CONTRACT BULLETIN #5

nEGOTIATIONS THROUGH FEBRUARY 23, 2001

The PSC newspaper, to be mailed out this week, contains a full account of where we stand in contract negotiations. This bulletin will report briefly on the most recent sessions and includes important clarifications of the PSC’s proposals on Distance Learning, which were presented at the bargaining table on February 23.

As we have continued to meet for bargaining sessions this winter, the central drama of our negotiations is becoming clear: the PSC’s position is that only a completely new approach to funding and workplace conditions will rebuild the University; management’s position is that we will be offered a given percentage increase in salary and that any restoration of our working conditions will have to be subtracted from that. Thus, at the most recent session we heard from management that they still had no salary increase to offer, and that the improvements we sought to support faculty and staff engaged with educational technology would have to be carved out of the salary increase unless they could be won separately through legislation. Even the provision of a desk and chair for every member of the bargaining unit might be deducted from our salary offer.

We continue to struggle over the issue of the number of proposals the PSC has made and management’s insistence that we withdraw many of them before they are discussed. Not only do we object on principle to withdrawing proposals before they are discussed, we also insist on presenting our proposals whole because together they express our vision for rebuilding the University. There is a reason the PSC has made 170 proposals: we need a comprehensive restoration of salaries and working conditions at CUNY to bring the University in line with national standards. It’s as simple as that: there has been so much damage to our working lives at CUNY that five or six or even 50 proposals would not address the crisis.

Discussion this week grew heated over the PSC’s proposals 101 and 102: that staff as well as faculty be entitled to 120 square feet of space in any new construction, and that all members of the instructional staff, part-time as well as full-time, be provided with office space, a desk, a chair, a telephone, file cabinets and bookshelves. Imagine sitting in a room with management and having to make the demand that everyone needs a desk and a chair. One of the rank-and-file members who joined us at the table, Robert Ausch, an adjunct at Hunter, described teaching a “small” Educational Psychology class of 50 students and holding conferences with his students in a hallway. Not paid for office hours, he insisted on conferences because of his pedagogical commitments, and met with every student even though he had no office, no desk, no chair. The representatives of management expressed sympathy, but repeated their position, taken now at several sessions, that they would not agree to any of our demands until we had presented all of them and until they had made a financial offer.

We made more progress on the issue of Distance Learning, and here the PSC drew on extensive research on other contracts. After consulting with PSC members who are knowledgeable about educational technology and hearing from many members about the urgency of protecting our control of our own intellectual property, the union presented an expanded and clarified version of our original demands (see below). We prefaced the presentation of the demands by voicing our interest in bringing the most advanced technology to CUNY, but at the same time stating our determination to protect the quality of education we offer and the conditions under which staff and faculty work. The union had four principle areas of concern, which we sought to address in the proposals: 1) that workload—for staff as well as faculty—not be invisibly increased as technology is introduced; 2) that additional compensation be provided for additional work; 3) that faculty and staff maintain the right of ownership and control over our intellectual work; and 4) that faculty retain control of academic policy relating to educational technology.

Management replied that it would address issues of intellectual property through a committee on the issue under the direction of Frederick Schaffer, CUNY’s legal counsel. We called for the inclusion of a union representative on that committee, but also insisted on the need to protect faculty and staff rights through the contract, not just through the By-Laws, which are subject to unilateral change by the Board of Trustees. Management expressed support for some of our positions on educational technology and suggested that we would be pleased by the statement that issues from the committee. The union continued to press for commitments to providing funding and support for educational technology for those who choose to use it, and to stipulate that no member of the instructional staff be required to engage in distance learning projects. We also added a critical new proposal, that the use of distance learning and other educational technology shall not be used to reduce, eliminate or consolidate positions of members of the bargaining unit.

Again at this session, a crucial element was the presence of rank-and-file members of the PSC who could testify to the conditions under which we work. This time we were joined by several contract liaisons and by Distinguished Professor of Engineering Sheldon Weinbaum and historian David Nasaw, who spoke on the importance of faculty control of intellectual property and also on the need for office space for HEOs, CLTs and part-time faculty. Professor of Computer Science Joan Greenbaum contributed to the discussion of distance learning, and HEO Chapter Chair Stuart Zuckerberg spoke about the need for due process in evaluations for HEOs.

Distance Learning and Educational Technology

Definition

The terms “distance education” or “distance learning” are used herein to refer to instruction—entire courses or any part of the instructional staff workload, including office hours—in which the teacher and student are at a distance from each other that makes face-to-face communication impractical, or in which educational technology supplements traditional classroom practice; or in which communication is accomplished by one or more technological media, either synchronically or asynchronically. Such communication includes but is not limited to live or recorded visual presentations and material using direct signal or cable, broadcast or narrowcast; transmission by telephone line, fiber-optic line, digital and/or analogue videotape, audiotape, CD ROM; computer internet or intranet technology, including ITV; telecourse; multimedia; the World Wide Web; email; or other electronic means now known or hereafter developed, to conduct instruction in any form originating from or sponsored by the City University of New York.

As with all other curricular matters, the parties agree that the instructional staff has primary responsibility for determining the policies and practices of the University in regard to distance education and educational technology. Courses employing any of the information technologies listed above shall originate in specific academic departments and divisions, and they shall not originate in administrative units without the consent of the appropriate academic department.

Courses employing any of the information technologies listed above shall be taught by members of the bargaining unit and shall not be transmitted for another institution without the express consent of the academic department by which such course would normally be offered. Methods of instruction and design of course materials shall be under the control of the instructional staff member assigned to develop and/or teach the distance learning course, and shall be protected by the principle of maintaining, in accordance with law, full freedom of inquiry, teaching, research and publication.

Contract Proposals on Distance Learning

.117. All material created by an instructional staff member shall be the intellectual property of the instructional staff member exclusively. Clarification: It shall be presumed that all intellectual property, made or originated by a member of the bargaining unit shall be the sole and exclusive property of such person for perpetuity or so long as the federal law allows. Therefore, the University does not and shall not claim ownership of the intellectual property of members of the instructional staff. As with all other products originated by instructional staff members, distance learning courses and the material developed to conduct them shall be the unrestricted property of the instructional staff member who created them. The instructional staff member shall retain full control over his or her intellectual property.

117. No member of the instructional staff shall be required to participate in any distance learning project. Clarification: No member of the instructional staff shall be required to teach or be involved with any distance learning course or educational technology. In addition, no member of the instructional staff shall be videotaped as part of any distance learning course without his or her written consent.

118. The University shall provide stipends, including in the summer, for instructional staff members who want to learn how to develop distance learning programs. Clarification: Instructional staff interested in developing distance learning courses or other courses using educational technology shall be provided with the appropriate training at the University’s expense and shall receive a per-course stipend as well as credit toward workload for all preparation time, including training time. In addition, no distance learning course shall be offered by the University without providing instructional staff with appropriate training and continuous technical support.

119. Workload for distance learning courses shall be governed by the workload provisions of this Agreement, except that in the first two years of a distance learning course, instructors shall be credited for two contact hours for each one distance learning course contact hour. Thereafter, with departmental consent, distance learning courses shall be granted additional credits towards faculty workload requirement. This provision shall include Librarians. Clarification: The University’s own description of the instructor’s role in CUNY-Online contains explicit recognition of the increased workload entailed in distance learning courses: “online courses demand more from professors . . . you’ll need to write more frequently, answering emails. . . In fact, online courses have proven to be more work-intensive than traditional courses” (CUNY website, “How to Become a CUNY-Online Professor”).

120. Class size limits for distance learning courses shall be determined by the instructor teaching the course and by his/her department. Clarification: On issues of class size and other conditions of employment, distance learning courses and courses involving educational technology shall comply with the established practices at the University providing for faculty control of material and monitoring of quality.

· Additional proposal:

The parties agree that the use of distance learning and other educational technology shall not be used to reduce, eliminate or consolidate positions of members of the bargaining unit.

Posted February 27, 2001

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