Union fees mandatory
Staff reports
Some Cal State Long Beach professors are
angry over a law forcing all California State University employees to pay
partial union dues even though they are not union members.
Signed by Gov. Gray Davis on Sunday, SB645
makes nonunion CSU faculty pay for labor representation they previously
received for free.
Nonmembers will have to pay "fair share"
dues, which amount to 75 to 90 percent of the full union fees. The partial
fees cover labor representation, but do not pay for lobbying and political
campaigning by the union. The fee is slightly less than 1 percent of a
faculty member's salary.
"It's a disaster -- it's an imposition
of the union," said Alejandra Edwards, an economics professor at CSULB.
"This is a democracy and people should not be obliged to belong to any
organization."
Other faculty members disagree.
"I think it's fair," said Chrys Rodrigue,
geography professor. "Even if you're not in the union, you should be paying
for a service that you're benefiting from."
About 38 percent of all CSU faculty belong
to the California Faculty Association, which represents 20,000 CSU professors,
lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches.
The faculty union, which represents all
faculty regardless if they are members, has pushed for the bill, said Hamdi
Bilici, CSULB union president.
"There's no such thing as a free lunch,"
said Bilici, who supports the passing of the bill.
The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1,
will automatically deduct the fee from nonmember's pay checks starting
Jan. 31.
Bilici said he hopes the money from
nonmember fees will lower union dues and lead to the hiring of more faculty
union staff.
"I feel outraged," said Mark Gross, professor
of astronomy. "The union on campus has done a tremendous amount of damage
to the university. The majority of the faculty do not belong to the union,
which indicates they do not support them."
Last year, the union battled with the CSU
administration to get all faculty a labor contract providing raises and
benefits. The faculty union and CSU reached an agreement in May.
The CSU administration opposes the bill.
"We were always opposed to that
bill because it didn't provide for a fair, upfront vote," said Ken Swisher,
spokesman for the CSU Chancellor's Office.
The state Senate passed the bill in May,
with the Assembly approving it Aug. 26.
The bill cannot be appealed. But union
faculty members can petition for a vote to not pay the nonmember fee.
To void the bill, 30 percent of CSU faculty
-- or about 7,000 -- must petition for a vote, and 50 percent of all faculty
have to vote against it.
The CSU is consulting legal analysts to
see what the administration is legally required to do. |
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