Opponents of the recent decision by the board of the faculty union board’s decision to end its affiliation with the National Education Association are organizing on several fronts to reverse the decision.
• A petition is being circulated calling for the board “to rescind the vote to disaffiliate from NEA.
The petition begins: “We want our voices to be heard. We want leadership that actively engages us in important decisions.”
The overriding complaint seems to focus on the board’s distance from the faculty.
“Despite the year of discussion the Board had about disaffiliation, the Board failed to engage us in meaningful discussion until the eleventh hour, just two weeks before the Board’s vote to disaffiliate.”
• Opponents of disaffiliation have been soliciting support for candidates running for seats on the board who will vote to overturn the board’s prior decision.
• And NEA has been recruiting volunteers for a “virtual phone bank” on April 13 and April 20 reaching out directly to UHPA members.
In an email soliciting volunteers, NEA wrote: “We are phoning members to find out their opinion on the recent board vote to disaffiliate and get them to turn out for a membership meeting at the end of April. The phoning?will happen between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm Hawaii time: 1 pm and 5:00 PDT; 4 pm to 8 pm EDT.?
NEA also reported on the result of an earlier effort: “In 90 minutes, the 28 people calling dialed over 500 numbers and talked with 95 members. Many people in Hawaii still have land lines and they answer the phone when they are?home. We are still following-up with some of the people who wanted to become active.”
UHPA fired back yesterday with an email to its members.
“NEA’s communications are designed to undermine the UHPA elected leadership and the By-laws of our union,” UHPA’s email charged. “The NEA direct communication with members also challenges UHPA’s role as the exclusive collective bargaining representative for the UH faculty through attacks on leaders that do not agree with them.”
UHPA also claimed an exclusive right to use the university’s email system for union business, and alleged that use by members to communicate via email on UHPA issues without its approval is a violation of the State Ethics Code.
“UHPA has not authorized any other persons, faculty members or organizations to use the UH system email for communications with faculty regarding UHPA or its role as bargaining agent,” the email said.
Frankly, that sounds like quite a stretch, and perhaps an indication the opposition has hit a nerve.
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Hi, Actually the last quotation is not an indication of striking a nerve. It’s just that emails have been sent from an email address that uses UHPA’s name (UHPAToday). This makes it look like the email came from UHPA, but it didn’t.
This seems to go well beyond the issue of whether an email address is causing confusion. It’s taking the position that members of UHPA can’t use UH email to discuss union issues and policies without UHPA’s authorization.
Hi, apparently you didn’t realize that the UH email cannot be used to discuss union issues by anyone, not even UHPA, because it belongs to the employer. UHPA can use it to announce meetings, and that’s about it. The UHPAToday email address could do more than just cause confusion – it had the potential to deceive people. Why didn’t they just call it NEAToday? Then it would have been easy for people to see where it came from.
THank you, Eileen, for the clarification. I had only read Ian’s story but not the actual email from UHPA itself.
The rules affecting the use of the .edu email service are sometimes confusing to me. I know enough to TRY to avoid sending partisan political emails to people with .edu addresses, particularly if they are employees of the university. I believe students have (or SHOULD have) fewer restrictions on the personal or political use of their .edu address. I do not know if that distinction exists in the formal policy.
As an outsider, I don’t think I have enough information to judge the wisdom, or not, of UHPA’s decision to dis-affiliate from the NEA. I tend to lean towards stronger “solidarity” with internationals, but IF the decision is supported by a majority of the UHPA members, it is their call to make.
I and hundreds of my fellow faculty members are outraged at the BOD’s utter failure to acknowledge or address our concerns about the ramifications of disaffiliation. This was a decision that has raised a passionate and vocal response from the members, with over 500 emails about it to UHPA since the February decision, a well attended annual meeting, a petition signed by some 300 faculty, and many personal phone calls pleading with the board to reconsider…or at least allow US a real voice in the decision. The straw poll indicated 49.4% in favor of staying affiliated.
Why were we ignored and dismissed? Even a motion to move the placement of the issue in last Saturday’s meeting agenda was met with opposition from the disaffiliation folks (an agenda that was treated like a state secret before the meeting, mind you)! That was petty and obstructionist.
A significantly greater percentage of the faculty voted to maintain affiliation for a variety of personal and professional reasons. To repeatedly block discussion or even acknowledgement of our concerns makes the board (half of the BOD actually) look like the Tea Party on steroids, instead of acting like our elected representatives. I understand that several have been subjected to intimidation, but this is the most dysfunctional, poisonous organizational culture I can imagine. And THAT, not the NEA or BOD members with the sense to realize that faculty concerns must be addressed, is destroying our union.