[Vision2020] Did Wenders and Harkins Enjoy Their Tenure?

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Greetings:

Some many debates, so little time!  I working on an answer to Ted Moffett on abortion, but I want to weigh in on job security and right-to-work.

First, I want to ask Jeff Harkins and Jack Wenders if they enjoyed having academic tenure in the their UI jobs.  If they did, I'm smelling some hypocrisy here.  Why didn't they refuse the security of tenure if they believe in a  "fire at will" employment philosophy?  Wenders is retired, but it's not too late, Jeff, to voluntarily relinquish yours and take your chances with a year-to-year contract. I know for sure that I would have been fired by President Richard Gibb in the early 80s if it had not been for the legal protections of tenure.

I've handled more grievances in Idaho higher education that any person in Idaho history.  I've appended a list of the cases below, but let me just give you some highlights.  Tom Hale, AFT (faculty union) president at ISU and a tenured professor of history, was fired in 1980. With $25,000 in legal aid from the union, Hale filed suit and then won the largest first amendment settlement ($100,000) in Idaho legal history. 

Then there was the Lois Pace case that took most of the middle 80s to settle.  The ag. dean declared financial exigency and fired 17 faculty (11 tenured), but then turned around in his next budget and added $100,000 new computer equipment.  A judge ruled against the dean's phony emergency and the settlement for Pace and seven other faculty members came to $1 million.  AFT provided 90 percent of the legal aid and we got it all back in the settlement.

Were these people happy to have a faculty union?  You bet your booties, they were!

Recently we won a $94,000 settlement for two tenured NIC faculty members who were fired presumably because of low enrollment.  It turned out that their program had graduated more students except for the NIC nursing school.  The NIC administration didn't really know what tenure was and our attorney ran circles around them.

I've made a rough calculation of what the State of Idaho has paid for our settlements and it comes to about $2 million, money that could have been better used for keeping student fees lower and raising faculty salaries.  Can our administers be as immoral as Wal-Mart, which is willing to hire more attorneys rather than improve working conditions?

We were prepared to file suit for art professor Glenn Grishkoff, but right at the last minute the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that an employer has the right to fire an employee even if the boss has given completely arbitrary reasons.  Let me tell you that Glenn's dean's reasons were pretty irrational.

Way to go Idaho!  We have some of the lowest wages in the U.S. but, by God, our workers have the right to them and their lousy working conditiions.  And we won't allow those union goons to collect dues to pay for the expenses of representing all the workers at the bargaining table.  

And what about all the non-union workers who get a free ride because of a union contract down the street or even across the state, as Pat Kraut admitted in her post about working for GTE?  What parasitical ingrates they are!  Non-unionized faculty at Montate State get the same salaries raises as the Missoula professors represented by the AFT.  Life is just not fair, is it?

It doesn't seem to matter that all Idaho potato growers have to pay a fee to the Potato Commission or they are literally out of business. (I believe that holds true for all commodities in Idaho.) Bill Hall of the Lewiston Tribune once called this "Compulsory Potatoism," as a parallel (not an analogy) to "Compulsory Unionism."

Well, I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point.

Yours for a free, safe, and secure workplace,

Nick Gier, President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO

THE AFT IN IDAHO: 1974-2006
 32 YEARS OF ACHIEVEMENTS
 
UI Federation, LCSC Federation, BSU Federation, CSI Federation, ISU Federation, NIC Federation

1974 The ISU administration fired Rufus Lyman, a tenured biology professor.  Lyman filed suit and was reinstated by a federal judge.  The ACLU provided attorneys and the AFT paid all court costs. 

1975 The AFT launched a campaign for collective bar-gaining legislation and won a majority vote (2-1 at UI) on the four campuses in support of such legislation.  A higher education bargaining bill, written and introduced by the AFT, lost on a tie vote in the Senate HEW Committee. 

1976 Larry Quinn, LCSC history professor and local AFT vice-president, was denied tenure.  The SBOE refused to hear an appeal, so Quinn filed suit, receiving $2,500 in legal aid from the national AFT.  In an out-of-court settlement, Quinn was reinstated at CSI with a $5,000 settlement.

1977 The UI Federation began work on an open files policy, which was finally passed by the UI faculty in 1980 and is now state for all institutions.  This policy prevents the establishment of secret personnel files and allows facul-ty members to remove adverse documents from their files.  

1979 UI biology professor Homer Ferguson's rights were violated in a tenure review hearing.  The national AFT committed $12,000 to the case and Ferguson eventually won an out-of-court settlement of an unspecified amount.  This case proved crucial in ultimately mitigating the adverse effects of automatic tenure review policies.

1980 UI law professor Lee Eckhardt entered the Ferguson case, claiming that the five-year competency reviews undermined tenure.  The AFT and AAUP sponsored a statewide tour for Eckhardt who spoke on "The End of Tenure."  UI President Gibb unsuccessfully attempted to get a court injunction to stop the tour, and the AFT charged Gibb with gross violation of Eckhardt's academic freedom.

1980 After years of hard work by the AFT, the Ul faculty voted 99-51 in favor of giving full due process to nontenured faculty.  The Board continues to deny this faculty mandate even though several of its past members admitted that refusing to give reasons is immoral.

1981 Tom Hale, ISU history professor and local AFT president, was fired by the ISU administration.  With $25,000 in legal aid from local, state, and national sources, Hale filed suit and then won the largest first amendment settlement ($100,000) in Idaho legal history. 

1981 The Board declared financial exigency in Ag Research and Extension and 17 faculty members, 11 of them tenured, appeared on a lay-off list.  Extension professor Lois Pace request legal aid from the AFT.

1982 Lois Pace filed suit against the SBOE because of her dismissal under the financial exigency of 1981. More than $40,000, 90 percent from AFT sources, was raised for Pace's legal fees.  In 1984 she won her case in district court.

1982 Penny Schoonover, BSU German professor, was dismissed under the financial exigency of 1982.  The AFT helped with legal expenses but Schoonover's appeal to the SBOE was denied. 

1983 AFT initiated a revision of the UI faculty appeals procedures after protesting a series of presidential vetoes of appeal board decisions.  AFT action on this matter has virtually eliminated this specific administrative abuse.

1983 Primarily as a result of the Ferguson case, the SBOE revised tenure review policies such that the five-year tenure reviews are no longer automatic.  

1984 Lois Pace won her suit, but an appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court held up any settlement.  Seven other UI faculty members laid off in 1981 filed suit in the wake of the Pace victory. The AAUP led an investigation of the Pace case and placed the UI on its list of censured institutions. 

1985 After receiving almost monthly statewide complaints from ag faculty, UI Federation agreed to hold a no-confidence vote for Dean Ray Miller.  With 65 percent of the ag faculty voting, 55 percent voted to remove Miller from office.  Within a year Miller left the UI. Later the UI Federation was asked to help in removing him as dean at the University of Maryland.

1986 The Idaho Supreme Court ruled there were other alternatives to laying off tenured professors to alleviate the 1981 financial exigency.  By the end of the year the SBOE settled with Lois Pace, who received $40,000 cash, $45,540 in legal fees, and $2,000 a month for life.

1986-88 Settlements were negotiated in each of the seven other cases from the 1981 financial exigency.  The total amount (including Pace) came to over $1 million.  

1989 The AFT actively promoted the candidacy of Elisabeth Zinser as Richard Gibb's successor.  Before assuming office, Zinser negotiated UI's removal from the AAUP censure list. 

1990 Pat Lewis, an ISU nursing professor, requested legal aid for her grievance in the Department of Nursing.  She received $1,500 from the IFT Defense Fund. 

1991 After a ten-year struggle Igor Mazur, a UI physics lab technician laid off during the 1982 financial exigency, won a settlement from the SBOE.  Mazur received legal aid from the Lois Pace Defense Fund, the local, state, and national AFT. 

1992 After years of AFT lobbying, President Zinser finally appointed David Walker as the UI's first ombudsman.

1993-94 Even with the ombudsman in place faculty grievances handled by the UI Federation hit a record during this academic year.  The Federation's grievance committee handled six cases and nearly $10,000 was disbursed from local and state legal aid funds.

1995 Since 1990 the UI Federation has published the salaries of the higher administration.  It noted that by 1995 administrative pay raises had outpaced the faculty by 4.84 percent.  For the 1995-96 year the higher administration received an average 2 percent raise, while the faculty averaged over 5 percent. The AFT can certainly take some credit for the administration's attempt to close the gap. The administration also increased the promotion increments substantially (now $6,000 for promotion to associate and $8,500 for full) in order to address salary compression. Similar promotion increments are now in place at BSU and ISU.

1996 The UI Federation handled four grievances during the 1995-96 academic year, three involving the denial of tenure.  One case was resolved in favor of the faculty member--the first reversal of tenure denial in AFT's twenty year effort to get due process for nontenured faculty.  

1997 Norma Sadler, BSU education professor, won a pay equity suit with a settlement of $157,500.  The national AFT and IFT combined forces to grant her $15,000 in legal aid.

1998 After twenty years of struggle Richard Neher of the UI music department won a settlement with the UI administration.  Neher counted on AFT moral and financial support during this ordeal.

1999 An AFT attorney filed suit against the UI administration on behalf of Beth Palmer, former faculty member in geology.  Unfortunately her case was lost in district court.  

2001 A tenure review vote went against UI Interior Design professor Steve Thurston.  The AFT decided to support Thurston on the basis of flawed procedure and administrative harassment.  The AFT offered moral and legal support and the dean backed off.  

2002 In October, without any faculty consultation, the SBOE instituted a policy for discontinuing programs that failed to provide sufficient due process for faculty. In a letter to the SBOE, IFT President Nick Gier insisted that these procedures at least be equivalent to those for financial exigency.

2002 Using the new procedures for discontinuing programs, the UI College of Engineering fired six professors in mining and geological engineering.  AFT and AAUP intervention saved the jobs of three tenured faculty.

2003 UI Art professor Glenn Grishkoff passed his third-year review with flying colors, but the liberal arts dean fired him instead.  An appeal to the Provost, backed by letters from 30 national peers, was rejected.  A total of $10,200, including $6,900 from an art auction, was raised for his case. 

2004 The same UI dean who fired Grishkoff proposed the elimination of studio arts to meet budget reduction goals.  AFT, student, and community protests forced the dean to consider an alternative plan.

2005 Two tenured faculty members at North Idaho College were dismissed in May. By the end of the year an attorney hired by the IFT negotiated a $94, 297 settlement. The AAUP national office sent a strong letter indicating violation of tenure rights.

2006 The UI Federation released its salary survey and reported that UI administrative salaries had risen 251 percent over 24 years as opposed to 154 percent for full professors while the CPI was 193.  President White's salary of $275,018 represents an increase of 382 percent increase over Gibb’s FY82 salary of $57, 115. 

32 Years of Achievements. For over thirty years the AFT has been the de facto faculty union for employee grievances on Idaho’s campuses.  Our goal has always been to solve these problems without going to court, but when internal solutions have not been possible, our attorneys have been successful in eight out of ten major cases for a total of nearly $2 million in settlements and legal fees.