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tuesday, january 15, 1980
lincoln, nebraska vol. 104 no. 2
LJU
Carpenter alle
essuspen
sion over letter
By Brenda Moskovits
Young said a decision will be made
during the next three days to determine
A carpenter in the UNL Maintenance whether he will remain with the
Department says he was given a three -day maintenance department. He contends that
suspension without pay Monday as punish, the suspension ought to have been issued
ment for writing aietter to the Lincoln with pay and said he plans to "definitely.
Star criticizing the department. . file suit" if he is fired.
"I think I'm being discriminated against Harley Schrader, director of the UNL
because I exercised my First Amendment. Physical Plant, and' Jerry Delhay,
rights," James Young told the Daily maintenance manager, both ' declined
Nebraskan Monday afternoon. comment on any of Young's charges,
except to say that the matter is being
reviewed. Delhay also said a meeting to
review the suspension will be sometime
Tuesday.
Young explained the circumstances
surrounding the suspension, issued at noon
Monday.
"I wrote a letter to the editor of the
Star on Dec. 4, 1979, and it made a bunch
of charges or allegations about the depart
ment,V he said. The letter was published a
Faculty unionization could be delayed
By Randy Essex
Managing editor
A campaign to organize a labor union
among UNL faculty has. not made the
progress expected, and may be put off
until the fall semester, the UNL president
of the American Association of University
Professors said Monday.
' Robert Haller, a UNL professor of
English, said he is "in doubt" about the
campaign, and said he thinks
some (faculty members) are so disillu
sioned that they don't want to try this
route."
The unionization drive began in No
vember, shortly after UNO faculty,
members voted to accept the AAUP as
their collective bargaining agent in con
tract negotiations with the NU Board
of Regents.
Haller speculated that many UNL
faculty may want to "wait and see" what
effect the UNO jrate has on negotiations.
Manpower short
The AAUP chapter president also cited
a manpower shortage as causing some de
lay in the first step of the campaign. Be
fore a vote by UNL faculty may be sch
eduled, cards must be circulated asking
faculty if they want to vote.
, Card distribution was not, completed
until last week, Haller said, forcing the
organization . to move its deadline for
return of the cards to Feb. 1 .
Although the unionization drive has
mavhe gotten off to a slow start, Haller said Gov.
NU budget-including his recommendation
that faculty be given a 7 percent raise for
fiscal 1981 -"can't hurt us."
' UNL faculty members are the second
lowest paid in the Big Eight, and the NU
Board of Regents had requested a lOper
cent pay increase for the faculty.
Not pleased
While Haller said the governor's budget
wasj'certainly expected," he said he wasn't
pleased by the recommendations.
"The governor's budge! outlook is a
little strange," Haller said. The pay in-
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Photo by Mark Billingsley
Not only is the grass greener on the other side of the fence-but it is also more plenti
ful, as this horse on east Holdrege Street .
crease recommended by Thone is about
half of the expected 1979 inflation rate,
Haller said, forcing state government to
become generally less effective if it stays
within a 7 percent budget increase. .
"There is no sense of priority in opera
. tion of state government," he said, adding
that he fails to understand the motive for
holding increases in the budget to 7 per
cent. -
Haller also said AAUP has other fa
culty concerns besides salaries.
He said the faculty has become frustra
ted because recommendations from the
faculty often have been ignored. For
example, a Faculty Senate recommenda
tion for distribution of , pay raise money
last year was ignored, he said.
Frustrations similar
Haller said the faculty's frustration with
such incidents is similar to the students'
frustration with tuition increases and other
policies traditionally opposed by students.
However, he said, the university bylaws
give faculty recommendations a legal status
student points of view do not have.
The campaign to form a collective bar
gaining unit and petitions expressing lack
of faith in the central administration also
are aimed at improving guidelines that
sometimes "are devised without any ac
counting for subtleties of how these things
have to be fulfilled."
Collective bargaining law
However, he said some faculty may feel
that even formation of a labor union will
not have an effect on the faculty's ability
to gain redress of grievances or to increase piannmg
pay.
Asked whether he thought formation of
a union would have an effect on the Legis
lature and the governor in their budget
' considerations, Haller said the state has an
excellent collective bargaining law, which
was formulated by the Legislature and
signed by former governors.
"I'm assuming that they (the Legisla
ture) understood the general principles
when they passed the laws", Haller said.
He added that it a union is formed, tne
AAUP does not intend to go to the
Commission of Industrial Relations, which
settles contract impasses.
week before Young went to Hawaii on a
family vacation. 4
' ' Delayed flight
"I was supposed to be back on the 10th
(of January) and I was supposed to go to
work on the 11th," Young, said; But a
storm in Honolulu delaye.d his flight, and
he didn't return for work Friday as
scheduled.
Young said he went to work as
scheduled Monday and after working four
hours, was "served notice that I am sus-
t .1 1 "it A t- .
penaea ror tnree aays wimoui pay oecause
I didn't make it to work on Friday."
Young already is on six -month
probation.
'They trumped up a thing on me
before, in October, an insubordination
deal," Young said. ,
In October, Young said, he had
reserved a slot ' on the NU Board of
Regents' Business Affairs Subcommittee's
Oct. 12 agenda, but "a vote was taken
whether or not to go and the men decided
not to go."
Ax 1- 1 t f
. ai y.vj a. in,, nan an nuur uciuic uic
committee meeting was to start, Young
was fired. But a call to Corporation
Secretary William Swanson led to his
probationary reinstatement.
Grievances presented
Young said employees planned to
present to the regents grievances similar to
those made in his letter to the Lincoln
Star. V- ;
His charges include that the department
has no safety program, that manage
ment changes are needed and that an
apprenticeship program, receiving federal
money, employs experienced .workers
rather than novices and, hence, is used to
1 j. i iL. J-.i.-i.
Keep women oui or uie ueparuneiu.
"Every apprentice they hire, they hire
with two years experience," Young said.
They re not taking anyone who doesn t
know a trade and teaching."
Few women have enough carpentry,
electrician's or other training, "and that's
how they're getting around hiring women."
Most important, management needs a
changed attitude, Young said. "That's what
needs to be changed. . jnen are not men
they're means of production. And it's been
that way for years."
Young's allegations received more
attention after the letter was published.
Jim Demarest, assistant manager of
and scheduling for the
maintenance department wrote a rebuttal
to the Star letter, and a news story on tne
charges subsequently appeared in the
Lincoln Journal.
"When I went on vacation," Young said,
"Harley Schrader promised changes were
forthcoming. To this date there are no
tangible changes."
The only result, Young said, has been
circulation of a paper announcing the
creation of a concerns and communications
acV fnrre Th orniin in have an nroani.
zational meeting at 3:30 pjn. Jan. 23 and
representatives from each trade are to be
elected for six -month terms by Friday.
prau hill ic nUnnapA in nrnnrn mnrlnfp mi hlir utilitipQ
By Gordon Johnson
A $200 million energy bill, now in rough draft form,
will undergo major revisions to garner support from public
owned utilities, according to Dan Meyer, legislative aide to
Sen. John DeCamp of Neligh.
The energy bill, titled the Energy Conservation and
Independence Act, met opposition from public utilities,
according to Meyer because it would have required them
to make loan money available for energy conservation.
The bill originally would have required public utilities
to loan money to their customers so they could make
their homes and businesses more energy efficient. Under
the act, the state would have made part of the $200
million available to banking institutions for energy conser
vation loans. The' loans were not to exceed $3,000.
Loan money needed
However,- in light of opposition from electric compan
ies the bill was re-worked to allow utilities to also sell
bonds to come up with the needed loan money, Meyer
said.
The reason we changed was to make it easier to pass-
utilities won't fight it quite as much," Meyer said.
x Another revision of the measure would be to raise the
ceiling of the loans from $3,000 to $15,000, he said.
This is necessary, Meyer said, to enable farmers, ranchers
and urban dwellers to conserve energy.
A ceiling of $3,000 would not go very far toward
energy conservation on a farm, he said.
"What we have done is made it a little less stringent
and a little more innovative," Meyer said.
, More innovative
Increasing the loan limits and allowing for a wider
range of conservation methods will allow people to be
more innovative in the way they conserve energy, he said.
Meyer said the act has been misunderstood by many in
that they believe it will cost the state $200 million.
In fact, Meyer said, the act will bring $200 million into
the state and help the state's economy to grow because
the money will come from the sale of bonds and not
through state taxes.
Meyer said current indications are that the state will
pay 7.5 to 8 percent interest on the bonds sold but will re
ceive between 9.75 and 10.5 percent interest on the loans
made for Energy conservation.
Since 95 percent of the state's energy comes from out
of state, such a bill will help keep the state's money at
home and become more energy self-sufficient, Meyer said.
Computer cut: The director of business and administrat
ive services for Computer Network says it might not be
able to maintain the current service level Page 15
Rock and roll refugees: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
played to an appreciative crowd Sunday in
Omaha Page 10
Wowl What a year can do: Husker guard Jack Moore talks
about his freshman year and UNL basketball
hopes Pa-t 12