We made sure AAUP understood that, with more than 8,000 professional members, we are not second-class citizens,"

Matthews said. "We bring that same attitude to our collaboration with them."

AAUP is backing its commitment to work with all UUP members with action. Matthews will be the first non-teaching member appointed to an AAUP committee. He will serve on the Committee on Academic Professionals, which will prepare a report for possible inclusion in AAUP's Red Book, a publication outlining the group's policies.

SUNY is still getting rammed

Despite a second name change, allocations made under the University's current fiscal plan did not alter the result for most state-operated campuses this academic year. SUNY's $1.7 billion financial plan for 2000-2001 shortchanges 20 of the 29 campuses through its newly coined Performance Based Budgeting (PBB) system, which fails to give those schools adequate funds to meet contractual obligations and inflationary costs.

All of the specialized colleges were hurt by the plan, as were Brooklyn HSC, all Colleges of Technology - except Cobleskill - and 10 of the University colleges. SUNY Maritime was hardest hit, receiving only $6,600 more - or .06 percent - than last year.

"SUNY's Board of Trustees continues to utilize an arbitrary allocation system that rewards some campuses for research and enrollment successes and 'rams' others for not making that grade," UUP President William Scheuerman said.

The union sees RAM, BAP and now PBB as merely one and the same mechanistic method of budgeting that harms the University as a whole by discounting the quality of education provided on SUNY campuses.

"The trustees' methodology ignores academic excellence in resource allocations, which makes it extremely challenging for the colleges to continue offering the level of education that state university students deserve and have come to expect," Scheuerman said. "This illogical approach, which results in massive underfunding, must stop."

On a more positive note, the governor approved bills that expedited UUP contract enhancements, made changes to New York's pension system and enacted - intact - the early retirement incentive.

The pay bill authorized calendar- and college-year bargaining unit members to receive 3 percent increases in August, with raises for academic-year faculty due this month. The 1 percent discretionary payments are scheduled for Oct. 25, Nov. 8 or Nov. 22, and Dec. 6 for Brooklyn HSC.

Long sought by UUP and NYSUT, state employee retirees will now receive a permanent, annual COLA - cost-of-living adjustment. The yearly increases are based on 50 percent of the consumer price index, range from 1 to 3 percent and apply to the first $18,000 of the retiree's pension.

And, active Tier I and II public retirement system members will receive a month of additional service credit for each year of service up to 24 months, and Tier III and IV members will no longer be required to contribute 3 percent of their salary after 10 years of membership.

These pension changes affect only those UUPers who are enrolled in either the New York State Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) or the New York State Employees' Retirement System (ERS).

The union continues to explore ways to accomplish a similar result for those members who are contributing to their own optional retirement accounts.

"Even though there was no cost to the state to provide these enhancements for TRS and ERS enrollees, we'll continue to find a way to benefit those members who are in TIAA-CREF or other optional retirement plans," Scheuerman said.

In spite of SUNY's attempt to weaken the attractiveness of the incentive with legislation that would have eliminated vacated faculty positions, the law, as enacted, will maintain the integrity of those lines.

"These legislative victories are examples of UUP's growing clout with state lawmakers," Scheuerman said. "The union's ongoing presence at the Capitol and in local district offices all session - in conjunction with our lobbying efforts with our NYSUT affiliate - resulted in successful legislation this year on behalf of both our active and retired members."

Meanwhile, state Comptroller H. Carl McCall issued a scathing criticism of University managers and the governor for failing to address the ongoing budget shortfall at the three SUNY teaching hospitals, and for again borrowing millions of dollars to close the system's fiscal year on June 30.

SUNY borrowed $114 million in order to cover last year's budget deficit and, according to the comptroller, it plans to borrow again next year despite the ill-advised nature of this "fiscal gimmick," long recognized as "fiscally unsound." McCall said: "Repeatedly running a deficit and trying to cover it with 'temporary' loans from the state is no way to run a university."

The comptroller also echoed UUP's disappointment in the SUNY Board of Trustees for not serving as a "strong independent proponent of the system."

AFT prepares for the future

UUP President William Scheuerman was re-elected as a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) at the federation's convention held in Philadelphia in July.

Delegates also re-elected AFT President Sandra Feldman, Secretary-Treasurer Edward McElroy and Executive Vice President Nat LaCour.

The four-day convention - which attracted nearly 4,000 delegates and guests from across the nation - brought together K-16 educators, professional staff, health-care workers and public employees to debate issues and share ideas.

The highlight of the convention was a spirited address by Vice President Al Gore, who promised that, as president, he would "bring not small changes, not gradual improvements, not minor advances, but truly revolutionary advances in our public schools."

Gore also committed himself to universal health care and to a patients' bill of rights.

"I'm for it; the other side is against it," Gore told cheering delegates. "The other side chooses power instead of people."

Delegates also adopted a resolution important to UUP, which opposes the abuse of part-time faculty and other non-permanent education employees. The resolution called on the AFT to "support its affiliates in the development and implementation of negotiations, political action and legislative strategies to mandate the full and adequate staffing that is necessary to provide the highest level of quality and service in the institutions in which our members work."

In other convention business:

* Pearl Brod of SUNY Farmingdale, chair of UUP's Committee on Active Retired Membership, was among those honored by the AFT Women's Rights Committee for her 30 years of union service. Antonia Cortese, first vice president of NYSUT, UUP's statewide affiliate, was also feted.

* Scheuerman and several other UUPers joined a contingent of 50 AFT delegates and other higher ed leaders in support of the Temple University Graduate Student Association at the Philadelphia campus. Temple's 1,100 graduate employees have been fighting for three years for the right to bargain. Prior to the protest, delegates OK'd a special resolution calling on Temple trustees to stop legal challenges and allow the election to proceed.

* Convention delegates adopted a resolution aimed at helping state employee unions to offset the negative impact of a string of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that, among other things, prevent state workers from suing their employers for violations of federal laws, including the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

* Delegates endorsed the "Living Wage Movement," which supports wages that allow individuals to spend no more than 30 percent of their income on housing - the benchmark that many financial advisors use.

* Former NYSUT Executive Vice President Herb Magidson presented the AFT Executive Council's "Futures II" report, an outline of four major goals to guide the growing union in coming years. The report is available at http://www.aft.org/reports/futures.

* Irwin Polishook, retiring AFT vice president, officially turned over the leadership mantel of federation's higher education program and policy council to Scheuerman by giving him a hardhat. "There will be times when you'll need this," Polishook warned.

Voice, ad campaign win national awards

UUP's monthly magazine and its annual legislative advertising campaign have earned several awards in a national communications competition.

The Voice won a total of four awards, including a first award for best art or photo. The magazine also took home three awards of merit for general excellence, best news story and best column in the annual contest sponsored by the AFT Communications Association (AFTCA), an organization of public relations professionals and elected leaders of AFT locals.

The union's legislative "Ouch" campaign that warned "Cuts to SUNY hurt us all" garnered an award of merit from AFTCA.

The winning illustration of a new-wave Rosie the Riveter ran in the September 1999 issue of The Voice. The artwork, by freelancer Jason Yungbluth, accompanied a series of articles on the labor movement. Winning second-place honors were UUP President William Scheuerman's "Out of the mouths of babes" January 2000 column ("written" by his granddaughter Lizzie) and freelancer Karen Nelis' February 2000 news story that offered an in-depth look at the growing concerns of part-timers.

The January, February and March 2000 issues of The Voice were praised by the judges to be among the best in overall excellence.

Contest judges included Dave Berver, AFT's online editor; Susan Erem, communications director for the Service Employees International Union; Sue Graves, editor of the Albany-area community newspaper Spotlight; and Mary Van Buren, communications organizer, New England Health Care Employees Union in Hartford, Conn.

'Union' upbringing: Winners learn history, values of labor movement

Don't believe anyone who says baby boomers-turned-parents aren't teaching their children about the history and values of the American labor movement. This year's Eugene P. Link College Scholarship Trust Fund recipients know how untrue that is: Their parents have taught them well.

The recipients -- Kelly Burdick, a senior majoring in secondary social studies at SUNY Cortland, and Breelynd Eggleston, a junior majoring in psychology at SUNY Geneseo -- grew up listening to stories of how people, working together, can reach greater heights. Burdick heard it from her widowed father, a lifelong factory worker who inspired each of his nine children to overcome adversity through integrity and hard work. Eggleston's parents, both NYSUT members for more than two decades, trumpeted the importance of a unionized work force, going so far as to forbid their then-teenage daughter from working at an anti-union grocery store. Those early lessons took hold.

In Burdick's words: "I appreciate and understand the plight of people who, like my dad, have been determined to maintain the dignity and respect that should be given to all diligent workers. For this reason, I am committed to supporting the traditional union values that protect workers in the United States today."

Burdick, a nontraditional student seeking a second undergraduate degree from Cortland, graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1997. Her current goal: to obtain permanent teaching certification - and to pass on all she has learned.

She has been a tutor, a teaching assistant and a substitute teacher, and has held leadership roles in the Cortland College Student Association, the Psychology Club and the Status & Education of Women Organization. She has also been a member of the Black Student Union and the Honors Convocation Committee.

Burdick currently sings in her church choir, serves as a youth group leader and is president of Biblical Perspectives.

"Though slight and soft spoken, she stands up for herself and for issues that concern her with the spunk of a 1960s radical," said Cortland UUPer Donald Wright, a distinguished teacher professor in the department of history. "She is one of the rare individuals I know who takes on matters involving race, class and gender because of the clear injustice involved, rather than because they are issues of current concern to the greater public."

Burdick, a member of the national Phi Kappa Phi and Psi Chi Psychology honor societies, has a 4.0 grade-point average.

Eggleston credits her parents with instilling in her a deep-seeded appreciation for unions: "From a very young age, I have been aware of the importance of being in a labor union - the protection of your job ... the advantage of collectively bargaining for salary and benefits, and the strength and support that comes in the sheer number of people involved."

At Geneseo, Eggleston has proven herself as an advocate of acceptance and as a fighter against social injustices. As a member of the Women's Action Coalition Steering Committee, she has participated in a Take Back the Night march against violence, and has been actively involved with the campus-based group Gay, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Friends.

Eggleston also finds time to keep up her studies (she maintains a 3.78 grade-point average and has been named to the Dean's List every semester), as well as conduct psychological research for college credit. Her content analysis of AIDS in college-level textbooks is part of a co-authored paper to be published by the American Psychological Association.

"Bree has a serious social conscience and is one who knows the meaning of both work and public service," said Geneseo UUPer Russell Judkins, an associate professor of anthropology.

Eggleston is a member of the Inner Rhythms poetry troupe and the Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society, and she is a former member of Circle K and the campus Hall Council.

Both scholarship recipients are scheduled to be honored later this month at UUP's Fall Delegate Assembly in Buffalo.

The union established the scholarship in 1985 as a testimonial to Eugene Link, a UUP founder and a professor emeritus of history at SUNY Plattsburgh.

Labor of love: Two activists earn UUP's award of distinction

One has paved the way. The other is taking that path in a new direction. Both have been formally recognized by their peers for their noteworthy contributions to the union. SUNY Stony Brook retired professional Charles Hansen and SUNY Plattsburgh librarian Patricia Bentley have been named this year's recipients of UUP's Nina Mitchell Award for Distinguished Service. Although their paths rarely cross, their commitment to academic unionism keeps them headed in the right direction, and places them among a short list of dedicated unionists to earn the Mitchell award.

The honorees are scheduled to receive their awards later this month during the Fall Delegate Assembly in Buffalo. The award was named in honor of Nina Mitchell (1926-1988), a veteran union activist from Brooklyn HSC.

A pioneering member of the union's predecessor organizations - State University Professional Association (SUPA) and the Senate Professional Association (SPA) - Hansen is considered by his chapter nominators to have an "unwavering agenda to make faculty and professionals equal partners in the eyes of SUNY and state managers."

In the early days, that was easier said than done. Professionals were, by all accounts, hired and fired at the whim of managers. As assistant director of business management at the Graduate Physics Facility, Hansen fought to change that.

In SUPA, he served as a delegate and on several committees. When SPA evolved as a hybrid organization to encompass both academic and professional faculty, Hansen was called to serve as his chapter's first president and, later, as vice president for professionals. He is still a UUP delegate.

"No one worked harder for union issues than Charlie Hansen," his nominators said. "His vision of and for the union has led to a sense of importance and belonging that many members feel today. Every professional today has been positively affected by Charlie's vision three decades ago."

Hansen was UUP's vice president for professionals in the early '80s and served for three years on the Executive Board. He has also been a member of the Negotiations, Career Development, Membership, and Active Retired Membership committees.

Bentley may not yet have 30 years of union activism under her belt, but she has made her mark in the 12 years she has been active in UUP. She is currently on the statewide Executive Board, serves as Legislation Committee chair, is a UUP delegate and was recently elected to serve on the NYSUT Board of Directors.

"Patty has been a tireless champion of SUNY in the Legislature and has created much goodwill toward UUP in the process," Executive Board member Kenneth Kallio of Geneseo said in his nominating petition.

Despite her full plate, she remains an outspoken leader for students and colleagues, for women and librarians, and for gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

"We call her 'Patty UUP' because she is the embodiment of the union and everything good it stands for," her Plattsburgh nominators added. "She has waged personal battles all her life for equity and fairness, so it is only natural that a union championing many of these same issues would become the vehicle for her work."

And work she has. At the chapter, she served as president from 1994-1999, as vice president for academics for four years prior and as treasurer before that. She spent most of the last decade as the chapter's legislative coordinator and still sits on the chapter executive board.

Statewide, Bentley was a member of the union's Negotiations Team in the last round of contract talks and currently serves on the Joint Labor/Management Committee for Professional Development. She has also been a member of the Women's Rights and Concerns, and Communications committees. In 1989, she earned a Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Librarianship.

Kuritz named this year's Outstanding Active Retiree

Hyman Kuritz has been named Outstanding Active Retiree for 2000 by the union's statewide Committee on Active Retired Member-ship (COARM).

Kuritz, who retired from SUNY Albany in 1985 after nearly two decades as a member of the academic faculty, continues to be active in union and community affairs.

He is chair of the union's Retiree Legislative Action Group and is a member of COARM and of the statewide Legislation Committee. He also helped to organize the union's Albany-Capital District retiree group, which he chaired for six years.

Kuritz is a vital and energetic lobbyist for retiree concerns. He took over in June as chair of the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) State Legislative Committee and is a member of the organization's National Legislative Council, which recommends national policy issues to the AARP Executive Board.

On behalf of AARP and UUP, Kuritz has spoken before a variety of community and labor groups, and he has testified before state Assembly and Senate committees on electric utility deregulation for the AARP.

"Hy is constantly working for our retirees," COARM Chair Pearl Brod said. "He has been an outstanding advocate for VOTE/COPE, for a cost-of-living adjustment for state pension-plan participants, for all our causes. We can always depend on him -- he never says 'no.'"

His interests and efforts go beyond retiree concerns. Kuritz served as the statewide coordinator for Amnesty International on the issue of capital punishment. He also worked closely with the Cuomo administration to block the state Legislature from overriding the governor's veto of death-penalty legislation.

Kuritz received a one-year Ford Foundation grant to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and has earned several travel grants to England and California, among other places.

A graduate of Milwaukee Teachers College and the University of Wisconsin, Kuritz went on to earn his master's degree and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Kuritz is only the third recipient of the retiree award. Past winners were Helen Lees of Buffalo HSC and former COARM Chair Norma Klayman of Buffalo State.

New site: Optometry now has a home of its own

One by one, the moving vans pulled away from SUNY Optometry's clinical building on East 24th Street in Manhattan. And, one by one, other trucks pulled up to take their place as professional movers scurried to fill each trailer with everything from office supplies to microscopes; from library books to lab coats.

Meanwhile, the same scene was being played out in reverse at 33 W. 42nd St. Over and over again -- truck by truck, box by box.

For Optometry and its more than 200 UUPers, July was "moving day" as the teaching clinic, enacted in 1971 through an amendment to the state Public Education Law, for the first time had a home to call its own. The move -- from leased quarters in midtown to the former City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School 18 blocks away -- required an estimated 400 truckloads, with an average of 15 trips a day during the middle of another steamy city summer.

Yet, despite the hard work and inconvenience a move of that magnitude entails, unionists and administrators alike were thrilled.

"This is the first time in the history of this college that we have a permanent home, and it's about time," said Optometry Chapter President John Picarelli.

Campus President Alden Haffner was more direct: "It's a godsend."

In fact, in the early 1990s, it looked as though it might take an act of God to save SUNY Optometry, one of the largest eye-care medical facilities in the nation. State budget cuts were taking their toll on SUNY's smallest school, with about 300 students. Exacerbating its fiscal problems was the Manhattan-sized rent and taxes - between $6 million and $7 million a year - the state was paying for 15 floors of prime real estate.

Several options were seriously considered, including merging the optometry school into the health science center at either Brooklyn or Stony Brook.

"It was an unsettling time for us," Picarelli remembered. "Our patient base was in New York City; our clinic was here. We would have lost our identity and we would have lost jobs." Enter UUP.

According to Picarelli, the union played a key role in convincing state lawmakers that Optometry should remain an independent institution to meet the community's medical needs and teaching mission.

"UUP was absolutely instrumental in Optometry maintaining its unique identity," Picarelli said.

Still, the expensive lease problem remained. But CUNY's plan to move its graduate school to another part of Manhattan gave the state and SUNY an opportunity to provide appropriate and permanent quarters for Optometry. According to Picarelli, the new and larger facility befits what's been happening at Optometry since the uncertain days of a decade ago: The college has been designated a SUNY "Center of Excellence," its professional students consistently rank first in the nation on the National Board Certification test, and its research endeavors have expanded.

"Optometry's size belies its importance. We may be the smallest campus in the University, but we are not the most unimportant," said Haffner. "We are an institution that waves the flag of SUNY rather well, both here and around the world."

UUPers in the news:

Woman of excellence: Helen Desfosses, a professor of public administration and policy at SUNY Albany, was honored as one of "100 Women of Excellence" by the Women's Business Council of the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce.

During a summer event at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center, Desfosses - the first female president of the Albany Common Council - was recognized for pioneering change through her work as a political and community leader, and through her efforts as a public educator to link university and community.

Another woman of excellence: Kathleen Southerton, a registered professional nurse at Stony Brook HSC, recently received the Nurse of Excellence Award for 2000 from the Nassau Suffolk Hospital Council Inc.

Involved in the nursing profession for 19 years, Southerton most recently participated in the planning and implementation of the Babies' and Children's Memorial Garden that was dedicated last fall at the University Hospital.

Bringing home gold: David Campbell, an associate professor in SUNY Cobleskill's culinary arts, hospitality and tourism division, and two students brought home a pair of gold medals and a bronze in a recent Alliance Food Service competition.

The team had two hours to prepare and present a three-course meal. In addition to winning first place in both the entree and dessert categories, the student competitors won $2,000 in scholarships for the division. Their appetizer won the bronze.

Law of the land: SUNY Buffalo law professor Judy Scales-Trent has received a Fulbright award to travel to Senegal, West Africa, where she will teach and conduct research in French, the country's official language. She will teach constitutional law to doctoral students, as well as research the backgrounds and treatment of women lawyers there.

Pre-tax plan saves members $

The Health Care Spending Account (once referred to as the Medical Flexible Spending Account) is a new UUP benefit that can put money in your pocket. Sound good? Read on for more information and important enrollment dates.

Q: What is the Health Care Spending Account?

A: It is a way for members to pay for health care expenses with tax-free dollars. Even with a good benefit package, you may still have health care expenses that are not covered under your health, dental or vision plans.

Some examples of health care expenses that could be included under the Health Care Spending Account would be prescription drug copayments, out-of-pocket orthodontia expenses, prescription glasses and prescription sunglasses, laser eye surgery, dental expenses that are not covered by your dental plan, and so on.

Note: You should confirm with the plan administrator which expenses fall under IRS guidelines and are coverable.

Q: How does it work?

A: You designate the amount you would like set aside (and sent to the plan administrator) to cover these expenses. A portion is then deducted before taxes from each paycheck (starting with the second pay in January and spread through the remainder of the year). Once you incur expenses (even if it is before you have accumulated the full amount from your payroll deductions), you would submit your receipts to the plan administrator. You will receive a check within two to three weeks.

Q: Why would you do this?

A: If you have a child with braces, the orthodontia bill may be as much as $4,000. If Delta covers $2,000, you have the remaining $2,000 charge to pay. If you contributed $2,000 into the Health Care Spending Account, it would be deducted pre-tax from your paycheck. You would save more than $500 in taxes.

Q: When do I sign up?

A: This year's enrollment period runs from Oct. 16 to Nov. 17.

Q: What period of time would this cover?

A: The amount you designate would be used for expenses you and your family incur in the 2001 calendar year.

Q: What if I estimate too much and don't spend all the money I contributed?

A: Please don't let that happen. Estimate carefully. Any money left in your account at year's end will not be returned. Nobody wants that to happen.

Q: How do I sign up?

A: Enrollment forms are available by contacting the plan administrator at (800) 358-7202.

Q: What if I have more questions?

A: There will be an informational meeting on almost every campus. Please try to attend to hear more details about the program.

You may also call UUP Member Benefits at (800) 887-3863 or the plan administrator, beginning this month, at (800) 358-7202.

Financial counseling plan available to members

NYSUT Benefit Trust makes things happen

Bargaining unit members are eligible to enroll in the Financial Counseling Program endorsed by NYSUT Benefit Trust.

For $79 a year - or $73 a year if payroll or pension deduction is the payment method used - the program provides toll-free access to Ernst & Young LLP independent financial counselors, who can help members make financial decisions regarding a wide range of issues.

The birth of a child and a change in marital or job status can generate myriad questions. An experienced, objective financial counselor can help with these and other situations having financial implications (i.e., buying or leasing a car or residence, tax-deferred annuity contributions, asset protection, etc.).

In addition, the program provides financial analyses that are focused on a single topic and customized to a member's specific circumstances. Program participants can choose their analyses from a menu of financial planning topics. Also, a financial planning newsletter is mailed to participants every other month.

Participants have the option of scheduling an in-person financial planning consultation with their choice of either an Ernst & Young financial counselor or an Aetna Financial Services Inc. financial planner.

These consultations are activated solely by request of the program participant.

For an informative brochure about the NYSUT Benefit Trust-endorsed Financial Counseling Program, please contact NYSUT Member Benefits at (800) 626-8101 or by e-mail at benefits@nysutmail.org.

The Last Word: Why unions matter

By UUPer John Schmidt, Stony Brook chapter president

I commit to your reading list "Why Unions Matter," by Michael D. Yates. If your backlog of reading is like mine, perhaps you will appreciate my attempt at capturing the spirit and intent of Yates' effort. Alternatively, if you have ever wondered why you are paying dues to a union of faculty and professional staff, I am happy to provide a frame or two for reference.

When people ask "Who do you work for," how do you respond? Stony Brook? SUNY? The state of New York? The department of XYZ? What is it that guides your response? Your pride in the work unit? Your solidarity with faculty and professionals? Your personal perspective?

Since we don't work for ourselves, our effort is defined as part of the general work force in New York state higher education. Group reference is the core of union identity and strength. The group has more power in the eyes of the employer. The group has greater power to implement change. Group identity helps meet and deal with frustration in the workplace. The catalyst for group dynamics is the union membership - not a select group of interested individuals, but the entire membership. How often does individual action, however motivated, succeed in influencing management? How often does management listen to one voice?

Stony Brook, like other campuses in the SUNY system, operates in an organizational hierarchy. Direction and support result from intervention and/or mandate from a number of individuals and groups. Those include the state of New York (governor and Legislature), the Board of Trustees, the College Council, the University administration, the divisional deans and the department chairs. Each provides, or attempts to provide, a degree of oversight - some more than others - over our working lives. Where does one turn for assistance and/or intervention when these groups or individuals cease to listen or become obtrusive?

Prior to unionization, a faculty/professional staff appointment letter contained official wording that the appointment was "at pleasure." While this was usually construed to mean the university president, realistically, anyone in the oversight hierarchy was similarly empowered to void the appointment. Working "at pleasure" meant no recourse to low wages, restrictive benefits or arbitrary and capricious acts by management. It was a "take-it-or-leave-it" proposition with no system of checks and balances.

Even with official recognition, the union's role is constantly challenged by distorted messages, intentional and unintentional. Management too often provides the message that the unit/work place would be better off without the union. That is certainly true for management, which would then have absolute control over all aspects of production and output, no accountability and weaker demands for reasonable wages and benefits. The media, consumed with negative reporting anyway, always seems to present a less-than-flattering picture of the why and how of a union/management confrontation, often at the expense of the union image. As one example of media distortion, strike threats are universally portrayed as union-created public inconveniences. The real issues and the union's attempts to head off the confrontation seldom receive objective treatment over the news wire.

In reality, wages and benefits under a union shop far outpace the wages and benefits under a nonunion shop. For 1995, Yates reports the following quantitative measures of union/nonunion environments:

	Wages	Insurance	Pension
Union	$16.69	$2.24	$1.15
Nonunion	$13.35	$0.98	$0.42

In a recent chapter newsletter, I speculated as to what kind of contract SUNY faculty and professional staff might have garnered if our union numbers were more active (that is, visibly active). Wage levels, as one measure, are determined more by power standing than market determination. SUNY faculty and professional staff have vast potential that can be realized via union solidarity. The alternative is a quiet acceptance of cost-of-living increases and other modest gains that management can easily afford.

In the qualitative sense, your union - and, hopefully, you - stands for these labor-centered principles: a) meaningful work; b) democratic control of production; c) shorter hours of work; d) an end to discrimination; and e) wage and income equality.

For any of these to happen, effective involvement of committed members is a co-requisite. Your union office, its officers and delegates stand ready to assist. Drop in, call or e-mail. In unity there is strength.

Learning from labor's past

By William E. Scheuerman
UUP President

Labor Day, sadly enough, is becoming America's forgotten holiday. Sure, our insatiable consumer culture is redefining other holidays too, often substituting some money-making ritual for the values that justified the holiday in the first place. But Labor Day is different because its demise is more extreme. I'd hazard a guess that not too many people know or even care why we celebrate a day for ordinary working people. Worse, now the ritual is almost gone, too. When was the last time you marched in or watched a Labor Day parade? In fact, how many Labor Day parades do we even have these days? So, what is Labor Day all about? Why was it founded and what's its relevance for us today?

The first Labor Day was celebrated in 1882 in New York City as a "workman's holiday" and, by 1894, Congress passed legislation making Labor Day a holiday in the District of Columbia and for all federal workers. Labor Day was created, according to the AFL-CIO, to pay a "national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country." It was a day to celebrate the solidarity of working people, a day to remember that collectively we can do great things. And organized labor in the U.S. did great things.

Studies show that organized workers are far more productive than their non-unionized counterparts. It's the muscles and brains of unionized workers that turned the U.S. into the world's leading industrial power. But the gains didn't come easy. There was always blood, and lots of it. All too often, it was the blood of martyrs murdered for trying to organize. We've heard of the workers' battles with the Pinkertons at Homestead and an endless list of other tragedies involving the use of violence against workers who were trying to form a union.

Bullets and billyclubs didn't do all the killing and maiming. Many workers died in industrial accidents because there were few or no safety protections prior to unionization. The history of American labor is written with the blood of workers who paid with their lives and limbs in their efforts to build a better life and a strong nation.

Yes, the cost was high, but unionization brought rewards we take for granted today. Organized labor brought us child labor laws, health and safety laws, minimum wage laws and anti-sweatshop legislation. Unions negotiated livable wages and minimized the arbitrary acts of corrupt managers. For many people, organized labor provided the realization of the "American Dream" of a steady job and a better life for their children. Is organized labor a perfect institution? Of course not. Far too often, unions reflected the racist and sexist biases of the larger society. But that's changed now. Large numbers of minorities and women flock to organized labor for protections against the unfettered global marketplace, which is giving new life to many of the ills of yesteryear. Sweatshops are making a comeback, as are child labor, unsafe and abusive working conditions, low wages, attacks against those who try to organize, and so on. But organization is a tool of empowerment. And that's what Labor Day is all about. We're living in a time when the world is returning to some of the worst values and structures of the "good old days." The good old days when the rich got richer and the poor knew their place. The good old days when education was a privilege of the rich. That's what's happening again, and that's why it's time to think about Labor Days past and present. For the lesson of Labor Day is the hope and vision the labor movement gives us for the future.

When we work together, there's no telling what we can accomplish. Whether we're fighting for tenure, organizing workers in Mexico or working with striking workers at Albany's Days Inn, Labor Day is about the solidarity of workers in our efforts to make the world a better place for us and for future generations. That's why it's important to think about the past as we plan for the future. By acting on the principle of solidarity, we reach out a hand to those workers who now struggle to attain social and economic justice. And don't kid yourself: If they don't succeed, we'll all find ourselves back in the sweatshops with them.