TO: Dr. Dennis Hefner, President, SUNY College at Fredonia

FROM: Tim Allan Ed Giblin

DATE: 11 June 2008

RE: Your Budget Statement of 5 June 2008

Dear Dr. Hefner:

UUP realizes that you have been put into an extremely difficult position by those who dictate SUNY’s budget. We strongly agree with and support your determination to maintain the quality of and broad access to a SUNY Fredonia education. None-the-less, we must inform you that many aspects of the plan that you have put forward in your 6/5/08 budget statement are unacceptable to UUP and are potentially violative of certain fundamental elements of law, contract, and practice. We have no choice, therefore, but to notify you that if your plan is implemented as written we will be compelled to take all actions necessary to defend our members’ rights and to seek redress.

Points # 1 and 2 in your e-mail call for delaying the filling of vacancies in the professional and faculty ranks. We cannot see how these aspects of your plan would allow the College to maintain the quality of a SUNY Fredonia education while maintaining the courses that students need. Moreover, we are further alarmed by measures apparently adopted by the Vice Presidents’ Council to reduce the number of classes, combine classes, and eliminate faculty. If any and all of these measures results in unilaterally imposed increases in workload of our bargaining-unit members, UUP will take action with the Public Employment Relations Board.

Point #3 of your e-mail, which calls for replacing full-time ‘adjuncts’ with part-time employees, is tantamount to a layoff. Non-tenured Full-timers are a vital presence in the culture and practice of academic life. They play a key – even irreplaceable role – in the University’s teaching mission. They represent a loyal, proven, time-tested cadre of faculty the students have come to know personally and to rely upon. We fully expect the University to honor all commitments that have been made to academic and professional employees for the coming academic year and beyond.

Your solicitation, in point #4 of your e-mail, of "volunteers" to teach classes without pay appears to be direct-dealing with UUP members regarding changes in their terms and conditions of employment. As you know, this is a serious violation of the University’s commitment and the State’s Taylor Law obligation to bargain with UUP. Moreover, the implications of such a development are very serious -- especially for the "volunteer," for departmental past practice, and for traditional workload understandings across the campus. We therefore must demand that you rescind your call for employees to volunteer to teach sections without pay. If any employees have volunteered, or later volunteer, to teach or perform other bargaining unit work without pay in response to your e-mail, we must insist that you decline these offers as unacceptable under the terms of current law and contract obligations.

We in UUP stand ready to meet with you at any time and place to attempt to reach campus understandings to address these exigent matters in such a way as to insure the fair treatment of our members; however, if the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations and your campus administration fail to live up to the State’s obligation to negotiate, and instead choose to unilaterally change terms and conditions of employment of our bargaining unit members, UUP will take whatever action is necessary to protect and enforce its members’ rights, including filing an Improper Practice Charge with the Public Employment Relations Board.

In addition, we are concerned that point #5 of your e-mail, which calls for combining sections of the same class, will have a serious negative impact upon the quality of a Fredonia education, and reduce pedagogical efficacy. If the combination of sections results in a unilateral increase in the workloads of our bargaining-unit members, UUP will take action to enforce our members’ rights under the Taylor Law.

Regarding your point #7, as you know, extra-service compensation is paid for work that is performed beyond an employee’s normal professional obligation. If you intend to reduce extra-service compensation, you cannot expect employees to continue to perform duties beyond their normal professional obligation, and UUP will take whatever action is necessary to seek redress.

Furthermore, please be advised that we reserve our right to demand negotiations with the Governor's Office of Employee Relations, at any time we deem appropriate, regarding the impact upon our members of any change unilaterally imposed by the University.

Lastly, we must also note our strong objection to the fact that your measures place nearly the entire burden of your response to the budget situation on, primarily, UUP-represented employees. This is unfair and unfortunate. In your message there is no mention whatsoever of any sharing of responsibility among, most glaringly, management-confidential employees. We see no indication whatsoever of any determination to delay/defer management/confidential searches or, for example, to solicit "volunteers" to perform m/c jobs, or to require salary "give-backs" from m/c employees. It goes without saying that the surest way to undermine morale in any urgent situation is to impose all the burdens of responding to that challenge on a few.

In spite of the fact that your plan was developed and promulgated without negotiation or discussion with UUP, we would still hope that in the interest of facing the current difficulties in a cooperative manner, and avoiding acrimonious litigation, you will rescind those portions of your plan that violate our members’ rights, and meet with us to try to come to a mutually acceptable solution to the budgetary dilemma that was foisted upon you and the University. We look forward to your response.

Sincerely yours,

Timothy R. Allan, Ph.D., President – UUP Fredonia

Edward Giblin, Labor Relations Specialist, UUP