Much has happened to our nation – and in turn our State and College – since my annual report to the Local 1650 membership last January. As has been often observed, our nation and our lives were indeed changed on September 11 – in ways immediate and obvious – and in ways that are still unfolding.
Among the thousands who suffered and perished on the 11th of September were over 40 AFT members employed at the World Trade Center, three AFT teachers in Washington, and three students traveling with their teachers to a National Geographic Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles. An HFCC retiree’s son also perished that day. The daughter of Bill Scheuerman, Chair of the AFT Higher Education Program and Policy Council, escaped the 24th floor of Tower One moments before it collapsed. The husband of another AFT friend and colleague, a Port Authority Administrator, whose office was on the 94th floor of the World Trade Center, arrived late to work – and lived – only because it was primary election day in New York City. There is hardly an AFT friend or colleague in New York City who did not lose, or narrowly escape losing, either someone dear or someone dear to a friend or acquaintance. For our AFT brothers and sisters in New York, it has been at best “two degrees of separation,” rather than the proverbial six degrees, between them and the victims of September 11.
CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS
With September 11 and its aftermath still looming over us, the issues to be addressed in this report pale – but be addressed they must. The most pressing of these is Local 1650's upcoming contract negotiations. HFCC teachers are at the conclusion of a three year contract. With its 2.5% annual adjustments in wages, that contract provided inflation protection, modest improvements in purchasing power, and, despite spiraling health care costs, continuation of an enviable health care package. Our concluding contract also brought breakthrough language relative to long-term care insurance, distance learning, and full-time staffing. That staffing language, however, is subject to an adequate funding stream. It produced additional full-time positions in the first two years of the contract, but has not been operative in this the last year of the contract. Our concluding contract and its benefits were negotiated in the midst of historic economic growth. However, given the current economic and political climate, achieving a comparable settlement for the next three years will be most difficult.
THE ECONOMY
Whatever the date of onset of the recession now afflicting the U.S. and Michigan, September 11 undoubtedly exacerbated it. This year HFCC will receive a mere 1.5% increase in State revenue, a revenue category which accounts for nearly 40% of HFCC’s income. Should Michigan’s economy not dramatically improve, next year will bring actual cuts in HFCC’s State revenue. Our next contract will be negotiated in the context of an economic recession, declining State revenues, major lay-offs at Ford Motor, a $13 million Dearborn School District budget deficit, P-12 program cuts, lay-offs of P-12 teachers and support personnel, and a problematic $148 million School District bond proposal to address school overcrowding. Should that proposal fail, pressure on the P-12 operating budget, pressure on P-12 personnel lines, and pressure on our mutual Board of Trustees will be all the more severe. Should this Union be called upon yet again to take a leadership role in the P-12 bond campaign, it is important to the College and the future of College facilities that we do so.
STATE POLITICS
Such is the economic context of our upcoming negotiations. There is a political context as well. Despite the cuts facing virtually every State service except education this year and despite the cuts looming for higher education next year, Governor Engler refuses to postpone reductions in the State Income and Single Business taxes, though he may be forced to do so with respect to the Single Business Tax. Nor will the Republican State Legislature repeal the Tuition Tax Credit and redirect those monies to higher education funding. Moreover, Governor Engler continues his effort to diminish teacher retirement benefits with his graded premium proposal for retiree health care coverage. Under Governor Engler’s proposal, retirees would assume 3% of their health care premium for every year short of 30 years of service at retirement. Mid-career hires, women with careers interrupted due to family demands, and part-time faculty are severely penalized under the Governor’s proposal.
There is an indisputable need to engage in State politics to secure adequate higher education funding and to safeguard teacher retirement benefits. There is also a need to revisit PA 112, which Governor Engler pushed through the Michigan Legislature to penalize teachers in the event of a strike, to prohibit support personnel from negotiating the impact of sub-contracting, and to affirm the power of a Board to impose its contract terms on school employees. There is a need, as well, to elect State Representatives and State Senators who will support, rather than obstruct, a study of the conditions under which part-time faculty must work at the State’s 28 community colleges – a study championed over the last two years by the MFT&SRP and this Local. All of this, indeed the legislative legacy of Governor Engler’s 16 years in office, demonstrates the need to wrest from the Republican Party control of at least one branch of State government. In November 2002, HFCC teachers will again have the obligation to participate – and not simply vote – in the political process that so dramatically impacts our College and careers.
LOCAL POLITICS
There is urgency as well for HFCC teachers to remain engaged in local political efforts. In 2001, HFCC teachers, HFCC administrators, and the DFSE supported three successful candidates for the HFCC Board of Trustees and opposed the followers of an unsuccessful mayoral candidate, who took credit for defeating two school bond proposals that would have addressed overcrowding at the District’s high schools and construction needs at the College. His political agenda and that of his followers wasted the human and fiscal resources of this Union in two bond campaigns and forced the expenditure of both, yet again, in a third “College Only” bond campaign. His political agenda and that of his followers wasted the human and fiscal resources of other District Unions in two bond campaigns and have necessitated yet a third, highly problematic “P-12 Only” bond campaign next March. Had either of the first high school bond proposals passed, the Dearborn School District and its employees would now be pursuing a far less costly proposal in the current recessionary climate. Had either of those two proposals passed, the prospects for the P-12 operational budget – and the prospects for P-12 personnel – would be far brighter today than they are.
Again in terms of local politics, next November this Union must support Trustee Jim Schoolmaster in his reelection bid, and the following November we must find equally worthy candidates for the two Trustees’ seats open at that time. The members of that Board will determine what operational funds HFCC seeks from the electorate two years hence.
There is yet another type of political arena in which Local 1650 operates that is also important to the well being of the College and its teachers. Over a number of years, Local 1650 has achieved leadership roles on the Detroit Metro AFL-CIO Executive Board, the Michigan Federation of Teachers and School Related Personnel, the Retirement Coordinating Council, the American Federation of Teachers’ Higher Education Program and Policy Council, the HFCC Foundation, and the Dearborn Rotary Club. In addition Local 1650 enjoys a very positive relationship with Mayor Guido, several members of the City Council, the leadership of the Dearborn Chamber of Commerce, and many State legislators. These roles and these relationships have provided our Union and College with access to labor, political, and community leaders. Their support has taken many forms and has proven invaluable over the years.
1650 POLITICAL ACTION
The challenges of the last year and those of the upcoming year for our Union and our College remain, as always, political in nature. If HFCC teachers are to maintain, much less enhance, what they now enjoy at this College, they will only do so with political action funds and political action. To put it bluntly, dollars and bodies are needed to run successful campaigns – whether to elect an official, pass a millage, or educate the legislature.
Local 1650's Area Representatives hear a great many excuses from those who fail to contribute political action funds. A great many excuses are heard when volunteers are needed to prepare mailings and work the polls. There are excuses to be heard when the 1650 Legislative Committee and its Chair Jim Wanless call upon faculty to contact legislators. Like it or not, our paychecks, our insurance benefits, and our retirement benefits – indeed College programs, tuition rates, and even student enrollments – all of these and more depend on the decisions of elected politicians at the local, State, and federal levels. Whatever your priority as an HFCC teacher, it will ultimately be secured or lost in the political arena.
This is a difficult year in which to negotiate a contract. The economic climate is not good. Governor Engler’s ideology stands in the way of some steps the State could take to fund higher education. PA 112 has had a chilling effect on teacher bargaining. Dearborn School District revenue shortfalls are severe and school overcrowding acute. Yet we have some things working in our favor. A majority of the HFCC Trustees’ view us positively, as does the Mayor and virtually every responsible community leader. Moreover, when political action funds are needed, nearly 90% of our membership responds. When political volunteers are needed, nearly half the membership responds.
Negotiating an equitable successor contract will not be easy, and it can not be done with mere “smoke and mirrors.” The Administration, the Board, the community, and State officials must be made keenly aware of our presence, our priorities, and our resolve. Nor is negotiating a contract an act in isolation. The moment a contract is ratified, negotiations are underway on its successor. The negotiating process is ongoing – but not at the bargaining table. Our benefits and rights under contract are bargained and secured with every manifestation of community activism and political activism undertaken by this Union.
HFCC teachers have a long tradition of activism. That tradition explains the very existence of this Union. It explains as well our role in the shared governance of this College. It also explains this Union’s leadership role in the labor movement and the Dearborn community as well as the presence we have in local and State politics. That tradition of activism has served this Union and its members very well over the years. However severe the challenges of the upcoming year, this Union’s response in 2002 will remain that which has served us since our founding in 1966. We will enter the arenas where our interests are at stake and make our values known and our resolve felt. To do less is a disservice to our profession and our predecessors at this College – teachers who recognized that advancing the interests of our profession necessitated assertive and collective action. They dared to enter the arenas where the decisions are made that determine the future of public education and public employees. They forged a union to do so. Since its founding, a third of a century ago, this Union has never withdrawn from those arenas. We can not and will not in 2002.
John McDonald
January 21, 2002
Henry Ford Community College
Federation of Teachers
5101 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, MI 48128-1495
jmcdon@hfcc.net