CSU-AAUP's negotiating team spent months surveying other members, researching solutions to workplace issues, and crafting contract proposals for negotiations with the CSCU System Board of Regents.
Our union has now held multiple bargaining sessions, and yet we have no tentative agreements to show for it. Per the ground rules, we are't allowed to publicly discuss what happens during bargaining sessions. But it's become clear that the Board is pursuing a strategy of stalling, ignore and punting the blame onto others.
The Board of Regents are the governing body for our System, and part of its duty is to negotiate contracts with the employee unions. The Regents would rather stick their heads in the sand, much like an ostrich, than acknowledge the problems we are trying to solve.
That's not going to be an option.
Dozens of union members and leaders held an action on Dec. 18 to make our frustrations clear to the Board. Members arrived at Central Connecticut State University's campus early that morning, heading out in teams to flyer the building where the Board was holding its monthly meeting.
As the regents headed into the meeting and got settled, members greeted them with chanting, noisemakers and ostrich puppets. We then moved into the courtyard with windows into the meeting room, timing the noise and puppet action with the flow of the meeting.
The final demonstration was a series of timed explosions of noise from the other side of the room, facing campus, in-between public comment from our union sister, Christina Barmon, and members of our union ally, The 4Cs.
Finally, union members quietly filed into the Board meeting. The air in the room was tense as the Board watched the mostly empty chairs fill with red shirts, signs and our ostrich puppets in the back. We made our message clear, and now the ball is in their court.
During the debrief of our action, the energy was electric. Members felt the unspoken reaction of the Board. Throughout the action, police and security officers followed the group of members and student workers were posted around the hallways to keep track of people's comings and goings.
CSU-AAUP members -- the professors, coaches, librarians and counselors of the four CSUs -- will continue to make noise and stand up for what we deserve until we win a fair contract.
What problems are we looking to solve? We need paid sick leave for part-time faculty, who have to worry about losing their courses and thus income while in the hospital for emergencies; we need better security for our part-time faculty, who often receive course cancellations a week or two before the semester begins; and we need more manageable workloads as faculty are required to balance research and service, as well as mentoring students individually, with a heavier teaching load than faculty in many similar institutions.
Congratulations to the union members and union staff who made this action possible, including:
- Ostrich artist Clara Biesel
- Puppeteers Kristie Rupp and Cindy Stretch
- Puppet engineer and staff organizer Benjamin Van Dyne (and his kiddos)
- Staff members Xander Tyler and John Harris, who helped in a multitude of ways
- The planning team of several members: Wendy Wallace, Audra King, Cindy Stretch, Kristie Rupp, Katy Mulvaney, Stephen Tomczak, Shelley Stoehr-McCarthy, Louise Williams, John O'Connor, Brendan Cunningham, Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox, Sara Swetzoff, and more
- All the members who participated in the action in some way, from arriving early to flyer, to showing up and holding a sign, to wearing a red union shirt in the Board meeting.
