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ADMINISTRATION &r
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Decision awaited for one unit or
several for 'communities of interest'
By Randy Blauvelt
To some people, collective bargaining means strikes, lop
sided contracts and a too-powerful labor force. To others,
it's a way of getting better salaries, better working condi
tions and improved fringe benefits.
Collective bargaining generally is believed to mean
negotiations between an employer and employe, in hopes
of arriving at a mutually satisfactory agreement over a
dispute.
Currently, most collective bargaining is done between
representatives of all or part of a labor force, acting as a
committee or board, and the management of the business
that employees them. The University of Nebraska (NU) and
a UNL faculty organization are at odds over the scope of a
proposed bargaining unit.
Communities of interest
Should collective bargaining be established to represent
the whole NU system, or should different bargaining units
represent sections of the university where communities of
interest exist?
This question is the crux of the collective bargaining
issue awaiting decision by the Nebraska Court of Industrial
Relations. It arose after the UNL chapter of the American
Association of University Professors (AAUP) petitioned the
court requesting a UNL faculty election be held to decide if
the faculty should unionize, and if granted, whether AAUP
should be the bargaining agent.
The unit proposed by AAUP consists of all full-time
UNL faculty members, who have academic rank and are not
administrators, excluding those in the Colleges of Law and
Dentistry.
"ColIegiaJity" argued
The NU Board of Regents, through attorney Bruce
Wright, has argued that faculty members at UNL, the Uni
versity of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) and the University of
Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) show enough "collegial
ity" to be represented by one collective bargaining agent.
On the other hand, AAUP has argued that the UNL
faculty is a separate entity and should be represented by
their own agent.
According to Wright, fragmented bargaining units in a
multi-campus system would have severe drawbacks and
probably would create a "dollar contest" between the
campuses.
"Should be one"
"If the faculty are going to bargain collectively, they
should do it as one university," he said. "Otherwise, iso
lated pockets of self-interest would develop."
If UNL is allowed to form its own unit, other university
campuses or colleges also will want separate units, Wright
said. This would cause a lack of uniformity, discrimination
between bargaining units and would cost the state too
much money in terms of paperwork, personnel and negotia
tions, he said.
"It would get to the point where the people of Nebraska
would pay more for negotiations than for education," he
said.
Wright said the regents would rather see separate university-wide
units developed for A-line personnel, B-Lme
personnel and C-line personnel, rather than breaking it
down by campuses.
"Most rational"
"This would, be the most rational framework," he said.
The bulk of AAUP's testimony at the court hearing was
concerned with showing that a community of interest does
not exist between campuses, thus favoring the approval of
the proposed unit. The unit does not include the law or
dentistry colleges because they claim to have different con
cerns than the rest of the UNL campus.
James McCabe, associate professor of restorative dent
istry, said different working hours at the College of Dent
istry and having to meet the needs of patients are two
major differences.
Size is concern
The College of Law should not be included because,
representatives say, they have different calendars and
schedules, and operate under a code of ethics not practiced
by most departments or colleges.
Steven Sample, executive vice president for academic
affairs, said the administration's main concern is with the
size of the bargaining unit.
"I feel strongly that if collective bargaining is estab
lished, it would be in the best interests of the university to
have one university-wide bargaining unit," Sample said.
If collective bargaining is established for UNL, NU
would become the first multi-campus university with
separate bargairungunits, he added.
Guidelines drawn
Although different situations will dictate what is
negotiable by collective bargaining, the courts have drawn
guidelines for negotiations in an educational institution.
They are:
Negotiable:
Wages
Working hours
Fringe benefits
Sick and sabbatical leave
Retirement and insurance plans
Non-negotiable: Anything considered to be a "management
Derogative." Some examples are:
-Curriculum
Continued on p. 6