Unionization In The Classroom: GW's Response To Organizing
Part-Time Faculty
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LETTER
TO THE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY (printer-friendly
version)
August 31, 2004
As many of you already know, Local 500 of the Service Employees
International Union (Service Employees or SEIU) filed a petition
with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to represent a major
portion of GWs part-time faculty. As the start of the school
year and the election approaches, I would like to
say just a few things to the University community and to the part-time
faculty in particular about the upcoming election.
First,
I want to remind our part-time faculty about the importance of the
election that will determine whether or not the Service Employees
union should be permitted to represent the Universitys part-time
faculty as its exclusive agent, and therefore, the importance of
all eligible faculty exercising their right to vote.
The
election will be held entirely by mail ballot and eligible voters
will have from October 4 through October 19, 2004, to complete and
return their mail ballots. It will be overseen by the NLRB. The
vote will affect all GW part-time faculty and regular part-time
faculty, excluding faculty in the School of Medicine and Health
Sciences and at the Universitys Hampton Roads campus. Part-time
faculty who will be eligible to vote in the election have taught
in at least two semesters within the following four semesters: Spring
2003, Fall 2003, Spring 2004, and Fall 2004. Therefore, there will
be many part-time faculty who are not teaching this Fall semester
who still will be eligible to vote. Part-time faculty who have taught
in only one of these semesters will not be eligible to vote.
Second,
as the election draws closer, you will likely hear and see more
from both the University and the Service Employees regarding the
issues surrounding part-time faculty unionization. While we may
have strong disagreements on whether unionization is in the best
interests of the part-time faculty, the University will do its part
to keep the dialogue respectful and consistent with our high standards
as a community of scholars. We hope that Service Employees union
representatives do the same, and respect facultys right to
teach their classes without interruption or disruption.
Finally,
to learn more about the issues involved in union representation,
I encourage you to visit the Universitys Web site at www.unionization.gwu.edu
(where you will also find more information about the events that
led to the direction of an election by the NLRB). However, briefly,
the Universitys academic leadership has significant concerns
about the unionization of part-time faculty, especially as it will
affect the Universitys academic strategic plan and the nature
of classroom instruction at GW (i.e., course schedules, workloads,
appointment and reappointment procedures, and hours of work).
Best
wishes to all for a successful and rewarding semester.
Donald R. Lehman
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and George Gamow Professor
of Theoretical Physics
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