Action Alerts

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="043a45a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Massachusetts Society of Professors</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Massachusetts Society of Professors"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="execminutes.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Executive Board Minutes"><U>Executive Board Minutes</U></A>   |   <A HREF="chronicle.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MSP Chronicles"><U>MSP Chronicles</U></A>   |   <A HREF="calendar.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MSP Calendar"><U>MSP Calendar</U></A>   |   <B>Action Alerts</B></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="044d2b03.jpg"> <div> <IMG SRC="09464640.gif" border=0 width="100" height="100" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Action Alerts</I></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__2_9_04__1" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>February 9, 2004</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__2_24_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>February 24, 2004</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__3_23_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>March 23, 2004</U></A> (PRE-BARGAINING SURVEY)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__3_30_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>March 30, 2004</U></A> (April 14th LOBBY DAY)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__4_6_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 6, 2004</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__4_12_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 12, 2004</U></A>  (April 14th LOBBY DAY)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__4_20_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 20, 2004</U></A> (Budget Update and Berkeley Speaker)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__4_27_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 27, 2004</U></A> (All Faculty/Librarian Meeting)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__5_3_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>May 3, 2004</U></A>  (MSP wins PD money!)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__5_10_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>May 10, 2004</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__6_15_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>June 15, 2004</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__7_25_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>July 25, 2004</U></A> (Retro Pay)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__8_09_04__1" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>August 9, 2004</U></A> (Retro Pay)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__8_24_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>August 24, 2004</U></A> (Retro Pay & Child Care)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__9_7_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 7, 2004</U></A> (Two Pension Related Issues)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__9_13_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 13, 2004</U></A> (Retro Pay & Retirees)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__9_20_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 20, 2004</U></A> (Romney Veto & Politics)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__9_27_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 27, 2004</U></A> (Senate Debate & Political Endorsements)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert___101504_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>October 15, 2004</U></A> (MSP Endorsements and Political Action)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert____11_1_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>November 1, 2004</U></A> (Voting and Long-Term Politics)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__11_19_04_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>November 19, 2004</U></A> (Shortage of Tenure Track Faculty)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__1_20_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>January 20, 2005</U></A> (Retroactive Pay)</div> <div> <A HREF="#msp_action_alert__2_15_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>February 15, 2005</U></A> (Retro Should Pass Today)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_2_17_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>February 17, 2005</U></A> (Bargaining/Retro Updates)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_2_26_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>February 26, 2005</U></A> (Faculty Decline and Retro Veto)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_3_9_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>March 9, 2005</U></A> (Retro Passes!  Act Now on Faculty Shortage)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_4_13_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 13, 2005</U></A> (ADMINISTRATION ASKS FOR REAL PAY CUT)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_4_14_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 14, 2005</U></A> (Taking Action on Bargaining)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_4_19_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 19, 2005</U></A> (Retro, Budgets & Thursday)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_4_28_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 28, 2005</U></A> (War Forum, MSP Elections & Faculty Shortage)</div> <div> <A HREF="#___6_30_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>June 30, 2005</U></A> (Negotiations Stalled)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_7_22_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>July 22, 2005</U></A> (Victory! And Other Good News)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_9_12_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 12, 2005</U></A> (Get Lunch and Choose MSP Priorities)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_9_21_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 21, 2005</U></A> (Retro Advance & Next Steps)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_10_12_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>October 12, 2005</U></A> (Retro Pay -- Legislature Overrides Romney's Veto)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_11_11_05_____benchmarking" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>November 11, 2005</U></A> (Benchmarking)</div> <div> <A HREF="#12_5_05" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>December 5, 2005</U></A> (RETRO IN PAYCHECKS)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_12_7_05_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>December 7, 2005</U></A> (At Last: Progress on Contract)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_1_17_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>January 17, 2006</U></A> (Contract/Benchmarking/Health Care)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_2_21_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>February 21, 2006</U></A> (Contracts/Quality Construction/More)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_3_13_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>March 13, 2006</U></A> (Spring Membership Lunch/State House Visits/Surveillance Debate)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_3_27_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>March 27, 2006</U></A> (Lunch/Lobbying/Iraq Vet Speaks)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_4_11_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 11, 2006</U></A> (MSP Elections/Lobby/Tent State)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_4_13_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 13, 2006</U></A> (Contract FUNDED!)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_4_20_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 20, 2006</U></A> (Assault on MSP Members' Health Care Costs)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_5_2_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>May 2, 2006</U></A> (Payment of Raises/Meeting with Legislators/Health Care: A Win for Now)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_5_3_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>May 3, 2006</U></A> (Free Lunch and Our Retro Pay)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_6_1_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>June 1, 2006</U></A> (Tomorrow's Pay Raise)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_6_15_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>June 15, 2006</U></A> (Enjoy This Week's Paycheck)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_7_18_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>July 18, 2006</U></A> (Call Today to Get our Retroactive Pay and Keep Our Health Insurance Costs Down)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_7_24_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>July 24, 2006</U></A> (You Thought It Would Never Happen....)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_7_27_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>July 27, 2006</U></A> (Another Victory!)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_8_2_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>August 2, 2006</U></A> (Veto of Retiree Retro Pay)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_8_7_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>August 7, 2006</U></A> (Retirees Retro Provision Enacted)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_8_24_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>August 24, 2006</U></A> (Crunch Time in Springfield and Retiree Retro Pay)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_9_6_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 6, 2006</U></A> (Bargaining Survey and Members' Lunch)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_9_8_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 8, 2006</U></A> (MSP Negotiating Committee)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_9_12_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 12, 2006</U></A> (Contract Campaign Kickoff)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_9_18_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 18, 2006</U></A> (Three Important Requests)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_9_26_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>September 26, 2006</U></A> (Student Voter Registration Initiative)</div> <div> <A HREF="#general_faculty_meeting" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>October 19, 2006</U></A> (Special Faculty Meeting Concerning Amherst 250 Plan)</div> <div> <A HREF="#retro_pay" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>October 19, 2006</U></A> (The Retro You Thought You'd Never See is Here...)</div> <div> <A HREF="#special_faculty_meeting" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>October 25, 2006</U></A> (Special Faculty Meeting Regarding Amherst 250 Plan)</div> <div> <A HREF="#thanks_for_a_successful_general_faculty" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>October 27, 2006</U></A> (Thanks for a Successful General Faculty Meeting)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_10_30_06_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>October 30, 2006</U></A> (Deval Patrick Here Tomorrow/Pre-Bargaining Sub-Committee Meetings/Union Social)</div> <div> <A HREF="#11_3_06" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>November 3, 2006</U></A> (MSP Endorsement -- Please VOTE on November 7th</div> <div> <A HREF="#11_14_06" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>November 14, 2006</U></A> (Romney Freezes State Spending -- PLEASE CALL YOUR LEGISLATORS)</div> <div> <A HREF="#11_16_06" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>November 16, 2006</U></A> (MSP Parental Leave Survey)</div> <div> <A HREF="#11_29_06" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>November 29, 2006</U></A> (Deval Patrick on Campus Friday)</div> <div> <A HREF="#12_4_06" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>December 4, 2006</U></A> (Report on Deval Patrick Visit and Upcoming Membership Meeting)</div> <div> <A HREF="#1_11_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>January 11, 2007</U></A> (Old and New Contracts)</div> <div> <A HREF="#1_25_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>January 25, 2007</U></A> (Academic Calendar Change Survey -- Deadline February 9th)</div> <div> <A HREF="#_1_25_07_" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>January 25, 2007</U></A> (Retiree Retro Pay -- MTA Bill Filed)</div> <div> <A HREF="#2_8_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>February 8, 2007</U></A> (Fighting for a PHENOMenal UMass -- Founding Convention on February 22</div> <div> <A HREF="#2_26_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>February 26, 2007</U></A> (Three Pieces of Good News -- PHENOM/Retiree Retro/Amherst 250 Hiring)</div> <div> <A HREF="#3_2_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>March 2, 2007</U></A> (Retiree Retro Pay)</div> <div> <A HREF="#3_9_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>March 9, 2007</U></A> (PHENOM and MSP General Assembly)</div> <div> <A HREF="#3_21_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>March 21, 2007</U></A> (Spring Membership Lunch and H.E. Advocacy)</div> <div> <A HREF="#4_9_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 9, 2007</U></A> (Contract Negotations and Thursday's Membership Lunch</div> <div> <A HREF="#4_17_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 17, 2007</U></A> (Contract Negotiations Update)</div> <div> <A HREF="#4_23_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>April 23, 2007</U></A> (PHENOM and Bargaining Update)</div> <div> <A HREF="#5_2_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>May 2, 2007</U></A> (Why You Need to Show Up at Steve Tocco's Presentation)</div> <div> <A HREF="#5_9_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>May 9, 2007</U></A> (MSP News)</div> <div> <A HREF="#5_14_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>May 14, 2007</U></A> (Bargaining Update)</div> <div> <A HREF="#5_17_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>May 17, 2007</U></A> (UMass Reorganization -- Wilson to Speak at Faculty Senate TODAY)</div> <div> <A HREF="#5_22_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>May 22, 2007</U></A> (MSP Calls All Faculty/Librarian Meeting)</div> <div> <A HREF="#5_24_07" TITLE="Action Alerts"><U>May 24, 2007</U></A> (We Live in Interesting Times)</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__2_9_04__1"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (2-9-04)</B></div> <bR> <div> This alert covers two items: the state budget and MSP’s retreat to plan for spring actions.</div> <bR> <div> <U>THE BUDGET</U>: State budgets are complicated; often the devil is in the details. Romney’s proposal is much better than in past years – a response to our contract campaign and to the improving economy – but nowhere near good enough. It provides an increase over last year, but not enough to fund the raises and stay even elsewhere. The budget is somewhere between $11 million and $27.8 million short of what would be needed to stay level; we want a budget that will begin to get us back to FY2001.  Romney’s budget obviously won’t be the last word, and some of its non-budget proposals have the potential for serious harm (on health care, pensions). We and the MTA are still studying the complications and will produce a fuller report soon.</div> <bR> <div> <U>MSP SPRING PLANNING RETREAT</U>: Friday, Feb. 20 from 12-3 pm</div> <bR> <div> We had an incredibly successful fall campaign, but the fight is not over.  We need our retroactive pay raises, we need a better budget for the University, and we need to begin bargaining.</div> <bR> <div> If you are willing to spend time this semester helping the union organize and fight on these three fronts, please hit the reply button to confirm your participation in the spring planning retreat, which will be held in Campus Center, Room 101.</div> <bR> <div> We will have groups focusing on:</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">keeping legislative pressure on for retro pay </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">lobbying for a better budget </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">improving MSP communication with members </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">providing research and support for bargaining team</div> <bR> <div> Retirees and lecturers will also be able to meet in their own focus groups to address issues specific to them.</div> <bR> <div> (Please direct further questions or comments about the retreat to  <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:clawson@sadri.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:clawson@sadri.umass.edu"><U><U>clawson@sadri.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> or <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:jspencer@english.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:jspencer@english.umass.edu"><U><U>jspencer@english.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__2_24_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (2-24-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> This spring the MSP will begin to bargain our next contract. We are beginning to prepare our bargaining proposals, and in order to create a survey we need your input.</div> <bR> <div> Other than compensation, what are the most important issues facing faculty and librarians? What are the most pressing problems we should try to solve? What should we push for during negotiations?   Please hit reply and send your response to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>  by February 26th. We need your response as soon as possible.</div> <div>  </div> <div> Second, at noon on March 5, MSP Department Reps will meet for a working lunch in Campus Center, Room 804. Bargaining issues will be discussed, so it is important that your department is represented.  An alternate or temporary replacement is welcome to fill in for departments whose rep is unable to attend (or for departments that have no rep at all).</div> <bR> <div> RSVP to this office (hit reply) before February 25th if you plan to attend.</div> <div> Thank you.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__3_23_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (3-23-04</B></FONT><B>)</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear Colleagues:</div> <div> We just started enjoying the salary benefits of the last union contract, but next month we begin negotiating with the University for the next one. One of the most important ways you can communicate your concerns and priorities to the bargaining team is through our bargaining questionnaire. Please take time to tell us what you think.</div> <bR> <div> The best way to complete the questionnaire is online, since that speeds things up by eliminating the need for data entry. In addition to the questions, we have provided space for your comments and suggestions. The questionnaire is available to you at:</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="http://www.massteacher.org/surveys/msp04.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.massteacher.org/surveys/msp04"><U><U>http://www.massteacher.org/surveys/msp04.htm</U></U></A></div> <bR> <div> If you prefer to use hard copy, we will have one in your mailbox shortly.  For your convenience, the finished questionnaire can be folded in half, stapled, and returned to the printed address by campus mail. Obviously, respond to either the online or print version, but not to both.   Based on earlier input (over 50 emails from faculty and librarians), we suspect certain areas will be particularly important for this round of bargaining. These include the number of tenure track faculty and librarians, working conditions and resources, family policies, and non-tenure track faculty issues. But we also need to know your views on a wide range of other issues that may come up in bargaining.</div> <bR> <div> To be sure that your views are included in our initial proposals, you must return your survey NO LATER THAN MARCH 30 so that we can summarize and analyze the results.</div> <bR> <div> We cannot win a good contract without your voice and participation.  We look forward to hearing from you promptly and to reporting back survey results in April.</div> <bR> <div> Sincerely,</div> <div> Jenny Spencer</div> <div> Dan Clawson</div> <div> MSP Co-Presidents</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__3_30_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (3-30-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <U>LOBBY DAY - APRIL 14th</U></div> <div> It's time for us once again to go to Boston to make the case for the university and for the retroactive money in our contracts (an issue that is of extra importance to retirees). If we want to get our retro money, the legislature needs to hear from us.</div> <bR> <div> Two buses will be going to Boston on Wednesday April 14, leaving Haigis Mall at 8:30 a.m. and returning at 5:00 p.m.  We want people to sign upcommunity.  Please help us: recruit your colleagues and your students. If people intend to go, but prefer to drive, they should still let us know, so we can inform them when we've scheduled a State House area assembly point.</div> <bR> <div> Please email (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>) or call (545-2206) the MSP office to sign up.</div> <bR> <div> On Wednesday, April 7 at 3:30 p.m. in Hasbrouck 20, a lobbyist from the MTA will come to train people on how to be effective in visits to state legislators. That training will also be briefly reviewed on the buses.</div> <bR> <div> We will be trying to schedule appointments with legislators, but if you have a personal contact with some member of the legislature, or with an aide, by all means let us know about it, and use it to schedule an appointment (between 11:30 and 2:30 on April 14).</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__4_6_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (4-6-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>1.  THREE R's</B></div> <div> Concerned about the Three R's (raises, retro, retirees)?  This is the time to make our case to the legislature.  Two buses will be going to Boston on Wednesday April 14, leaving at 8:30 a.m. and returning at 5:00 p.m.  Please email (<A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A>) or call (545-2206) the MSP to sign up, and talk your friends and colleagues into joining us as we go with students and other campus workers.  (Sixty undergrads have already signed up.)  Sign up soon, and sign up even if you plan to drive instead of taking the bus.  </div> <bR> <div> <B>2.  LEARNING TO LOBBY</B></div> <div> If you or others would like to get trained in how to lobby, come to Hasbrouck 20 this Wednesday (April 7) at 3:30 when an MTA lobbyist will conduct a training and arm us with information and arguments for our April 14 trip.</div> <bR> <div> <B>3.  PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT</B></div> <div> According to the contract, on July 1, 2001 we were each supposed to get an amount equal to 2% of the pay of an average member, said money to be used for any professionally related expenditure.  We are still fighting for that, but don't yet have any news to report.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__4_12_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (4-12-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> We are writing to alert you to coming changes in our health care plans.  Many of us are enrolled in health plans that will not be offered next year:  Tufts, Harvard Pilgrim, and Commonwealth PPO.  We must choose new health care plans by May 14, OR THE STATE WILL CHOOSE FOR US.</div> <bR> <div> Health care costs in this country are out of control; those with power are responding not by reforming health care, but by pushing the costs down to employees.  In effect, these changes are pay cuts, and pay cuts that hit us not just this year but increasingly in the future. </div> <bR> <div> On Tuesday April 27, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., in the Student Union Ballroom, the state's Group Insurance Commission (GIC, which controls our health care) is sponsoring a Health Care Fair where we can get information about our options for next year.  Please keep in mind, however, that the GIC's definition of "quality" is not necessarily what you mean by the term; their definition is influenced by costs.  For example, Mass General and Dana Farber Cancer Institute do not count as "quality" hospitals.</div> <bR> <div> One improvement is optional life insurance.  For the first time in 16 years, it will be possible to enroll, without proof of good health, for up to four times your salary.</div> <bR> <div> All of us should have received the GIC's "Benefit Decision Guide for Employees" which gives an overview of options.  You can also go to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.mass.gov/gic" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.mass.gov/gic"><U><U>www.mass.gov/gic</U></U></A></FONT>.  </div> <bR> <div> Note that under existing state law the MSP does NOT get to bargain health coverage (we must address it indirectly through legislation).  Nor does the MSP have any inside information about hospital and provider coverage.  </div> <bR> <div> Good luck.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__4_20_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (4-20-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>Three items:  a talk, a budget update, and a call for delegates:</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>1.  TALK:  </B></div> <div> <B>David Kirp</B>, author of Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line : The Marketing of Higher Education, and one of the foremost advocates for public higher education, will meet with MSP members to discuss the future of higher education on <B>Wednesday, April 21 at Noon in Campus Center 101.  Lunch will be provided. </B>His book is available at Food for Thought Books.  If you want lunch, help our planning by replying to this message (but come even if you decide at the last minute).</div> <bR> <div> <B>2.  BUDGET UPDATE:</B>  </div> <div> The House released its FY05 budget proposal; it's not what we want, but it's a lot better than the three previous years. </div> <div> The total allocation to UMass, if you include the pilot program of out-of-state tuition retention ($20.8 million) and our contract raises ($53. 6 million), actually increased $20.9 million or 5.3 percent over FY04.  </div> <div> Although Romney said our raises were a "one-time bonus", the House has a supplemental budget item to continue the raises.</div> <div> Not only that, but the House leadership intends to fund the first portion of the retroactive money (covering July 1 to December 31 2003) late this spring, ahead of the schedule they had agreed to.</div> <div> Romney's pension proposal is not included; we hope-think it's dead.</div> <div> On the negative side, the base budget, not counting our salary increases, was cut about 2%, to $331 million.</div> <bR> <div> <B>3.</B>  <B>CALL FOR DELEGATES</B></div> <div> Dean Robinson and Isabel Espinal are trying to get more UMass MSP faculty and librarians to be delegates to the MTA meeting in Boston on May 21 and 22.  This is a chance for us to continue to make our case with the very large union that we are affiliated with. It is a chance to network across the state with teachers. It is a chance to take action on getting this state to commit to public education at ALL levels.  Please reply to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> or <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:iespinal@library.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:iespinal@library.umass.edu"><U><U>iespinal@library.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> to express interest and get more details.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__4_27_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (4-27-04)</B></FONT></div> <div> ALL FACULTY/LIBRARIAN MEETING!!</div> <bR> <div> Please attend an important all-faculty and librarian meeting Thursday, April 29 in Campus Center 917. Here are reasons to do so:</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To plan for the Democratic Party Issues Convention on campus May 8.  This is a rare opportunity to meet, lobby, and influence legislators and prominent democrats from across the state in our own backyard.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To find out whether or not we are getting our Professional Development money.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To discuss bargaining survey results, strategies, and proposals.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To weigh in on the hiring of new staff in the wake of Mary Fletcher's departure.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To vote on next year's dues level, as well as MSP's proposed budget.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To hear how the legislative budget will impact our campus.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To nominate MSP leadership for next year.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To bring new problems, issues, and ideas to the attention of MSP. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To show your support for MSP's work over the past year.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To eat fruit and cookies (if you get there in time!) </div> <bR> <div> Hope to see you there!</div> <bR> <div> Jenny Spencer</div> <div> Dan Clawson</div> <div> MSP co-presidents</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__5_3_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (5-3-04)</B></FONT></div> <div>  <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >MSP wins PD money! </FONT></div> <bR> <div> The MSP and its members just won another major victory (see below).  But to keep the victories coming, we need to keep organizing and putting on pressure.  This week we have a unique opportunity to do so.</div> <bR> <div> <B>MAKING OUR CASE</B></div> <div> We don't have to go to Boston:  "Boston" is coming to us.  The Democratic State Issues Convention is this Saturday (May 8) on campus.  Two thousand of the state's key movers-and-shakers will be on campus, and we want to be sure they are aware of our issues.  PLEASE give one or two hours to make our case; our retro money might depend on it.</div> <bR> <div> We're asking you to sign up for one or more of the following activities:</div> <div> Attend opening Reception on Friday, May 7, 8-10pm, Top of the Campus (local legislators, town democrats, delegates, union members).</div> <div> 2)   Attend Labor Breakfast, Saturday, May 8, 7-9am, 3rd floor of Mullins Center </div> <div>       (contact MSP for pass to this event).</div> <div> 3)  Saturday, 10-10:30am, Guide delegates and legislators from Mullins to </div> <div> Campus Center, pass out some information. </div> <div> Two hours between 10-5: staff the MSP table, meet with delegates, and/or help give campus tours.</div> <div> Please reply to this message to sign up, or for more info email Mark Brenner (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:brenner@peri.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:brenner@peri.umass.edu"><U><U>brenner@peri.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>), Jenny Spencer (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:jspencer@english.umass.edu)" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:jspencer@english.umass.edu)"><U><U>jspencer@english.umass.edu)</U></U></A></FONT>, or Laetitia LaFollette (for campus tours; <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:laelaf@art.umass.edu)" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:laelaf@art.umass.edu)"><U><U>laelaf@art.umass.edu)</U></U></A></FONT>. </div> <bR> <div> <B>MONEY COMING TO MEMBERS</B></div> <div> Last fall we won contract funding, bringing raises that averaged 15.96%.  Recently, we won a commitment from Finneran that the first installment of retro money (covering July 1 to December 31, 2003) will be paid <I>ahead</I> of schedule (in June instead of July) through a supplemental funding appropriation.</div> <bR> <div> Now we've won another piece of our contract funding: payment of the Professional Development money.  In negotiations last Friday, MSP worked out a plan to get this money into faculty hands as quickly and with as few bureaucratic hassles as possible.  By July 2, <I>all </I> faculty members and librarians currently in our unit will receive an additional, one-time payment of approximately $1700 in their paycheck.  (The wording of the legislation excludes retirees and non-unit members from this money, but allows us to pay the money to newer faculty not originally covered by the contract).  Although taxable, the lump sum means immediate access to the funds and more flexibility in spending it. </div> <bR> <div> <I><B>WEDNESDAY FORUM  /  THURSDAY VOTE</B></I></div> <div> Two more important reminders for THIS WEEK: the third MSP Forum will be held Wednesday, May 5 at 4pm in Campus Center 101.  Refreshments will be provided. Professor Robert P.Wolff will speak on "The False, the True, and the Real Justification of the Liberal Arts Education" and lead a discussion on the future of higher education and what we might do about it.  Wolff is author of "The Ideal of the University," and other books on social and political philosophy, including the soon-to-be-published "Autobiography of an Ex-White Man."  We look forward to this end-of-the-year event.</div> <bR> <div> Thursday, May 6, is VOTING DAY.  Please remember to stop by the MSP office between 9 and 5 to vote for next year's MSP officers and executive board members. </div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__5_10_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (5-10-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> What could be more important than the decline in tenure-track faculty?  What ideas can we come up with to reverse that decline, and restore our numbers?  The MSP is organizing a brainstorming session on the topic for this Thursday, May 13, beginning at noon in Campus Center 162-175.  We'll provide lunch, but to aid our planning, PLEASE reply to this message (now!) and let us know you are coming.  Together we can generate ideas and consider possibilities.</div> <bR> <div> For those who will soon be coming up for tenure, come to a workshop next Monday, May 17, beginning at noon, in Campus Center 904-908, to learn about the tenure process and to get ideas about preparing your case.  We'll provide lunch, but please reply to let us know you'll be coming.</div> <bR> <div> Finally, thanks to all who participated in our Democratic convention activities.  More than 1500 delegates chose to wear stickers identifying themselves as "Proud Supporters of Public Higher Education," over 300 people attended panels on higher education, and these important political activists left campus aware of our problems and committed to advocating for the university.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__6_15_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (6-15-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT</div> <div> This Friday's paycheck will bring us each a one-time extra payment, $1624.75 for Professional Development.  This money was negotiated by the union, and we've fought for it all spring.</div> <bR> <div> RETRO</div> <div> We remain vigilant, but still expect that the first installment of our retroactive pay will be voted on by the legislature within a month, and that it will cover retirees as well as those on payroll (for the period July 1 to December 31, 2003).  It will then take the administration a month or six weeks to actually pay out the money.</div> <bR> <div> SUPPORT SPRINGFIELD K-12 TEACHERS</div> <div> As part of a bailout of Springfield's financially troubled school system, the Romney administration proposed a bill and asked unanimous consent to pass it the same afternoon it was introduced.  The MTA stopped that bill when it learned that it would have permitted the Romney administration to appoint a majority of the members of an oversight committee that would have the right to unilaterally break essentially all provisions of union contracts:  raise how much teachers pay for health care, hire new teachers at lower salaries, change the pension system.  Last fall when our contracts needed funding, K-12 teachers stepped up for us; we should support them now.</div> <bR> <div> The MTA is asking all teachers to attend a rally before the Springfield School Committee meeting on Thursday, June 17, at 6:30 p.m. at the Meline Kasparian Professional Development Center, 60 Alton Street, Springfield, MA 01109.  Everyone will then proceed into the School Committee meeting at 7:00 p.m. You could also call your state representative and ask him or her to oppose Romney's bill stripping teachers of their rights.  If this bill passes in Romney's proposed form, we can expect similar proposals for others, potentially including us at some point in the future.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__7_25_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (7-25-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> Our retroactive pay for 2003 was supposed to have been voted by this time. It’s hung up in various legislative political machinations. There is every indication that legislative leaders’ commitment to funding the contracts remains in effect, but a <B>gentle</B> reminder might be in order.</div> <bR> <div> The legislature MUST pass a supplemental appropriation to "close out the books" on the fiscal year 2004 budget (which ended June 30), but it has not yet done so. Our retro money is supposed to be in that supplemental budget, and we believe it will be. The reason for the delay in voting on the supplemental budget has nothing to do with our contracts; rather it is part of an effort to avoid a vote on Romney’s tax cut proposals. </div> <div> It would be a good idea to call our legislators, THANK them for funding the higher education contracts last fall, and urge them to make sure the legislature continues to honor its commitment by funding the retroactive pay. (This is definitely not a time to be angry; it is a time for a gentle reminder.) It’s especially important to call if you live in the district of, or have a personal connection to, a non-Amherst legislator.</div> <bR> <div> P.S.  This installment of the retroactive pay, when voted, will cover the period July 1, 2003 to December 31, 2003. If you have retired it will not only provide a lump sum payment, but will increase your pension. We continue to be committed to winning retroactive pay for July 1, 2001 to June 30, 2003 and continue to think that will happen, although to make it a reality we may, at some point in the future, need to once again remind legislators.</div> <bR> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="msp_action_alert__8_09_04__1"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (8-09-04</B></FONT><B>)</B></div> <bR> <div> Our retroactive pay has been delayed once again, and it may be a several month delay.  We continue to be assured that the legislative leadership supports our pay, but other politics have interfered.  Here's the story.</div> <bR> <div> The retroactive pay was to be included in a supplementary budget to close out the last fiscal year (which ended June 30).  All sorts of legislators, however, tried to add amendments to that supplementary budget.  Most especially, it was felt that the Republicans would force a vote on Romney's tax cut proposal.  Democrats, in an election year, did not want to vote against a tax cut.  To avoid this, Speaker Finneran kept the supplementary budget from being debated or voted on.  (We had previously been told some kind of supplementary budget was a near-certainty.)</div> <bR> <div> The legislature's formal session is now over, and will not resume until January.  An effort will be made to pass the supplementary budget, including our retroactive pay, before then, during the informal session.  But during informal session the only way a bill can pass is by unanimous consent.  Even if the bill passes, if the Governor vetoes the bill, no vote can be taken on over-riding that veto until formal sessions resume. </div> <bR> <div> There is a non-trivial chance that our retro pay and the supplementary budget will receive unanimous approval and that Governor Romney will sign off (just as he did last November, despite grumbling).  Conceivably that could happen in August; more likely the try would be made after the November elections.  But if anything goes wrong we are facing a January 2005 vote.  (And in all circumstances, it will take two months after legislative approval for the money to show up in our pockets.)</div> <bR> <div> This time, unlike the first three years of the contract fight, the problem is not opposition to our retroactive pay.  No organized group opposes us, and the Speaker and Senate President openly and publicly support us.  The problem is that our retroactive pay is being held hostage to other political maneuvers.  All of us in the MSP, both members and leaders, will continue to monitor the situation.  Perhaps the state's politicians will do the right thing; perhaps we will need to mobilize once again to remind them of their own past promises and commitments.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__8_24_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (8-24-04)</B></div> <bR> <div> This update covers two issues: what is (and is not) happening about our retroactive pay, and a petition about University Child Care.</div> <bR> <div> <U>RETRO PAY</U></div> <div> Our retroactive pay has been delayed once again, and it may be a several month delay. We continue to be assured that the legislative leadership supports our pay, but other politics have interfered. Here’s the story.</div> <bR> <div> The retroactive pay was to be included in a supplementary budget to close out the last fiscal year (which ended June 30). All sorts of legislators, however, tried to add amendments to that supplementary budget. Most especially, it was felt that the Republicans would force a vote on Romney’s tax cut proposal. Democrats, in an election year, did not want to vote against a tax cut. To avoid this, Speaker Finneran kept the supplementary budget from being debated or voted on. (We had previously been told some kind of supplementary budget was a near-certainty.)</div> <bR> <div> The legislature’s formal session is now over, and will not resume until January. An effort will be made to pass the supplementary budget, including our retroactive pay, before then, during the informal session. But during informal session the only way a bill can pass is by unanimous consent. Even if the bill passes, if the Governor vetoes the bill, no vote can be taken on over-riding that veto until formal sessions resume.</div> <div>  </div> <div> There is a non-trivial chance that our retro pay and the supplementary budget will receive unanimous approval and that Governor Romney will sign off (just as he did last November, despite grumbling). Conceivably that could happen in the next month; more likely the try would be made after the November elections. But if anything goes wrong we are facing a January 2005 vote. (And in all circumstances, it will take two months after legislative approval for the money to show up in our pockets.)</div> <bR> <div> This time, unlike the first three years of the contract fight, the problem is not opposition to our retroactive pay. No organized group opposes us, and the Speaker and Senate President openly and publicly support us. The problem is that we are only a pawn in their game, and our retroactive pay is being held hostage to other political maneuvers – which perhaps is emblematic for public higher education in this state. All of us in the MSP, both members and leaders, will continue to monitor the situation. Perhaps the state’s politicians will do the right thing; perhaps we will need to mobilize once again to remind them of their own past promises and commitments.</div> <div>  </div> <div> <U>SAVING UNIVERSITY CHILD CARE</U></div> <div> To add your name to the petition below, send a message to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:saveucc@yahoo.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:saveucc@yahoo.com"><U><U>saveucc@yahoo.com</U></U></A></FONT> </div> <bR> <div> Once you do, your name will be added to the below petition that will be presented to Vice Chancellor Michael Gargano. We are hoping to show the administration that the University Child Care (UCC) program has widespread support, not only here on campus but across our community. So please feel free to forward this petition on to other friends and supporters and ask them to help save UCC by signing our petition. </div> <bR> <div> <U>UNIVERSITY CHILD CARE PETITION </U></div> <div> We, the undersigned, believe that the University Child Care program provides a vital service to University faculty, staff and students as well as the entire community. We are dismayed by the repeated attempts by the University administration to undermine the UCC program. As last Spring’s semester was ending, Vice Chancellor Michael Gargano announced the closing of yet another classroom and targeted some of our most qualified teachers for layoff. At the same time the Vice Chancellor announced that he would be hand-picking a working committee to develop a long term plan for the program. </div> <bR> <div> As of August 1st no committee has been set up. Given the long history of attempts to close or cut back the program and the lack of results following previously appointed campus child care committees, we have serious doubts that the best interests of the UCC program are being served.</div> <div>  </div> <div> Therefore we are calling upon the University to immediately set up a credible working committee to plan the future of the University Child Care program. A number of eminently qualified individuals have volunteered to serve on this working committee and we believe they should be appointed:</div> <div>  </div> <div> Nancy deProsse, Founding Member of Working Families Massachusetts </div> <div> Lynn Hatch, UMass Economics Department Doctoral Candidate </div> <div> Christine Lopes, Alumni, Field Director for the Early Education for All Campaign </div> <div> Roy Rosenblatt, Amherst Child Services Coordinator </div> <div> Nick Seamons, Owner Black Sheep Deli, President Promoting Downtown Amherst </div> <div> Eve S Weinbaum, Professor UMass Labor Relations & Research Center </div> <bR> <div> Each of these persons is willing to invest the time and effort to develop a real plan for the future of the program. We believe it would be short-sighted and unwise for the University to ignore their offer. Therefore we call upon Vice Chancellor Gargano to appoint these persons to an independent working committee and to pledge to implement the committee's final plan. </div> <div> Signed, </div> <div> [To add your name to the petition above, send a message to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:saveucc@yahoo.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:saveucc@yahoo.com"><U><U>saveucc@yahoo.com</U></U></A></FONT>]</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__9_7_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (9-7-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> This message covers two points:  an MTA higher education candidate for the state retirement board, and an update on retro pay.</div> <bR> <div> <U>VOTING FOR STATE RETIREMENT BOARD</U></div> <div> MSP members' and retirees' pension benefits are affected by decisions made by the State Retirement Board.  While most of us rarely vote in elections to this or other state boards, we have an opportunity now to elect a faculty member who has been active in the MTA and around public higher education issues.  <B>Len Paolillo</B> has been a state college professor for 32 years at the Mass. College of Liberal Arts in North Adams and is running for a seat on the State Retirement Board.  He says he will be “<I>an advocate for a system of wise investments, fair administration and proper funding and will work tirelessly to protect our hard-earned retirement benefits and increase our COLAs</I>.”  </div> <bR> <div> The ballots were supposed to be mailed out on Sept.3 and must be returned by Oct. 4.  Please don't discard you ballot.  We hope you will consider voting for Prof. Paolillo.</div> <bR> <div> This email is only being sent to MSP retirees, but please pass the information on to others you know who might be interested.</div> <bR> <div> <U>RETROACTIVE PAY</U></div> <div> We still haven't received the first installment of our retroactive pay, and it may not happen until January.  Retro pay covering the period from July 1 to December 31, 2003 was to be included in a supplementary budget that was supposed to be voted by July.  Our retro pay is still supposed to be in the supplementary budget, but it's not clear when that budget will be voted on.  We, like you, are nervous and unhappy, but we are told we will get our retro money and it will cover retirees as well as those still on the payroll.  Obviously, if we hear anything to the contrary we will let you know immediately and we can mobilize.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__9_13_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (9-13-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> The retroactive pay issue has been a roller coaster.  On Thursday the legislature passed a supplemental budget including the first installment of our retroactive pay, covering the period July 1 to December 31, 2003.</div> <bR> <div> Governor Romney now has ten days in which to sign or veto the legislation.  If the governor vetoes the bill, the legislature can't vote on an over-ride until January.</div> <bR> <div> The legislation specifies that the money is to be paid by November 19.  It covers both active and retired members, and specifies that pensions shall be re-calculated for retired members.  In case you get any messages to the contrary, you should know that for 24 hours it seemed the legislation might not cover retired members, and during that period some (other unions) put out messages to that effect.  Here's what happened.</div> <bR> <div> The MSP and the MTA have always been committed to winning retro pay for all our members, including retired members.  We had been told the legislature would pass the first installment of our retroactive pay, including retired members, in a supplemental budget.  That budget was repeatedly delayed for reasons having nothing to do with our contracts.</div> <bR> <div> On Thursday the legislature finally passed the supplementary budget, and as promised our retroactive pay was included.  But it seemed the language did not cover retired members.  The MTA leadership, lawyers, and governmental affairs representatives had 20 hours of “what the heck are we to do” while securing a copy of the full bill and reading through it carefully.  It turns out that in a so-called “outside section,” many many pages away from the main language, the bill fully and unequivocally specifies that the retroactive pay will be given to retired members and their pensions will be re-calculated.  (If you want to see the full language, email <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> and we'll send it to you.)</div> <bR> <div> The legislature's vote is great news.  We hope Governor Romney will also approve our raises.  If he does not, the legislature is committed to over-riding his veto.  We'll be delighted to win the first installment of our retroactive pay, whether that's in ten days or in January.  And yes, we are already at work on winning retroactive pay for the first two years of the contract (July 1, 2001 to June 30, 2003).</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__9_20_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (9-20-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> Governor Romney has vetoed the first installment of our retroactive pay raises; worse, he let most of the rest of the supplemental appropriation go through, and singled us out.  Senator Stan Rosenberg said it best:  “This latest slap at public higher education is nothing short of an outrage.”</div> <bR> <div> Supposedly we have a commitment from Speaker Finneran and other legislative leaders that in January the veto will be over-ridden.  (The legislature can't do so until then because they are now in informal session, and it requires a formal session to over-ride.)</div> <bR> <div> We can't wait until January.  We need to begin, RIGHT NOW, to build our political capacity.  If we want legislators to help us in January and beyond, we need to help them now.  First and foremost, that means area legislators who have been our strong supporters.  Second that means providing assistance in key races where Romney has targeted key legislators for defeat.  And when we help them out, we need to be sure legislators know that the help is coming from UMass faculty and the faculty union, the MSP.</div> <bR> <div> If you are willing to give an hour or two, sometime between now and November 2, <B>PLEASE</B> let the MSP office know (reply to this message or call 545-2206).  We are beginning an effort to coordinate and make visible our efforts.  That might mean holding a sign on election day, or stuffing envelopes, or dropping literature at people's doorsteps.  Many of our members already do so; we'd like to be sure legislators know this support comes from UMass faculty.</div> <bR> <div> Legally, no public employee can <U>ask</U> anyone to contribute money to political campaigns.  We <U>can</U> contribute, but we can't ask others to do so.  Our retired members, however, CAN ask people for contributions, and can direct those contributions in the ways that will have the most impact.  If you'd like to know more, contact the MSP office (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> or 545-2206) to be put in touch with our retired members politics committee.</div> <bR> <div> P.S.  You recently received, or will soon receive, a ballot for the state retirement board.  Even if (like most of us) you usually ignore that ballot, this time please vote for Leonard Paolillo, an MTA higher education member running for the board, who will work to promote our interests.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__9_27_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (9-27-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> This message covers two items, both about politics:  our sponsoring a debate between the two state senate candidates, Democrat Stan Rosenberg and Republican Jim Miller, and our preparing to make political endorsements.</div> <bR> <div> DEBATE</div> <div> On Tuesday October 5 at 7:00 p.m. in Thompson 104, the MSP and other campus unions are sponsoring a one hour debate between the two Senate candidates for our district:  the incumbent, Democrat Stan Rosenberg, and his challenger, Republican Jim Miller.  The debate will be moderated by UMass Journalism professor Ralph Whitehead.  Questions will come from a panel of journalists:  Bob Paquette of WFCR, Mary Carey of the Gazette, and Holly Angelo of the Republican.  <B>Please come, and invite your students, friends and family</B>.</div> <bR> <div> POLITICAL ENDORSEMENTS</div> <div> The MSP is preparing to make political endorsements in area legislative races, and perhaps as well in a handful of races elsewhere in the state for races that have been targeted as especially important to higher education.  </div> <bR> <div> If we make an endorsement in a race we intend to also put resources into the race, helping to mobilize members to hold signs or stuff envelopes; perhaps our retired members will also aid in raising funds, especially for the targeted races outside our area.  This is especially important since legislators across the state often report that although they hear from higher education members on the issues that matter to us, our members are NOT visible in helping candidates at election time.  </div> <bR> <div> We have much we hope the legislature will do, beginning with honoring our contracts and paying us the money we are owed.  Now is the time for us to step up to help candidates.  (Please contact the MSP office [<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> or 545-2206] if you would be willing to give an hour or two between now and the election.  If you are already working for a candidate, please call the office to talk about how we can be sure that MSP and UMass faculty-librarians get recognized for this work.)</div> <bR> <div> At its meeting on Wednesday October 6 (the day after the debate), the board will make decisions on endorsements.  In the meantime we are collecting information about the candidates in these races, including their voting records (for incumbents) and their positions on issues (for challengers as well as incumbents).  </div> <bR> <div> Another extremely important source of information is the experiences of our own members.  Our board members would like to hear from members:  What are your experiences with the candidates for office, and do you think we should make endorsements in these races?</div> <bR> <div> To register your views, please contact any of the members of the MSP board:</div> <bR> <div> Dan Clawson, Sociology, Machmer Hall, 5-5974, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:clawson@sadri.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:clawson@sadri.umass.edu"><U><U>clawson@sadri.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Melissa Barringer, Management, SOM Building, 5-5628, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:mwb@mgmt.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:mwb@mgmt.umass.edu"><U><U>mwb@mgmt.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Jenny Spencer, English, Bartlett Hall, 5-5498, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:jspencer@english.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:jspencer@english.umass.edu"><U><U>jspencer@english.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Laetitia LaFollette, Art History, Bartlett Hall, 5-0634, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:laelaf@arthist.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:laelaf@arthist.umass.edu"><U><U>laelaf@arthist.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Randall Phillis, Biology, Morrill Science Center, 5-3494, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:rphillis@bio.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:rphillis@bio.umass.edu"><U><U>rphillis@bio.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Mark Brenner, Pol. Economy Res. Inst., Gordon Hall, 7-0241, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:brenner@econs.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:brenner@econs.umass.edu"><U><U>brenner@econs.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Max Page, Art History, Fine Arts Center, 5-6952, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:mpage@art.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:mpage@art.umass.edu"><U><U>mpage@art.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Allen Barker, Plant & Soil Sciences, Bowditch Hall, 5-4733, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:barker@pssci.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:barker@pssci.umass.edu"><U><U>barker@pssci.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> David Mix Barrington, Computer Science, Comp. Science Bldg., 5-4329, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:barring@cs.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:barring@cs.umass.edu"><U><U>barring@cs.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Paula Chakravartty, Communication, Machmer Hall, 5-6346, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:pchakrav@comm.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:pchakrav@comm.umass.edu"><U><U>pchakrav@comm.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Ann Ferguson , Philosophy , Bartlett Hall, 5-5802, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:ferguson@philos.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:ferguson@philos.umass.edu"><U><U>ferguson@philos.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Ian Grosse, Mech. & Industrial Engineering, E Lab, 5-1350, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:grosse@ecs.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:grosse@ecs.umass.edu"><U><U>grosse@ecs.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Naka Ishii, Int. Sciences and Engr. Library, Morrill, 5-2674, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:nishii@library.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:nishii@library.umass.edu"><U><U>nishii@library.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Laura Jensen, Political Science, Thompson Hall, 5-6185, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:jensen@poplsci.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:jensen@poplsci.umass.edu"><U><U>jensen@polsci.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Sangeeta Kamat, EPRA, Hills South, 5-4586, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:skamat@educ.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:skamat@educ.umass.edu"><U><U>skamat@educ.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Christine King, Nursing, Arnold House, 5-5095, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:mcking@nursing.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:mcking@nursing.umass.edu"><U><U>mcking@nursing.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Sundar Krishnamurty, Mech & Industrial Engineering, E Lab, 5-0297, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:skrishna@ecs.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:skrishna@ecs.umass.edu"><U><U>skrishna@ecs.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Pamela Lawrence, Dean - SOM, SOM Building, 5-5580, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:lawrence@som.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:lawrence@som.umass.edu"><U><U>lawrence@som.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Stephanie Luce, Labor Rel. & Research Center, Draper Hall, 5-5907, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:sluce@econs.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:sluce@econs.umass.edu"><U><U>sluce@econs.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Thomas McCarthy, Polymer Science, Conte Res. Ctr., 7-1512, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:tmccarthy@polysci.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:tmccarthy@polysci.umass.edu"><U><U>tmccarthy@polysci.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Dean Robinson, Political Science, Thompson Hall, 5-2438, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:deanr@polsci.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:deanr@polsci.umass.edu"><U><U>deanr@polsci.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Christine Turner, Program Support, W.E.B. Dubois Library, 7-1026, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:cturner@library.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:cturner@library.umass.edu"><U><U>cturner@library.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B><U> <A NAME="msp_action_alert___101504_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></U></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT (10-15-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> Subject:  political action</div> <bR> <div> This message covers three points, all related to politics:  who MSP has endorsed, volunteering time for a local candidate for legislature, and action for the key legislative races around the state.  If we want our retroactive pay, or good budgets for the university, we need to step up now and support our friends in the legislature.</div> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ENDORSEMENTS</B></div> <div> After collecting information on all local legislative races, the MSP board voted to endorse the following candidates, all of whom have strongly supported us in our contract fight, are working to help us win our retroactive pay, and support strong budgets for the university:</div> <div> Senator Stan Rosenberg</div> <div> Representative Ellen Story</div> <div> Representative Steve Kulik</div> <div> Representative Peter Kocot</div> <div> Representative John Scibak</div> <div> Representative Chris Donelan</div> <bR> <div> <B>VOLUNTEERING TIME</B></div> <div> We want to do more than offer a paper endorsement.  Area legislators have told us specific ways we can help their campaigns, from holding signs at key intersections to putting signs on our lawns to phone banking.  If you might be willing to contribute an hour or two between now and the election, please reply to this message.</div> <bR> <div> <B>KEY TARGETED RACES FOR LEGISLATURE</B></div> <div> Governor Romney has raised unprecedented amounts of money, and recruited unusually strong candidates.  His aim is to win seven more Senate seats, giving him a veto-proof Senate.  If he does so, we'd probably never get our retroactive pay.  For example, the chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Therese Murray, is facing a stiff challenge from a millionaire who moved from Cambridge to Falmouth to challenge her.  (Ways and Means is the committee that controls our retroactive pay.)  Although she is a strong candidate, in 2002 the district backed Romney by a wide margin.</div> <bR> <div> Currently employed members can contribute money to races, but cannot ask for campaign contributions.  Our retired members, however, can collect campaign contributions and pass them on to candidates in ways that maximize the impact of UMass faculty contributions.  If you'd like to know more about this, please call or email a member of our Retired Member Political Action group:</div> <bR> <div> George Cernada, 549-7815, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:gcernada@schoolph.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:gcernada@schoolph.umass.edu"><U><U>gcernada@schoolph.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> Arlyn Diamond, 548-9576, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:adiamond@english.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:adiamond@english.umass.edu"><U><U>adiamond@english.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> </div> <div> <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Jerome Mileur, 584-3416</FONT> <A HREF="mailto:jmileur@polsci.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:jmileur@polsci.umass.edu"><U><U>jmileur@polsci.umass.edu</U></U></A></div> <div> Charles Moran, 549-5767, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:cmoran@english.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:cmoran@english.umass.edu"><U><U>cmoran@english.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> </div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B><U> <A NAME="msp_action_alert____11_1_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></U></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>MSP ACTION ALERT (11-1-04)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>1.  VOTE TOMORROW, TUESDAY NOVEMBER 2</B></div> <div> to support those local legislators who have supported us, our contracts, and the university:</div> <bR> <div> Senator Stan Rosenberg</div> <div> Representative Ellen Story</div> <div> Representative Steve Kulik</div> <div> Representative Peter Kocot</div> <div> Representative John Scibak</div> <div> Representative Chris Donelan</div> <bR> <div> <B>2.  LONG TERM POLITICS</B></div> <div> Whatever happens on Tuesday, in the state or the nation, we need to strengthen our ties to legislators around the state.  Our retroactive pay, future pay raises, ability to replace the faculty and staff lost in the budget cuts, and the university's potential to offer quality, accessible education all depend on what legislators do.</div> <bR> <div> That's why we are creating a committee to work year-round to build better relations with legislators.  We want to let legislators know about the many accomplishments of the university and its faculty.  Part of that is communicating general news; part of that is connecting one legislator with one faculty member.  If a legislator wants to know how to lower health care costs, and someone on campus has done research on the topic, let's bring them together - and ditto for dozens of other topics. </div> <bR> <div> Please be in touch with the MSP office if you know research or accomplishments that should be brought to the legislature's attention, or (better yet) if you might be willing to work on the committee that will try to make those connections and build positive long-term relations.  Reply to this message, or call 545-2206.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__11_19_04_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>MSP ACTION ALERT! (11-19-04)</B></div> <bR> <div> MSP is planning a campaign highlighting the shortage of tenure-track faculty.  We need your help!</div> <bR> <div> Last spring our members stated that the most pressing issue for faculty at UMass is the precipitous decline in the number of tenure-track faculty.  Instead of holding a rally or demonstration, we are planning a public hearing/press event:</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Wednesday, December 1st</B></div> <div> <B>4 PM</B></div> <div> <B>Campus Center 904-08</B></div> <bR> <div> Faculty and students will testify on the impact of faculty decline to a hearing board of prominent individuals:  State Representative Ellen Story, Yale University Professor Michael Denning, and Student Government Association President Eduardo Bustamante.</div> <bR> <div> The hearing should last no more than one hour.  The media will be there and will be interested in hearing from a range of faculty, so we need a room full of people, at least some of whom can answer questions and talk to the press.</div> <bR> <div> We need to act quickly to make this happen.  PLEASE let the MSP office know, as soon as possible if you can help in any of the following ways:</div> <bR> <div> ____  I will provide a one page (or less) statement about the impact of the faculty shortage (see below)</div> <div> ____  I will get one or more students to provide testimony</div> <div> ____  I will make a commitment to be at the hearing on December 1st at 4:00</div> <div> ____  I will bring students and colleagues to the hearing</div> <div> ____  I would like ____ flyers to pass out to my classes, announcing the event to students.</div> <bR> <div> For both faculty and students:</div> <div> <B>If you can testify about this issue, please send a one to two sentence preliminary email to MSP as soon as possible, indicating what you might write and/or talk about.</B>  Even the full testimony should be very short -- one page is plenty.  Specific real-life stories make the best testimony.</div> <bR> <div> Here are some examples of things that people might discuss:</div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Students have fewer courses to choose from, making it hard to graduate or complete their chosen major.</div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Classes are very large, creating problems for both faculty and students -fewer tenure-track faculty means</div> <div> less research, which hurts the university's reputation and ability to recruit students.</div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Students get to know very few tenure-track faculty during their 4 years of college; there are not enough advisors</div> <div> or mentors.</div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Fewer faculty have time to do service and outreach in the community --contingent faculty do much of the</div> <div> teaching, but do not have academic freedom or job security.</div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">It is also harder to recruit and retain faculty because of other cuts at the university -- library budgets, staff cuts,</div> <div> childcare and other services.</div> <bR> <div> Thank you!  We look forward to hearing your stories, and to seeing you on Wednesday December 1st at 4:00 p.m. in Campus Center 904.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__1_20_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>MSP ACTION ALERT (1-20-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> Here's what's happening about our retroactive pay, and here's what we are doing about it.  Please reply to this message if you are willing to participate in our February 10 actions.</div> <bR> <div> We were supposed to get the first installment of our retroactive pay last July.  The legislature passed it (late) but Romney vetoed it.  Supposedly the legislature planned to pass it “first thing in January.”  </div> <bR> <div> The House, under new leadership, has not yet decided on committee chairs, so no action can be taken on our retroactive pay.  We are repeatedly assured that there is no opposition, that when the bill comes up it will pass almost unanimously.  But the date this is to happen keeps receding into the distance.  (If the money is delayed a year, that has cost us something like a million dollars in interest foregone.)</div> <bR> <div> On Thursday  February 10 we will take a series of actions to remind the legislature of its commitment.  Together with the other unions on campus, we will have a bus going to Boston.  We hope as many as possible will go to the State House; that is definitely the most effective way to convey our message.  If you can't go but would like to participate, let the MSP office know and we will give you the phone numbers and emails of key legislators.  </div> <bR> <div> Our message will be friendly but firm.  We will also urge them, given the long delay, to pay us more than just the first installment of retroactive pay (that covering July 1 to December 31, 2003).  The state claims to have a $700 million surplus because tax collections ran above projected levels.  The real surplus is $700 million MINUS the money they owe us.</div> <bR> <div> Please reply to this message if you are willing to participate in our February 10 actions to win the retroactive pay.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="msp_action_alert__2_15_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>MSP ACTION ALERT (2-15-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> If all goes well, we expect that today both the House and the Senate will pass a supplemental budget including funding for (a portion of) the retroactive pay we are owed.  The expectation is that Governor Romney will again veto the bill, and that the legislature will then over-ride his veto.  Gov. Romney has 10 days to act; we hope the legislature will over-ride soon after his veto.  A reasonable guess, and it's only a guess, is that we'd actually see the money in our pay checks around the beginning of May.</div> <bR> <div> This retroactive pay will cover the period July 1, 2003 to December 31, 2003.  If you have been on the payroll since June 30, 2001 or before, you are owed an amount that on average will be 7 to 8 percent of your 2001 salary.  We again had a scare about including retirees, again had to make extra efforts to get them included, and again were successful in doing so.  We will be continuing our efforts to see that we are paid, as promised, the remaining portion of the retro money (covering July 1, 2001 to June 30, 2003; an amount that will average about 15% of 2001 salary).</div> <bR> <div> Also tomorrow, at 2:00 p.m. in the State House, Rep. Ellen Story and Sen. Stan Rosenberg will be attending a press conference to release a report on the decline in the number of tenure-track faculty at UMass Amherst.  As with our December forum, several faculty and students will be testifying about the consequences of that decline.  We want to put this issue on the agenda for the legislature, the trustees, and our campus administration.</div> <bR> <div> Assuming the retro passes, it would be a very good idea for people to send thank you notes to your representative and senator.  Our area legislators have been leaders in the fight to make this happen.  We tend to let them know when we are unhappy; it's important that we also thank them when the legislature comes through for us.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B> <A NAME="_2_17_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A><B>(2-17-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> Three points:  membership meeting on contract bargaining, retro pay, report on events to push for hiring more faculty.</div> <bR> <div> 1.  MEMBERSHIP MEETING:  There will be a membership meeting and lunch on Thursday February 24 from 12-1 in Campus Center 165-69.  The bargaining team will report on what has happened in contract negotiations.  The situation is fluid, but it is at least possible that bargaining could be concluded in the next month or two.  The team will report on our four main issues - salary, the decline in the number of tenure-track faculty, improved conditions for contract faculty, improved working conditions - plus several other issues.  PLEASE RSVP if you are planning to attend so we can order the right number of lunches; hit reply to this message.</div> <bR> <div> 2.  RETROACTIVE PAY, first installment, passed both the House and Senate (unanimously) and is now sitting on the Governor's desk.  Amherst campus faculty and librarians will receive a total of $5.8 million from this first installment (that is, an average of four to five thousand dollars each for those who have been here since 2001).  According to the bill, the money is to be paid to us within 30 days following the bill's final passage.</div> <bR> <div> 3.  FACULTY SHORTAGE: Yesterday the MSP released its report on the faculty shortage at UMass.  The 50+ page report contains facts and figures about the decline in the number of tenure-track faculty, and the rise in the number of contract faculty (a rise that is half the amount of the tenure-track decline).  It also contains compelling testimony from students, faculty, and staff about the human meaning of the faculty shortage.</div> <bR> <div> Rep. Ellen Story hosted an event yesterday at the State House in Boston.  Seven legislators attended, including Sen. Stan Rosenberg, Sen. Rob O'Leary (the co-chair of the legislature's new Higher Education committee), Rep. Steve Kulik, and Rep. John Scibak.  Half a dozen of our students, and several faculty, presented testimony about what the faculty shortage means in practice.  The legislators were moved; the press was there and we are getting some good coverage.  Earlier in the day we also presented copies of the report and talked about the issue to the Board of Trustees.</div> <bR> <div> The report release, the State House hearing, and the Trustee presentation are all parts of what will be a continuing campaign.  At the February 24 lunch we'll be talking about what to do next; if you have ideas or suggestions, let us know.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_2_26_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(2-26-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> <U>FACULTY</U> <U>DECLINE</U></div> <div> The MSP has been leading a campaign to increase the number of faculty, especially tenure-track faculty, at UMass Amherst.  We've done so through a hearing, a 50+ page report, a presentation to the Board of Trustees and to legislators in the State House.  We've had tons of television and press coverage, highlighted by the Boston Globe's front page article (Feb 22; write the MSP office if you'd like a copy).  You can read or download the report at the MSP website:   <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp/id70.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp/id70.htm"><U><U>http://www.umass.edu/msp/id70.htm</U></U></A></FONT> </div> <bR> <div> Everyone tells us they agree, but we need concrete steps that will achieve results.  We will be presenting the report to all members of the legislature, and to the Alumni board, but we are also asking people to sign the following petition. </div> <bR> <div>      Dear Chancellor Lombardi:</div> <bR> <div> As faculty and librarians at UMass Amherst, we applaud your recent statement in the Boston Globe that our campus has a serious shortage of permanent faculty.  You have said that for UMass Amherst to be competitive with our peer institutions we need to hire 200 to 300 faculty.  The Massachusetts Society of Professors (MSP) has also argued for this in our contract negotiations.</div> <bR> <div> Since we share the goal of increasing the permanent faculty to at least 1100, we call on you to offer a specific plan to achieve that goal within the next three years.</div> <div>  </div> <div> If you agree, please reply to this message and ask that your name be added to the list of signators.  But <B>please also print out the petition and place it in your department's mail room</B>.  (Please get signatures to us by March 9; if in doubt, sign again; we'll eliminate duplicate signatures.)</div> <bR> <div> <U>RETRO</U> <U>VETO</U></div> <div> As expected, Governor Romney has just vetoed the first installment of our retroactive pay.  Legislative leaders have told us they are committed to over-riding that veto.  (Unfortunately, we don't yet have a date for an over-ride, and Massachusetts law does not require a veto be taken up within a set time period.)  The legislation provides that the money is to be paid out within 30 days of the bill's final passage.</div> <bR> <div> Our primary message now should be to thank legislators for their continuing support, including their support for what we hope will be a speedy over-ride.  Remember:  The legislature has done, and will again do, the right thing.  <U>Thank</U> them, don't blame them.  But legislators DO need to hear from us.  Please write to the legislator from your area, and if possible also to the legislative leadership.  A list of the relevant legislators, and contact information for them, is at the MSP web site:  <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp/legaction.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp/legaction.htm"><U><U>http://www.umass.edu/msp/legaction.htm</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_3_9_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(3-9-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> <U>RETRO PASSES/ACT NOW ON FACULTY SHORTAGE</U></div> <div> Thanks to continuing efforts by the union, today the legislature overrode Governor Romney's veto of the first installment of our retroactive pay.  By informal calculation, we think that means the money should be in our April 8 paychecks, although that is not confirmed.</div> <bR> <div> They said that our raises from the last contract would never happen. But we won and last year salaries jumped an average of 15.96 percent. They told us to forget about the professional development money that was in our contract. But we won and we all received $1624 in our paychecks in June. They said that getting our retroactive pay (going back to 2001) was a pipe dream. But we won, and now we will be getting on average of more than $4000 apiece, and retirees are included.</div> <bR> <div> That's an update on our LAST contract.  But we're in a struggle right now to win a good new contract.  One of our central issues is the shortage of faculty on campus, especially of tenure-track faculty, and the need to restore faculty numbers.  Our campaign on this has generated great publicity:  a lead editorial in the <U>Boston Globe</U>, an editorial in the <U>Springfield Republican</U>, a Derrick Jackson column in the <U>Globe</U>, a front page article in the <U>Globe</U>, a mention in <U>USA Today</U>, a discussion in the <U>Chronicle of Higher Education</U>, and a host of other television and press coverage, all of it highly positive.  To see a sample of these articles, go to the MSP website (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp"><U><U>www.umass.edu/msp</U></U></A></FONT>). </div> <bR> <div> The press coverage and the efforts of our bargaining team are important, but we need to do more.  We have the momentum that makes it possible to win a significant advance on an issue that - like funding the old contract - people had told us was impossible.  Your help right now can make a huge difference.  Can you:  </div> <bR> <div> 1.  Sign our petition calling on Chancellor Lombardi to develop a plan to restore faculty numbers.  Reply to this message to add your name.  Indicate if you would also be willing to post the petition in your mailroom and/or circulate it to colleagues in your department.</div> <bR> <div> 2.  Go to Boston next Tuesday or Wednesday to deliver copies of our 50 page report to all members of the legislature.  The legislators who have seen the report urged us to give copies to all legislators, and insisted that in-person delivery is much more effective than sending it through the mail.  We'll have carpools going in and will go around in small groups; please reply to this message if you might be able to join us.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_4_13_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(4-13-05)</B></div> <div> ADMINISTRATION ASKS FOR REAL PAY CUT</div> <bR> <div> The MSP has been in contract negotiations for a year.  The bargaining team is angry and so is the board.  The administration is calling for a cut in our real pay.  This message provides an update on bargaining; tomorrow we'll send a message laying out a plan of action, which will begin with activities on Thursday April 21.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Salary:</B>  The administration is offering 2 percent a year pay increases (less than the rate of inflation) with no professional development money and no increase in dental benefit contributions.  At the same time, Governor Romney has proposed that we pay an extra $500 a year for health benefits.</div> <bR> <div> In fact, the administration/Romney offer is less than 2 percent a year, because they want us to take no increase for the first nine months, and then begin the raises. </div> <div>  </div> <div> Some other unions have settled for 2 percent a year pay increases BUT those are unions that have step increases.  With step increases, most employees move up a step each year, and receive a salary increase for moving up a step.  In <U>every</U> past contract the administration has offered us an amount of money that is calculated to be the equivalent of step increases.  Although we always fight over how much that is, usually it has been about 1.5 percent a year; that is, this year they would need to offer us 3.5 percent a year.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Tenure-track faculty shortage:</B>  We've received lots of verbal support for the importance of increasing faculty numbers, but there has been absolutely no willingness to make any contractual commitment.  Years of experience make us skeptical of statements of good intentions.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Contract faculty:</B>  This is the area where we've made our greatest progress, including indications the administration will agree to regularizing and lengthening the terms of contracts and the creation of a senior lecturer position.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Other issues:</B>  On child care, the university refuses to even guarantee the University Child Care center will stay open; on building improvements they won't offer us a voice; for domestic partners, they want to take away benefits.</div> <bR> <div> Although the administration knows the Romney-dictated salary offer is ridiculously inadequate, they have demonstrated no sense of urgency in efforts to get us a better offer.  The university administration will go ask for a better package, but as best we can tell at this point they will not make it a priority, show any leadership, or expend any political capital on these issues.  (Sound familiar from the retroactive pay campaign?)</div> <bR> <div> Our bargaining strategy has been to play within the system and not to make waves.  The administration has responded by not taking us seriously.  In effect they've said that they only respond to pressure.  If so, we are forced to resort to pressure tactics, beginning with activities on April 21, and continuing with further actions through commencement and beyond.  Tomorrow we'll send a message about actions to take.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_4_14_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(4-14-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> Yesterday’s MSP message explained our frustrations with bargaining.  This message lays out a plan of action and specific things to do.</div> <bR> <div> Our first action centers around Thursday April 21 (a Monday in the university class schedule). Graduate and undergraduate students had already been planning a class boycott and teach-in. Because our negotiations are going nowhere, we are also taking action that day, adding our issues to theirs. The themes of the day are:</div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Support the Community Action Diversity Plan, not Chancellor Lombardi’s plan</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Increase the number of faculty in classrooms and labs</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">No cuts in real wages or benefits</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Student control of student organizations</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Fair contracts for all campus unions</div> <bR> <div> Here are specific things you can do connected with April 21:</div> <bR> <div> 1.  Reply to this message to add your name to those pledged not to penalize students who boycott or walk out on</div> <div>      April 21st.  (Sign the pledge even if you do not teach that day):</div> <bR> <div> Undergraduate and graduate student employees, concerned about campus diversity and about cuts in real wages, have called for a day of action – a class boycott for undergraduates and concerted action for graduate students – on Thursday April 21 (a Monday in the university class schedule). I pledge not to penalize those who participate in these activities because of a principled commitment.</div> <bR> <div> 2.  Together with students, we will be holding a teach-in in the Campus Center from 9-12 on April 21.  Let us know</div> <div>       if you would be willing to speak for ten minutes, and on what topic. Also let us know if you will urge your class to</div> <div>      attend the teach-in, instead of going to your regular class or in addition to it.</div> <bR> <div> 3.  There will be informational pickets from 9-12 at four locations (Bartlett, Herter, Lederle, Thompson). Let us</div> <div>       know if you are willing to picket or willing to serve as a faculty member to sign forms certifying students missed</div> <div>       classes to participate in April 21 activities.</div> <bR> <div> This is the first step in a series of activities. We are still making plans and considering options around:</div> <bR> <div> May 25th Board of Trustees Meeting (9:15 a.m. at UMass Dartmouth)</div> <div> May 12 Inauguration of President Wilson</div> <div> May 22 Commencement</div> <bR> <div> Please order academic regalia for Commencement. Plan to attend, both to honor our students’ graduation and to participate in our commencement activities.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_4_19_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(4-19-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> Friday your paycheck should contain a healthy addition for retroactive pay.  That's a first installment and we'll have to keep fighting for the rest.</div> <bR> <div> On Thursday students will be boycotting classes.  We will be acting to promote our contract issues and the university budget, and we need your help and participation in four ways - getting students to promote a better budget, supporting the teach-in, giving students permission to participate, and joining activities yourself.  Please reply to this message and let us know if you can help in any of these ways:</div> <bR> <div> 1.  <U>PROMOTING A BETTER BUDGET</U><B>.</B>  On Thursday, at the Student Union, we hope to get hundreds of students to phone their legislators, asking for a better budget.  Urge students to come and call their legislator; we'll have a complete set-up ready for them.  To make that work we <U>need</U>:</div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Twenty (20) people to lend their cell phones to be used for the day.  We can reimburse you for the cost of the calls.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">People to volunteer one hour to staff the phone operation.  We'd like at least two people on duty throughout the day.  Sign up for a one hour slot; more if you are able.</div> <bR> <div> 2.  <U>TEACH-IN</U>.  We already have more than a dozen faculty members, and special guest Barbara Ehrenreich, talking at the teach-in.  We can use more volunteers to talk for ten minutes each on any topic related to the day's events, and we hope many faculty will send their classes to the teach-in, on the steps of the Student Union (if it's good weather) or in the Cape Cod Lounge (if it's raining) from 9-12 and 2-4.</div> <bR> <div> 3.  <U>TAKE THE PLEDGE</U>.  More than 175 faculty have already signed the pledge giving students permission to miss class to participate in Thursday's activities.  If you have not yet signed, please add your name <B>even if you are not teaching that day.</B></div> <bR> <div> 4.  <U>JOIN IN</U>.  Speak at the teach-in, send your class, come make a phone call to the legislature, join the noon gathering, walk an informational picket line.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_4_28_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(4-28-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> Three items of importance:  a forum on unions and Iraq, MSP elections, and our chance for a breakthrough in hiring more faculty.</div> <bR> <div> <U>UNIONS AND IRAQ</U></div> <div> Should Campus Unions Oppose the War in Iraq?  Should unions even take positions on issues like this?  We invite you to attend a forum, co-sponsored by MSP, GEO, and SEIU, where members of these unions will take differing positions on the issues.  On Tuesday May 3rd at 12 noon in Campus Center 803.</div> <bR> <div> <U>MSP ELECTIONS</U></div> <div> Elections for MSP officers and board members will be held on Wednesday May 4th from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the MSP Office, 121 Hampshire House.</div> <bR> <div> <U>FACULTY SHORTAGE - A BREAKTHROUGH?</U></div> <div> Thanks to our efforts rebuilding the faculty is now on lots of people's agenda.  We've created a tool - an eight minute DVD - to push the campaign to a new level.  But we need your help.</div> <bR> <div> In the fall we were the only ones talking about rebuilding the faculty.  MSP held a hearing, issued a report, went to the Board of Trustees, went to the legislature, generated a front page story and an editorial in the Boston Globe.  Over 300 faculty signed a petition calling on Chancellor Lombardi to issue a plan, and now he has done so.</div> <bR> <div> Chancellor Lombardi's plan calls for adding 250 faculty in the next three years.  He presented this to the legislature, and President Wilson endorsed the goal.  (Wilson's message to us:  “I can guarantee you that I will be doing everything in our power to help restore the 250 faculty.”)  Stan Rosenberg's Senate Task Force on Higher Education provides a political climate that might, just might, make this possible.</div> <bR> <div> We did seven hours of filming to produce an eight minute DVD about the shortage of faculty and its effects.  But the DVD can't have an impact unless people see it.  Our <B>top priority</B> is for faculty to take a day to go to Boston and show the DVD to legislators.  But we also want the DVD shown in department meetings, in classes, to alumni and community groups, to anyone who could make a difference.  </div> <bR> <div> Can you give a day, any day, any time in the next month to go to Boston and show the DVD to legislators?  If so, PLEASE reply to this message and let the MSP office know.</div> <bR> <div> If you want to borrow a copy of the DVD to show to a class or other group, call or write the MSP office (545-2206 or <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>). </div> <bR> <div> You can see the DVD on the web by clicking the link at the MSP web site:  <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp"><U><U>www.umass.edu/msp</U></U></A></FONT> </div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="___6_30_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>  (6-30-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> Our contract negotiations are stalled. We need you to join us in going to Whitmore to tell the administration to make a reasonable offer and make it soon. If you want to get a contract and a raise, <B>RSVP to this message</B> and let us know that you will come:</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>WEDNESDAY JULY 6 AT 10:45 A.M.</B></div> <div> <B>Meet in MSP office, 121 Hampshire House</B></div> <div> <B>March together to Whitmore</B></div> <bR> <div> The entire event will take no more than 45 minutes. Chancellor Lombardi will be around. If we can have a show of force now, even in the summer doldrums, we hope we can get the contract resolved quickly.</div> <bR> <div> In April, at the membership luncheon, I optimistically told people that I thought the contract would be settled in “one more week.” For eight weeks I've kept thinking we'd settle in “one more week.” </div> <bR> <div> The hang-up is centered on one item: promotion eligibility for contract (non-tenure track) faculty who teach at UMass for a minimum of six years, with a bump in pay for those promoted (similar to tenure track faculty promotion to Associate Professor). For months, the administration promised that this item was agreeable, then rejected it at the last moment without any warning.</div> <bR> <div> The amount of money involved is comparatively small. Contract faculty are an important part of our union, as is the message that the administration can't give us nine months of green lights and then pull back at the last moment. The administration side has no sense of urgency; we have to let them know we do think it's urgent.</div> <bR> <div> Dan Clawson for the MSP board</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_7_22_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(7-22-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> Three items, all significant, all from Wednesday, a very good day for us: a new contract, a CUT in health care costs, and the beginnings of a long-range strategy to increase funding and support for public higher education.</div> <bR> <div> 1. <U>WE HAVE A CONTRACT</U>: Wednesday the union and administration negotiators reached agreement on a new contract. Some of the final wording still needs to be worked out, but early next week we hope to send out a detailed overview, and not long thereafter we will begin the process of voting on the contract. The following is a partial overview of some key points; more details soon:</div> <bR> <div> RAISES: 2% per year across-the-board; 1% a year merit pay</div> <bR> <div> PROMOTION RAISES: Promotion to Associate Professor will involve a raise of $8,100 and promotion to Full Professor will involve a raise of $10,650. Similarly, promotional increments for librarians will also be double what they were in the old contract.</div> <bR> <div> PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: An amount equal to 2% of the average member’s salary, to be spent sometime in the next two years for any professional expense. We estimate this will be more than $1,500 per full time employee.</div> <bR> <div> SECURITY AND PAY INCREASES FOR CONTRACT FACULTY: Guarantees that those with six or more years of service will get at least three year contracts, and if the position continues people can’t be replaced without cause. Creation of the new rank of Lecturer II for those with six years of service. For contract faculty with ten or more years of service, eligibility for promotion to Senior Lecturer, which will involve a new title and a $5,000 raise.</div> <bR> <div> MORE TENURE-TRACK FACULTY: We did not get any language into the contract, but our push at the bargaining table enabled us to mount a major publicity campaign, including a hearing, an in-depth report, a DVD, and visits to about fifty key legislators. As a result, President Wilson and Chancellor Lombardi made our issue their top priority, the legislature put language in the budget specifying that UMass Amherst funding increases had to be spent on new tenure-track faculty, and the university received a substantial boost in funding. As a result, we expect a major increase in the number of tenure-track faculty.</div> <bR> <div> This is not a comprehensive list, but we wanted to get some basic news out quickly. We made no substantial concessions. A big thanks to the bargaining team (Mark Brenner, PERI; Melissa Barringer, Management; Kay Fite, Psychology; Barbara Morgan, Library). It’s also important to note that we won the Senior Lecturer rank because 60 people turned out during the week of July 4 to make it clear this issue is important to ALL our members. That broke the log jam that had delayed a settlement for two months.</div> <bR> <div> 2. <U>HEALTH CARE COSTS </U><U>CUT</U>: These days the papers are full of stories of people being required to pay more for health care, but we have won a reduction in our costs. Those of us who were hired before June 30, 2003 have been paying 20% of the cost of our health insurance; beginning January 1, 2006 we will pay 15%. Those hired July 1, 2003 or later have been paying 25% of the cost, and will now pay 20%. If you have a family plan, that cut could be worth between $463.71 and $1,012.83 a year, depending on which plan you have.</div> <bR> <div> This is the result of action by the legislature; Wednesday the legislature over-rode the governor’s veto. Two years ago, during the budget crisis, the legislature increased our premiums. At that time we fought for and won language specifying that the increase would only last for two years, and then would return to what we had been paying. Of course the governor and legislature didn’t want to honor that obligation; this year, action by the MTA, and postcards returned by many of us, enabled us to get the cost reduction.</div> <bR> <div> 3. <U>BUILDING FOR THE LONG RUN</U>: On Wednesday, leaders of higher education units from across the state met with Senator Stan Rosenberg and Senator Steve Panagiotakos to discuss forming a new organization to push to substantially increase funding for public higher education. The new group aims to bring together students, parents, alumni, faculty, administrators, and sympathetic members of the business community. You’ll be hearing more about this in the fall.</div> <bR> <div> P.S. No, we have not forgotten about our retroactive pay from the last contract. The legislative leadership continues to state that they are committed to paying us what we are owed, and next month MTA leadership will be meeting with the Speaker and Senate President to press our case. It is certainly possible that we will again have to step up the pressure, but that wouldn’t happen before fall.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_9_12_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(9-12-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> 1. <U>CHOOSING PRIORITIES</U></div> <bR> <div> What should MSP's priorities be for the coming year?  What are the issues that matter most to faculty and librarians?  </div> <div> Come to a working luncheon and membership meeting to hear about and discuss the board's proposals:</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 30 </B></div> <div> <B>12:00 TO 2:00 P.M.</B></div> <div> <B>CAMPUS CENTER 1009 (Amherst Room)</B></div> <div> <B>To reserve a lunch please reply to this message by September 23rd.</B></div> <bR> <div> Board members will present what we propose as priorities, then we'll throw it open for discussion, and begin to take the steps needed to achieve our goals.</div> <bR> <div> Last year we won big victories:  a university pledge to hire an extra 250 tenure-track faculty and substantially improved conditions for contract (or non-tenure-track) faculty.  This year we want to follow through on those issues, take up family and diversity concerns, and develop the political and organizational capacity to shape the kind of university that faculty and librarians think we ought to have.  Please come, give us your ideas, and let's begin to move forward.</div> <bR> <div> 2.  <U>RETROACTIVE PAY</U></div> <div> We are still fighting to get the retroactive pay from our last contract, and we still expect to win it.  Nevertheless, we may need to call upon you this fall if pressure is needed to make it happen.  Legislative leaders continue to say we will be paid, and they continue to refuse to say when.  As part of the retro process, the President's office has sent the legislature a calculation of how much it will cost to pay all the money that is owed.  Faculty and librarians on this campus are owed a total of $11,531,378.</div> <bR> <div> 3.  <U>THE CURRENT CONTRACT</U></div> <div> Voting on the just concluded contract took place in August by mail ballot to people's home addresses, and the contract was ratified with a 98% yes vote, with a high participation rate.  The contract has been signed and sent to the governor.  He has 45 days in which to approve or disapprove it, and although the signs are good that he will approve it, we remain vigilant.  Once the Governor approves the contract, it will then go to the legislature for funding (and there are no time lines for when legislators have to act).  We plan to push hard to get the contract funded this fall.  When it is funded, we'll all be owed retroactive pay back to February 6, 2005.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_9_21_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(9-21-05)</B></div> <bR> <div> Payment of one more piece of our retroactive pay has made a crucial advance. The House Ways and Means Committee has released its proposal for a supplementary budget, and it includes a request to pay the retroactive pay owed higher education workers for Fiscal Year 2003. For faculty and librarians on this campus, that is $7,751,342 – about two-thirds of the amount we are still owed.</div> <bR> <div> We aren’t home yet, and we may need to call on you for fall action, but this is a huge advance. Generally speaking such a proposal would not be put forward unless the legislative leadership supported it, and if so the retro should go through this fall.</div> <bR> <div> Our Friday September 30 luncheon (noon, Campus Center 1009) is about how to keep making advances. The only way we can do so is through member involvement. Please reply to this message and sign up to attend.</div> <bR> <div> At the meeting we will share information on retro and the contracts, then choose priorities for the coming year, and at the end break into working groups. The officers and board are recommending five priorities:</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Consolidating and extending faculty gains </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Promoting a diverse faculty </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Family issues </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Long-term politics </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Capacity building</div> <bR> <div> Please come, and recruit others to come. Reply to this message by September 23 to guarantee yourself a lunch.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_10_12_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(10-12-05) -- Legislature Overrides Romney's Veto of our Retro Pay</B></div> <bR> <div> The House and the Senate have both voted <U>unanimously</U> to override the Governor's veto of the retroactive pay increases covering the period July 1, 2002 - June 30, 2003.  The legislation provides that the money be paid within 70 days.  Our members will be receiving $7,751,342 in pay we have long been owed.</div> <bR> <div> Please take a moment to express your thanks to your State Representatives and Senators for overriding Governor Romney's veto and for doing so in such an expeditious manner.  The contact info for your legislator can be found at:</div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.mass.gov/legis/citytown.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.mass.gov/legis/citytown.htm"><U><U>http://www.mass.gov/legis/citytown.htm</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <bR> <div> It is also important to note that this could not have been achieved without the benefit of MTA's organizational clout, with 90,000 members across the state, and the commitment and expertise of the MTA leadership and staff, particularly the governmental relations staff.</div> <bR> <div> Thanks to everyone who participated in the fight to get this money.  All of us working together can do wonders!</div> <bR> <div> P.S. We will of course be continuing to fight for the remainder of what we are owed (covering the time period July 1, 2001 through June 30, 2002).</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_11_11_05_____benchmarking"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(11-11-05) -- Benchmarking</B></div> <bR> <div> The chancellor has a plan for allocating the 250 new faculty lines won through last year's MSP campaign.  What do faculty and librarians think about the chancellor's plan, and what alternatives would we propose?  Come to a meeting to discuss this:</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> MONDAY NOVEMBER 21</div> <div> 4:00 P.M.</div> <div> CAMPUS CENTER 168C</div> <bR> <div> For a copy of the chancellor's plan, email the MSP office (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>).</div> <bR> <div> This is a chance to share your department's experiences and your own reactions.  The MSP completely agrees that some means must be found to equitably distribute new lines.  But people have many concerns with the chancellor's announced plan; some of those include:</div> <bR> <div> 1.  Compiling this information will be time consuming, lots of work for someone.</div> <bR> <div> 2.  The criteria are sufficiently vague that they are subject to manipulation; some basis can always be found for awarding or denying lines.</div> <bR> <div> 3.  The chancellor's criteria appear to entirely omit service and the land grant mission of the university; apparently they have no value.</div> <bR> <div> 4.  The criteria are likely to offer at best imperfect measures of performance; the award of new lines may depend more on gaming the system than on excellence.</div> <bR> <div> Come on Monday November 21 at 4:00 p.m. and share your thoughts and experiences, and help us think through a response and alternative.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="12_5_05"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(12-5-05) -- RETRO IN PAYCHECKS</B></div> <bR> <div> Take a look at this week's paycheck.  If you were on the payroll during FY2003, it should contain a healthy boost, retroactive pay covering the contractual pay increase for the period from July 2002 through June 2003, roughly 10 percent of what you were earning in 2001.</div> <bR> <div> And in January our paychecks will get another boost:  In an action that is almost unprecedented in these times, the cost of our health insurance will go down.  Those who have been paying 20% of the cost of health insurance will now pay only 15%; those who have been paying 25% will now pay only 20%.  If you are on a family plan this will save you about $500 a year, not just this year but every year.</div> <bR> <div> We won these victories because hundreds of MSP members, and thousands of other higher education members across the state, stood up and took action for our rights.  Equally important, these financial boosts simply would not have happened without the energetic efforts of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and the 97,000 members, mostly K-12 teachers, who supported our campaign and persuaded their legislators to stand up for us.  In this campaign they supported us; in a future campaign we need to be ready to support them on an issue of importance to them.</div> <bR> <div> What about our current contract?  We are working hard to get it funded.  Substantial progress has been made but we aren't yet able to report victory.  Stay tuned.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_12_7_05_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(12-7-05) -- At Last:  Progress on Contract</B></div> <bR> <div> Yesterday, our union contract made a major advance toward funding, but in order to win that we had to agree to some minor modifications.</div> <bR> <div> The Romney administration has finally approved our contract and agreed to send it to the legislature for funding. We still have to get it through the legislature, but we hope that (this time that) will happen quickly.</div> <bR> <div> Here are the two conditions we had to accept in order to expedite contract funding:</div> <bR> <div> 1. Instead of receiving our raises in February 2005, February 2006, and February 2007, we are now to receive raises in April 2005, January 2006, and January 2007. We lose two months of raise in the first year, gain a month in year two, and gain a month in year three. On balance we are fractionally better off. Once the contract is funded, our pay will go up an average of six percent (three percent raises for 2005 and 2006).</div> <bR> <div> 2. Our Professional Development money will not be included in the same bill that funds the rest of the contracts, but the Romney administration has committed in writing that in the spring it will support a separate bill to fund our Professional Development.</div> <bR> <div> Three points are worth making about this. First, throughout this process President Wilson and his office have stood strong and fought hard for the university; we could not have asked more of them. Second, the deal described above applies to all unions on campus, and we maintained union solidarity throughout (including solidarity with other campuses). Third, despite yesterday’s good news, state law needs to be changed to ensure that contracts, once bargained and agreed to, get funded promptly without further modifications. The current process is unacceptable.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_1_17_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(1-17-06) -- Contract/Benchmarking/Health Care</B></div> <bR> <div> This message covers three topics:  funding our current contract, the reduction in what we pay for health care, and the chancellor's benchmarking system for the 250 plan.</div> <bR> <div> <B>CONTRACT FUNDING: </B> In this state, getting a contract funded is a Byzantine process.  We recently made it past a key hurdle:  Governor Romney sent our contract to the legislature and recommended it be funded.  Now we have to get the legislature to appropriate the money.  We've been told there should be no problem, but no one will rest easy until the money is in our hands.  </div> <bR> <div> <B>HEALTH CARE: </B> All over the country, employees are being forced to pay more for health care.  Except us.  We just won a reduction in what we pay, going back to the amount we were paying before the state's latest fiscal crisis.  That was reflected in your end of December paycheck.  We won this because when the rate was raised to deal with the fiscal crisis, we argued that the rate should revert when the crisis was over.  We campaigned to get legislators to honor their promise; the MTA sent out thousands of postcards and many of us sent those cards to our legislators.  If we and the MTA hadn't pushed this, it never would have happened.</div> <bR> <div> <B>BENCHMARKING: </B> Faculty, librarians, the MSP, and the chancellor are all delighted the University will be hiring more faculty.  We all agree on the general goal but may have different views about implementation.  </div> <bR> <div> This memo outlines both the MSP's points of agreement with the chancellor's proposed benchmarking process, and some of our concerns.  We encourage people to communicate to us their experiences or concerns.  We will continue to monitor the process especially since benchmarking involves potential contractual issues, for example about workload and about the ways we are evaluated.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Points of agreement</B></div> <bR> <div> 1.  We strongly support the proposed expansion of the faculty under the UMass 250 Plan, a plan that grows out of an MSP-initiated campaign.  We are glad to have the Legislature and the Administration join us.  We are committed this spring to working hard to secure funding to keep the 250 plan moving forward.  We will push the legislature to provide funding for 100 new positions in next year's budget.</div> <bR> <div> 2.  We agree that a transparent allocation system benefits the entire University.  Posting allocated positions is an important step forward in transparency and we commend the chancellor for that.  We reject allocation systems based on "old boy political maneuvering."</div> <bR> <div> <B>Some concerns about the current benchmarking scheme:</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>1.  Compliance burden.</B>  The benchmarking project promises to be an enormous time sink.  Faculty will spend many hours gathering data and writing reports on their own activity and on the activity of peer departments.</div> <bR> <div> <B>2.  Benchmark inputs: </B> If our output is to be compared to that of other institutions, shouldn't we also compare the inputs?  Do we have the same library resources, lab facilities, levels of clerical and research assistance, funding for conference travel?</div> <bR> <div> <B>3.  Time frame: </B> Is it realistic to propose benchmarking criteria by February?  That date does not seem to provide the time needed for meaningful faculty input and deliberation.  Does it make sense to collect data prior to such deliberation?</div> <bR> <div> <B>4.  What you benchmark is what you get. </B> The benchmarking criteria will create priorities and incentives that will drive the activity of the University.  Benchmarking creates incentives to game the system by selecting measures or making measurements in order to look good.  Moreover, benchmark-based incentives define what is valuable and what is not.  For example, interdisciplinary and graduate teaching are not adequately accounted for in the teaching benchmarking.  Diversity is not mentioned.  Neither is service, even though it is part of the official mission of the University.  If service and diversity aren't benchmarked and rewarded, the University's commitment to them will predictably decay.</div> <bR> <div> <B>5.  Lack of faculty participation. </B> The current benchmarking scheme and the first round of UMass 250 allocations represent top-down planning instead of meaningful discussions with faculty.  <B>We believe in shared governance</B>; faculty should play an important role in determining how we are evaluated and how academic resources are allocated.  We recognize that allocation of resources across schools and departments requires difficult choices.  These complicated decisions will be better made with discussion and consultation than with formulas.  We believe that faculty and librarians, collectively, can and should participate in making these choices.</div> <bR> <div> <B>6.  Are decisions actually based on benchmarking data?  </B>We were told that this year new faculty lines would be allocated primarily on the basis of instructional need (with next year's lines allocated primarily on the basis of demonstrated excellence).  Many positions are marked as allocated on the basis of instructional need - but many other positions are allocated based on research need.  Amazingly, NO department with instructional need has ANY research need, and NO department with research need has ANY instructional need.  This does not help reassure those people who are concerned that the numbers will be manipulated to produce the desired results.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_2_21_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(2-21-06) -- Contracts/Quality Instruction/More</B></div> <bR> <div> <U>HELP</U> <U>FUND</U> <U>CONTRACTS</U></div> <div> We are told that everyone supports funding our contracts, and that there will be no problem. But we aren’t told WHEN this will happen. Even though there is no opposition to our contracts, they are stuck in the House Ways and Means Committee. Unless we can get someone’s attention, the contracts might sit there unfunded until there is a new supplementary appropriation – which could be July or even later.</div> <bR> <div> Here’s what you/we can do: Call your member of the House, and ask her/him to make two phone calls to try to get our contracts moving. One phone call should be to Speaker Salvatore DiMasi; the other to House Ways and Means Chair Robert DeLeo. (The funding has to start in the House; once it gets out of the House we assume it will quickly pass the Senate.)</div> <bR> <div> <U>QUALITY</U> <U>CONSTRUCTION</U></div> <div> Many of us live with the consequences of the university’s shoddy construction from days gone by. Now the university has a building boom. That’s great, but only if this time it’s done right. If corners are cut and rules ignored, if unqualified workers do the work, we are the ones who will live with the consequences, not just a year from now but five-ten-twenty years into the future.</div> <bR> <div> There’s reason to worry. In a break with convention, the university’s bidding process operates in secret, which makes it difficult or impossible to object to contractors with a history of past problems. This isn’t an academic concern: some of the contractors currently putting up university buildings have histories of using workers without appropriate licenses, serious problems on past sites, and violations of the prevailing wage laws.</div> <bR> <div> Please turn out Tuesday, today, from 12:00 to 12:30, at the entrance of the construction site for new undergraduate housing located on Eastman Lane (near Totman Gymnasium) for a SHORT rally to support using unionized construction workers to help ensure quality construction.</div> <bR> <div> <U>MISCELLANEOUS</U></div> <div> We have several committees that will be meeting with the administration to discuss pressing issues. If you would be interested in being involved in any of these, please call or email the union office and let us know:</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Family issues: child care, elder care, spousal hires </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Pensions and additional compensation: should summer salaries count for pensions? </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Less than full-time faculty: job security and promotion issues </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Campus conditions: dealing with maintenance and related problems</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_3_13_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(3-13-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> <U>SPRING</U> <U>LUNCHEON</U></div> <div> MSP's spring membership luncheon will be at 12:00 noon on Wednesday April 5 in the Reading Room on the 1st floor of the Campus Center (across from the Blue Wall).  Come for a nice lunch, a chance to meet people you haven't seen, and to get an update about the current contract and retro, advancing the 250 plan, and winning a decent budget for the university.  Then brainstorm what we should push for in the next contract.</div> <bR> <div> <U>STATE</U> <U>HOUSE</U> <U>VISITS</U></div> <div> With undergraduates and the other unions on campus, we plan to send carloads of people to the State House every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from April 4-20.  MSP will pay all expenses, and staff will arrange appointments with legislators.  This is our chance to make the case for hiring 100 new faculty and librarians next year.  Please let us know if you could go in one of these days, and if so which day.</div> <bR> <div> <U>DEBATE</U> <U>ON</U> <U>SURVEILLANCE</U></div> <div> The ACLU of Western Massachusetts is sponsoring a debate about surveillance and civil liberties, featuring Richard O'Neal, Democratic member of Congress representing much of western Massachusetts, and Bob Barr, former Republican member of Congress from Georgia and chair of the American Conservative Union Foundation task force on these issues.  The debate will be Thursday March 23 at 7:00 p.m. at Elms College, 291 Springfield Street, Chicopee.  Surveillance and monitoring have been hot issues on many college campuses, most notably in a UCLA alum's recent proposal to pay students $100 to tape faculty lectures to check for possible bias. Reply to this message for directions to, and more information about, the debate.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_3_27_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(3-27-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> <U>MEMBERSHIP LUNCH</U></div> <div> Please RSVP by noon Thursday to reserve your lunch for MSP’s spring membership meeting on:</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Wednesday April 5 12-1:30</B></div> <div> <B>Reading Room, Campus Center concourse, across from the Blue Wall</B></div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">How should we respond to attacks on academic freedom, most notoriously the UCLA alum who offered to pay students to tape faculty lectures in order to check them for bias, but also including several professor-monitoring web sites (some of which list UMass faculty), and a push to institute MCAS for colleges? </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Contract and retro funding: do we need to take action? </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Lobbying: pushing for 100 new hires under the 250 plan.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Routine business: nominations for board and officers, approving budgets, setting dues for next year.</div> <bR> <div> <U>LOBBYING</U></div> <div> We will be sending a car of people to Boston every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday starting the day after the membership lunch. Our visits make a difference. Please reply to this message and volunteer to go to Boston on April 6, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, or 20.</div> <bR> <div> <U>IRAQ VET SPEAKS</U></div> <div> Andy Sapp is a UMass grad, an MTA member, a teacher, a staff sergeant in the Massachusetts National Guard, and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. A year ago he was serving in Iraq. Tuesday April 4 he’ll be talking about his experiences, why he opposes the war, and why unions should care about the issue. Come hear him Tuesday April 4 at 12:00 noon in Campus Center Room 101. To reserve a free lunch, email <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:sluce@econs.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:sluce@econs.umass.edu"><U><U>sluce@econs.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_4_11_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(4-11-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> <U>VOTE</U></div> <div> MSP elections are tomorrow, Wednesday April 12, from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the MSP office, 121 Hampshire House.</div> <div>  </div> <div> <U>LOBBY</U></div> <div> Sign up to go to Boston any Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday in the next three weeks. This is crucial to our ability to fund the contracts, win our retroactive pay, and advance the 250 plan to hire more faculty and librarians. We’ve just learned of a new reason: The House Ways and Means Committee budget (Democrats, not the governor) has just proposed that anyone earning more than $40,000 a year should pay 20% of the cost of their healthcare, instead of the 15% they are now paying. For most of our members that’s a pay cut of around $500. Call (545-2206) the MSP office or reply to this email.</div> <bR> <div> <U>TENT STATE</U></div> <div> Graduate and undergraduate students are putting on Tent State, a week long program of events and learning activities, April 17-21, culminating in a rally on Friday April 21. MSP officers endorsed this, and encourage you to go to the event’s website to sign your support. We hope you will also volunteer to open your class to students interested in a special topic you will discuss. For more info go to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.tentstateumass.org/Site/Home.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.tentstateumass.org/Site/Home."><U><U>http://www.tentstateumass.org/Site/Home.html</U></U></A></FONT>.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_4_13_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(4-13-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> <U>Our current contracts are finally going to be funded!!</U></div> <bR> <div> We have just learned that the House Ways and Means Committee has reported out a supplemental appropriation bill that includes funding for our contracts. Typically once a bill is reported out by the House it moves quickly to passage. If that’s true our raises, and the back pay we are owed for 2005 and 2006, would probably be in our pay checks in about three months.</div> <bR> <div> Here’s what we are owed and will be paid:</div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Beginning April 2005: a 2% across the board increase, and a merit pool equal to 1% of faculty-librarian salaries (what each individual gets of course varies).</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Beginning January 2006: an additional 2% across the board increase, and a merit pool equal to 1% of faculty-librarian salaries (what each individual gets of course varies).</div> <bR> <div> That is, pay on campus will go up an average of six percent, and we will each be receiving a retro payment for the amount we are owed from this contract.</div> <bR> <div> Yes, we are still owed, and will continue to fight for, retroactive pay for FY 2002, going back to July 2001. In total our members are owed $3.78 million, and other workers on this campus are together owed almost as much. And we are still owed Professional Development money from the current contract, and we’ll be pushing for that as well.</div> <bR> <div> P.S. We still need to lobby!! We need to thank legislators for this, remind them about the retroactive pay for 2001-02, and make a case for more resources for the university so next year the campus can add 100 new faculty and librarians. PLEASE call (545-2206) or write the MSP office (by responding to this email) and plan to go in any Tues-Wed-Thurs from now until the budget is final.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_4_20_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(4-20-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> The good news: Our contracts went all the way through both houses of the legislature and have been signed by the governor. The only delay will be the university’s ability to process our raises.</div> <bR> <div> The bad news: At the same time, the legislature launched a new attack on our health care costs, proposing that we go from paying 15 percent of the cost to 20 percent of the cost (which works out to a 33% increase in our cost). If you have a family plan this will cost you somewhere in the vicinity of $600 a year.</div> <bR> <div> <B><U>PLEASE CALL YOUR STATE REP. AND SENATOR TODAY</U></B></div> <bR> <div> 1.  Thank them for voting to fund our 2004-2007 contract.</div> <div> 2.   Urge them to oppose the health insurance increase by backing the amendment offered by Rep. Martin Walsh that will restore ALL members to a 15% level.  Also ask them to speak to members of the House and Senate leadership stating their support for the amendment.</div> <bR> <div> If you can’t call, email. A list and contact info for area legislators can be found at the bottom of this message.</div> <div> Background: For years we paid only 15% of our health insurance premiums and during the fiscal crisis the legislature raised that to 20% as a “temporary” measure that was supposed to expire. (During this same period, new hires had their rate raised to 25%). Last year, when the “temporary” increase was supposed to expire, legislators “forgot” about it but we reminded them and hundreds of members called and sent back MTA postcards which led to the restoration of the 15% level (with 20% for new hires).</div> <bR> <div> The current assault aims to divide the labor movement: the increased costs will only apply to those making $40,000 or more per year, but that’s virtually all of our members.</div> <bR> <div> <U>AREA</U> <U>LEGISLATOR</U> <U>CONTACT</U> <U>LIST</U></div> <div> <B>Senator Stanley Rosenberg</B> (including Amherst, Belchertown, Bernardston, Buckland, Colrain, Deerfield, Erving, Gill, Greenfield, Hadley, Hatfield, Leverett, Leyden, Montague, New Salem, Northampton, Northfield, Pelham, Shelburne, Shutesbury, South Hadley, Sunderland, Wendell, and Whately)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-1532</div> <div> District Phone: 413-584-1649</div> <div> Email: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:Sen.StanRosenberg@senate.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Sen.StanRosenberg@senate.state.ma"><U><U>Sen.StanRosenberg@senate.state.ma.us</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>Representative Ellen Story </B>(including Amherst and Granby)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2011</div> <div> Email: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>Representative Stephen Kulik </B>(including Belchertown, Chesterfield, Conway, Deerfield, Goshen, Huntington, Leverett, Montague, New Salem, Pelham, Shutesbury, Sunderland, Wendell, Williamsburg, Whately and Worthington)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2210</div> <div> District Phone: 413-665-7200</div> <div> Email: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>Representative Peter Kocot </B>(including Hatfield, Montgomery, Northampton, Southampton, and Westhampton)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2210</div> <div> Email: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>Representative John Scibak </B>(including Easthampton, Hadley and South Hadley)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2220</div> <div> District Phone: 413-539-6566</div> <div> Email: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>Representative Christopher Donelan </B>(including Athol, Erving, Gill, Greenfield, Orange and Warwick)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2230</div> <div> District Phone: 978-544-2180</div> <div> Email: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state."><U><U>Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> For those of you who live in other areas, you can get contact info for your state representative and senator by visiting the link below and typing in your address and zip code:  <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.wheredoivotema.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.wheredoivotema.com"><U><U>www.wheredoivotema.com</U></U></A></FONT>.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_5_2_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(5-2-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> This message covers three items: when we get our raises; a campus meeting with legislators about retro, and a (temporary) victory on health care insurance costs.</div> <bR> <div> <B>WHEN WE GET OUR RAISES</B></div> <div> We are happy to inform you that the negotiated salary increases for FY05 and FY06 will appear in your June 2nd paychecks. Each year's raise will include a 2% across-the-board increase plus your merit award (from a 1% pool), thus increasing the overall payroll for MSP faculty and librarians by 6%.</div> <bR> <div> The subsequent paycheck (dated 6-16-06) will include the retroactive portions of those pay increases. The FY05 retro will be paid back to April 2005 and the FY06 retro back to January 2006.</div> <bR> <div> The final salary increase of this current contract is due January 2007 and will include a 2% across-the-board increase and a 1% merit pool (awards from this pool will cover activities performed in 2004-2005).</div> <bR> <div> <B>ALL-UNION MEETING WITH LEGISLATORS</B></div> <div> Are you mad about the retroactive pay we are still owed from 2001? Do you think that 5 years is long enough to wait, especially when the state’s revenues keep coming in above projections? Do you think we need a new way to get our contracts funded? Come talk to area legislators about these issues.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>FRIDAY, MAY 12, 11:45 AM, CAMPUS CENTER ROOM 101</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>HEALTH CARE INSURANCE: A WIN FOR NOW</B></div> <div> We won, at least in the House, beating back the effort to make those hired before 2001 pay more for health insurance. Pre-2001 hires will continue to pay 15 percent of health insurance costs, with the state paying 85 percent. This victory is worth about $600 a year to those of us on family plans. On the other hand, we were not able to get the premium share lowered to 15 percent for those hired after 2001.</div> <bR> <div> Our victory this year is clearly not the end of the battle. The House has created a committee to study the issue. As long as the United States, and Massachusetts, have inadequate provisions for health care coverage, we will remain vulnerable since state workers have a better deal than most. Ultimately, we have to help win better health insurance for all, or our own coverage will continue to be subject to attack.</div> <bR> <div> The MTA, our state-wide parent organization, was absolutely critical to this victory. Our own members were the most vulnerable to the House’s proposed change, which would only have applied to those earning $40,000 or more per year. MTA provided the political muscle that enabled us to win. Many of us were part of that by making phone calls and returning postcards.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_5_3_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(5-3-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> <U>Ready to DO SOMETHING about our long-awaited retroactive pay?</U></div> <bR> <div> Then<B> reply to this message </B>(or call the MSP office, 545-2206), and commit that you will come to a lunch with area legislators, on:</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Friday May 12 at 11:45 a.m. in Campus Center 101</B></div> <bR> <div> Our legislators are the people responsible for getting our pay raises, and our retroactive pay, through the legislature. Come to this lunch and let them know how you feel about the long wait. Let them know it’s time to fund the retro.</div> <div>  </div> <div> If turnout at this meeting is low, the odds of our ever getting paid go down. If we muster a strong turnout, our legislators will understand that it’s time to deliver.</div> <bR> <div> The state’s revenues are $529 million over those that were projected when the legislature drafted last year’s budget. If we can’t get paid now, five years late, when the state is running a major surplus, we’ll never get paid.</div> <bR> <div> Those of us who were on the UMass payroll in June 2001 have now waited almost five years for money that should have been paid to us beginning in July 2001. On average we are owed five percent of our June 2001 pay (3 percent across the board, and a 2 percent merit pool).</div> <bR> <div> Please let the MSP office (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>) know that you’ll be coming so that we can reserve a lunch, and please get friends and colleagues to come with you. Make a special effort to be in touch with those who retired since 2001; winning this retro will raise their pensions.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_6_1_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(6-1-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> Tomorrow’s paycheck should be significantly higher than your previous (May 19) one. Pay is often the most visible part of our achievements through our union, but of course in the last contract campaign we also won better conditions for non-tenure-track faculty and a university commitment to increase the number of faculty.</div> <bR> <div> For faculty and librarians as a whole, our pay will go up by six percent. This reflects two salary increases, effective April 2005 and January 2006, with each one containing a two percent across the board increase, and a merit pool equal to one percent of total salaries, with each person’s portion depending on merit evaluations.</div> <bR> <div> Two weeks later, on June 16, we are supposed to get our retroactive pay for THIS contract. (We will still be owed retro for 2001-2002; we are working on that.) We’ll send an update in two weeks on the details of the retro for this contract.</div> <div> If you have questions or problems, by all means call the MSP office, 545-2206.</div> <bR> <div> P.S. We are already beginning to prepare for our NEXT contract negotiations since we want to have a new contract in place before the current one expires a year from now. By all means talk to your colleagues and share ideas about what issues you think we should make priorities. What will it take to make this a better and more equitable university, and how can we join together through the union help us accomplish those goals?</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_6_15_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(6-15-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> Your June 16 paycheck should include the retroactive payments for the current contract. They include the across-the-board and merit increases which were effective April 3, 2005 and January 1, 2006.  On average, this amounts to a lump sum payment equal to approximately 4.75% of your 2004 salary.</div> <bR> <div> We have not forgotten about the final retro payment still owed us from the 2001-2004 contract. Local legislators heard us loud and clear when 200 faculty and staff addressed this issue with them in May. We are following up to try and get the funds appropriated as soon as possible and will keep you posted as developments occur.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <U>GUBERNATORIAL</U> <U>CANDIDATE</U> <U>VISIT</U></div> <div> MSP and the campus Labor Coalition are continuing to sponsor gubernatorial candidate visits over the summer and we've now scheduled the second of those events. Grace Ross, Green/Rainbow Party candidate, will be on campus to speak and answer questions on:</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Tuesday -- June 27, 2006</div> <div> 12 Noon</div> <div> Campus Center Reading Room</div> <div> (located on the concourse level across from the Blue Wall)</div> <bR> <div> We hope for a good turn-out at these events so please try to attend as many as possible and urge your friends and colleagues to come along!  MSP wishes you a great summer!</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_7_18_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(7-18-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> We need your help immediately in securing two important proposals that are to be voted on this week by the legislature.</div> <bR> <div> First, the legislature is prepared -- finally -- to fund our retroactive pay raises from FY 2002. This is the final piece of retroactive pay we are owed.</div> <bR> <div> Second, the legislature is prepared to override a Romney veto on our health insurance premiums. If the legislature does override the Governor's veto, then we will maintain our current ratio of health insurance premiums. If it does not, we will see a dramatic jump, to paying 25% of the premiums. This would represent an additional annual cost of over $1,000 for the average family at UMass.</div> <bR> <div> So, <U>please call your local legislators as well as the Speaker of the House and the Senate President right away</U>. Please note that we need to urge legislators to pass the retro monies by THIS FRIDAY, so there is time to override the veto we anticipate Romney will make of this item.</div> <bR> <div> Here is what you should say to the legislators:</div> <div>  </div> <div> 1) Please pass the final installment of the Retroactive Pay Raises for UMass and State College faculty and staff. This money has been due and promised since FY'02.  It is critically important that you pass this item by <U>this</U> <U>Friday</U> so the legislature has time to override a veto of it, should Governor Romney take such an action.</div> <bR> <div> 2) Please override Romney's veto of the Group Insurance line-item.  His veto would force all state employees to pay 25% of their health insurance premiums.  Romney's veto is an unfair and very burdensome cost shifting onto the backs of state employees.</div> <bR> <div> Max Page </div> <div> President, MSP</div> <bR> <div> <B>Some legislators’ phone numbers</B>:</div> <div> Speaker of the House DiMasi 617-722-2500</div> <div> Senate President Travaglini 617-722-1500</div> <div> Senator Stanley Rosenberg 617-722-1532</div> <div> Rep. Ellen Story 617-722-2011</div> <div> Rep. Peter Kocot 617-722-2210</div> <div> Rep., Steve Kulik 617-722-2210</div> <div> Rep. John Scibak 617-722-2220</div> <div> Rep. Chris Donelan 617-722-2230</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_7_24_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(7-24-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> We have achieved many important victories over the past several years.  But more than a few MSP members were convinced that one victory we would never celebrate was getting the final installment of our retroactive pay from our previous contract, which dates back to FY2002.  But last Thursday night, the legislature did just that.  They enacted a deficiency budget that includes $14,575,687 in retro pay for UMass employees including MSP members. Our faculty and librarians who were on the payroll on June 30, 2001 are on track to receive roughly 5% of their pay from that year. Despite new financial worries surrounding the Big Dig fiasco, MTA lobbyists helped convince the legislature to enact these long overdue raises now. That was accomplished in large part due to a barrage of phone calls from our members. MTA lobbyist Arline Isaacson specifically credited the outpouring of messages from each of the campuses for this victory.</div> <bR> <div> There is concern that the Governor might veto these retro pay increases, but we feel confident that the legislature would quickly override that veto if needed. We hope that members will return to the fall semester with a nice, well-deserved, and long-awaited addition to their paychecks.</div> <bR> <div> That is the very good news. But one important legislative worry remains: overriding the Romney veto on our health insurance premiums. That veto, if not overridden by the legislature, would effectively increase MSP members’ health insurance premiums to 25% (representing an additional annual cost of over $1,000 for the average family at UMass). Last week we urged you to contact your legislators about this and it is still important to do so <U>immediately</U> (numbers can be found at the bottom of this message).</div> <bR> <div> When you call, please say the following:</div> <bR> <div> 1. Thank them for fulfilling their promise to pay the retroactive pay from the previous contract and urge them to quickly override a Romney veto if needed.</div> <bR> <div> 2. Urge them to override Romney's veto of the Group Insurance line-item. His veto would force all state employees to pay 25% of their health insurance premiums.  Romney's veto is an unfair cost shifting onto the backs of state employees.</div> <bR> <div> <U>Legislator</U> <U>Phone</U> <U>Numbers</U>:</div> <div> Speaker of the House Salvatore DiMasi (617) 722-2500</div> <div> Senate President Robert Travaglini (617) 722-1500</div> <div> Senator Stanley Rosenberg (617) 722-1532</div> <div> Rep. Ellen Story (617) 722-2011</div> <div> Rep. Peter Kocot (617) 722-2210</div> <div> Rep., Steve Kulik (617) 722-2210</div> <div> Rep. John Scibak (617) 722-2220</div> <div> Rep. Chris Donelan (617) 722-2230</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_7_27_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(7-27-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> Today, the legislature voted to override Romney's veto concerning our health insurance premiums, as many of you urged your legislators to do over the past week. The result of the override is that the health insurance premium rate remains where it is now, at 85-15 for the bulk of our members.  Romney's veto was designed to shift the ratio to 75-25 and thereby put a substantial new burden on our members.  We are pleased that the legislature resoundingly rejected Romney's latest attempt to effectively impose a pay cut on state workers. Thanks to all of you for calling. </div> <bR> <div> We all helped make this a very good week: securing the last installment of our retro from the last contract, and protecting our current rate of health insurance premium contributions.  These victories together mean more money for our members, and more strength for our union as we head into a year where we negotiate a new contract. </div> <bR> <div> Max Page </div> <div> MSP President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_8_2_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(8-2-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> To MSP Retirees:</div> <bR> <div> On July 31, the last day of the formal session for the year, the Legislature overrode many of the Governor's vetoes.  This included his veto of retroactive pay for current employees, but <I>not</I> for retirees.  The following detailed explanation comes from the MTA's Governmental Relations staff.  There is not yet a full plan of action, but MSP wanted you to have this information right away. We will keep you posted as there are further developments.</div> <div>  </div> <div> <U>Romney's Vetoes of Deficiency Budget</U> </div> <div> This past weekend, Romney signed into law the Deficiency Budget (H5210). As part of that process, he vetoed several sections which provided retroactive payments for contracts for UMass faculty, staff and state college APA units.  As you recall, these retro payments have been paid out by the legislature over the last several years in 3 separate installments. This year's was the final retro payment owed.</div> <bR> <div> <U>Retirees</U> </div> <div> Romney vetoed 2 line-items that provided the funding for the retroactive payments for all who are owed this money. Additionally, he rejected the outside section (section 15) which provided retirees with access to these retroactive payments.  Had Romney made an 'outright veto' of section 15, the legislature could have overridden his veto. Unfortunately, Romney sent Section 15 back with an amendment, so that a simple override by the legislature would not suffice to undo Romney's action.  In fact, Romney used his amendment of Section 15 to undo a totally different law passed by the legislature in July dealing with Personal Care Attendants!</div> <bR> <div> <U>Multiple Steps in Legislative Process</U> </div> <div> In order to override Romney's actions on retirees, it requires multiple legislative actions: The amendment essentially gets treated like a newly filed bill that has to go through multiple steps before making it back to the Governor's desk. </div> <div> The first 6 steps involve the legislature rejecting Romney's amendment and then placing that rejection back on his desk as a separate bill.  MTA and the labor coalition worked together last night to try and push the process along as fast as possible.  After the overrides for the active state employees was completed, MTA moved the process dealing with retirees through the first 6 steps as the bill went back and forth between the House and Senate.  At 11:50 PM, we attempted to get the legislature to complete the last 2 steps (enactment in the House and Senate) but unfortunately, they ran out of time before the session ended at midnight.</div> <bR> <div> <U>Next Steps</U> </div> <div> MTA and the labor coalition will work in the coming weeks to get the legislature to take final action on this provision.  This can be done in an informal session.  [For the duration of the year, the legislature will continue to meet, but only in informal sessions.]   After enactment, the provision (now called H5245) will return to the Governor's desk.  We will then try to convince Romney to not veto the retirees' retroactive pay provision.   If Romney does veto the section, we will have to try and get it through the legislature at the beginning of the '07 legislative session, when they meet again in formal sessions.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_8_7_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(8-7-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> Below is a message we received over the weekend from MTA  lobbyist Arline Isaacson regarding the retiree retro situation.  Please contact Governor Romney's office NOW and ask him to sign H5245 into law. </div> <bR> <div> <U>Contact</U> <U>Info</U> </div> <div> Phone: (617) 725-4005 </div> <div> Or electronically via webmail at: </div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=gov2utility&sid=Agov2&U=gov_contact_us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=gov2utility&"><U><U>http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=gov2utility&sid=Agov2&U=gov_contact_us</U></U></A> </div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- </div> <div> H5245 - The provision of the deficiency budget that was amended by Romney was re-enacted by the Senate on August 3.  This is the provision which allowed retirees to receive the retroactive pay raises that passed (were overridden) last week.  This bill is now back on the Governor's desk.</div> <bR> <div> Most believe Romney might again veto this section.  If that happens, the legislature will be unable to override his veto since overrides can happen only during FORMAL sessions of the legislature.  The formal sessions ended on July 31. Therefore, if Romney vetoes this bill, it will not be able to pass again until the legislature reconvenes in 2007.</div> <bR> <div> <B>What Can You Do? </B></div> <div> It is worth asking members - especially Republican members - to contact Romney's office and ask him to sign this bill into law.  It is also worth asking your members who know or are represented by Republican legislators to ask those Republican state legislators to weigh in with Romney asking him to NOT veto H5245.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_8_24_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(8-24-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> This message covers two items: the fight to get a fair contract for teachers in Springfield and how you can help your retired colleagues secure the retro pay they are owed for FY2002.</div> <bR> <div> <B><U>CRUNCH TIME IN SPRINGFIELD</U></B> </div> <div> Throughout the campaigns to fund our contracts, to get our retroactive payments, and to secure better funding for the university, our K-12 colleagues in the MTA (nearly 90 percent of the whole union) have supported us. So, we urge you to help out the Springfield teachers in their fight to get a fair contract. They have been working under difficult conditions, without a contract and without a raise for more than four years. This is a clear effort to break the union and it must be resisted. Please read about where things stand below. We urge you to then call the House and Senate leadership and your local representatives.</div> <div> Max Page </div> <div> MSP President </div> <div> -------------------------- </div> <div> August 18, 2006</div> <div> Dear Colleague:</div> <div> It’s crunch time in Springfield. With schools about to open, the Romney-Healey Finance Control Board (FCB) is rushing to unilaterally implement a contract that strips teachers of their rights and cheats students of their educational opportunities.</div> <bR> <div> The surest way to derail the FCB juggernaut is for the Legislature to order final and binding arbitration to settle all outstanding issues.</div> <bR> <div> The FCB has ignored the Springfield Education Association’s offer to accept the recently issued fact-finder’s report as binding. Fact-finder Lee Williamson’s recommendations are impartial and demand compromise and concessions from both sides, but the FCB remains intransigent. Superintendent Joseph Burke, who speaks for the FCB, dismissed the report, saying “it really doesn’t matter.”</div> <bR> <div> But Springfield does matter. It matters to all of us who work in and value public education because if the Romney-Healey administration succeeds with its anti-union and anti-education assault on Springfield, no Massachusetts school system and no local association contract is safe.</div> <bR> <div> Please help us end this crisis. Please contact Senate President Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and urge them to support final and binding arbitration for Springfield. And please forward this letter to colleagues and ask them to help, too.</div> <bR> <div> Here is a sample message that you can use or adapt:</div> <div> <B>Springfield teachers have been without a contract and a pay raise for over four years. Now the Finance Control Board is trying to impose a contract that is unfair and unacceptable. Teachers, students and the community deserve the kind of solution that can be provided by a neutral third party. I urge you to advocate for a legislative initiative to require impartial, binding arbitration – which will consider the city’s financial condition – to end this dispute. It’s time to play fair!</B></div> <bR> <div> Senate President Travaglini’s phone number is 617-722-1500. His e-mail address is <I>Robert.Travaglini@state.ma.us</I>.</div> <div> House Speaker DiMasi’s phone number is 617-722-2500. His e-mail address is <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@hou.state.ma."><U><I><U>Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@hou.state.ma.us</U></I></U></A></FONT>.</div> <bR> <div> E-mail links to the Senate President and House Speaker, as well as a suggested message, are also available on the MTA Web site: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.massteacher.org" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.massteacher.org"><U><I><U>www.massteacher.org</U></I></U></A></FONT><I>.</I></div> <bR> <div> On behalf of Springfield’s 2,600 teachers and 25,000 students, we thank you for your help.</div> <bR> <div> Sincerely yours,</div> <div> Anne Wass, MTA President Paul Toner, MTA Vice President</div> <bR> <div> <B><U>RETIREE RETRO PAY</U></B></div> <div> Below is an update from MTA lobbyist Arline Isaacson regarding the retiree retro situation. As a recap, house bill H5245 which would allow retirees to receive their long overdue FY2002 retroactive pay raise was vetoed by Governor Romney on August 9th, which he did with a twist that made it impossible for the legislature to override immediately, as they did for our own retro. Because overriding this Romney retiree veto can only happen during formal legislative session, we had thought that there was no hope of passing this bill until 2007. However, there are discussions happening now among legislators about returning to formal session for one day in September. If that occurs, it is possible for the legislature to override the Governor's veto of the retiree retro bill on that day. To learn how you can help make this happen, see Ms. Isaacson's message below:</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> --------------------------------------------------------</div> <div> Recent emails have raised questions about the wording of H5245 and whether or not it would adequately cover retirees. The Division of Higher Ed yesterday confirmed that it would. </div> <bR> <div> As you may have heard, there are ongoing discussions between the House and Senate leadership about the legislature returning for a one-day formal session sometime in September in order to vote on a bond bill. Originally, rumors had it that they would hold the session on Sept 5, but that possibility seems to have dissipated in recent days.</div> <div>  </div> <div> In preparation for a formal session, MTA will lobby the leadership to take up the override vote of Romney's veto of H5245, the retirees' retroactive pay bill. The legislative leadership is likely to very tightly limit the number of bills they address on this one day return. Republican leaders for example, currently say they won't agree to take up more than one bill. Nonetheless, we believe it is reasonable for MTA to try and get H5245 added into the mix. </div> <bR> <div> Toward that end, it would be helpful if you could get your members to call their House and Senate legislators and</div> <div> request : </div> <bR> <div> a) That the legislators vote to override Romney's veto of H5245 </div> <div> b) That legislators ask the Speaker and Senate President to include this item on the list of bills they address during this one-day formal session. </div> <bR> <div> <B>Area Legislators Contact Info</B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Senator Stanley C. Rosenberg<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Sen.StanRosenberg@senate.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Sen.StanRosenberg@senate.state.ma"><U><U>Sen.StanRosenberg@senate.state.ma.us</U></U></A> </div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-1532<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> District Phone: 413-584-1649<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <bR> <div> Representative Ellen Story </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2011</div> <div>  </div> <div> Representative Stephen Kulik </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2210 </div> <div> District Phone: 413-665-7200</div> <div>  </div> <div> Representative John W. Scibak </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2220 </div> <div> District Phone: 413-539-6566</div> <div>  </div> <div> Representative Peter V. Kocot </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2210</div> <div>  </div> <div> Representative Christopher J. Donelan </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state."><U><U>Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2230 </div> <div> District Phone: 978-544-2180</div> <div>  </div> <div> For those of you who live in other areas, you can get contact info for your state representative and senator by visiting the link below and typing in your address and zip code: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.wheredoivotema.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.wheredoivotema.com"><U><U>www.wheredoivotema.com</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_9_6_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(9-6-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Member, </div> <div> Welcome back to the new academic year. Your union has been busy working over the summer and, because of your emails and calls to legislators, we have had a number of legislative successes, which you may have read about in previous emails: payment of the final installment of the retroactive pay from our last contract (due to be paid in October), full funding of our present contract, preservation of our current health insurance premiums, and rolling back the Governor's vetoes of funding for UMass.</div> <bR> <div> We have a busy year ahead, as we work to secure long-term growth for the university and another good contract for our members.</div> <bR> <div> We need your participation in two upcoming activities:</div> <bR> <div> <B>1.</B> <B>Bargaining Survey: deadline, September 20 </B></div> <div> We need to hear from you about what the union should fight for in the upcoming contract negotiations. Please complete the bargaining survey, which is located at<U> </U><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://massteacher.org/surveys/msp06.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://massteacher.org/surveys/msp06.htm"><U><U>http://massteacher.org/surveys/msp06.htm</U></U></A></FONT>, by September 20.</div> <bR> <div> <B>2.</B> <B>Membership Lunch, September 20, 11:30 a.m. </B>(<U>RSVP by September 14</U>)</div> <div> We will kick off our bargaining campaign with an all-member lunch on September 20 at 11:30 a.m. in Campus Center Room 101. Both the president (Anne Wass) and vice president (Paul Toner) of the MTA will be there to talk about their goals for the MTA in the coming year. We will have a discussion of plans for our bargaining campaign, and will elect a bargaining team. Please RSVP by September 14 so we can reserve you a lunch.</div> <bR> <div> With a gubernatorial election in November and contract negotiations in the spring, this is going to be an important year for the union. I look forward to working with all of you in the coming months.</div> <bR> <div> Max Page, President, MSP</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_9_8_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(9-8-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> The MSP Contract Negotiating Committee will be elected at the September 20 membership lunch. As specified in the MSP Bylaws, MSP’s Nominations and Elections Commission is soliciting nominations, and is recommending the slate listed below. Additional nominations may be made between now and September 18 by email to the MSP office at <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>.</div> <bR> <div> The MSP Negotiating Committee, together with colleagues from the UMass Boston campus, will be responsible for finalizing bargaining proposals, bargaining weekly with the administration’s team, reporting to the officers and the membership, and making a final recommendation on a tentative agreement.</div> <bR> <div> <U>Nominees Recommended by Nominations and Elections Commission</U></div> <div> Sharon Domier, DuBois Library</div> <div> Holly Lawrence, School of Management</div> <div> Stephanie Luce, Labor Relations and Research Center</div> <div> Max Page, Department of Art, Architecture and Art History</div> <div> Randy Phillis, Biology Department</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_9_12_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(9-12-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> Come to MSP’s Contract Campaign Kickoff!</div> <bR> <div> Join your faculty and librarian colleagues for lunch and an exciting discussion about our upcoming contract negotiations. We will present preliminary results from the bargaining survey, discuss the issues, elect our Negotiating Committee, and have a dialogue with Anne Wass and Paul Toner, the new President and Vice President of our parent union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Wed., September 20 at 11:30 AM</div> <div> Campus Center Room 101</div> <div> RSVP by Noon on Friday, September 15</div> <div>  to 545-2206 or <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> to reserve a lunch.</div> <bR> <div> ---------------------------------------------------------------------</div> <bR> <div> PETITION ABOUT THE 250 PLAN ---- Have you signed yet?</div> <bR> <div> MSP is very concerned about the Chancellor’s intention to divert large sums of money from new faculty hiring to capital projects. If you would like your name added to the petition below, please RSVP to this email.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <U>Rescue the 250 Plan</U></div> <div> We believe that rebuilding the faculty must be a top priority for UMass Amherst. The university has many needs, but increasing the number of tenure-track faculty cannot be deferred. We are disappointed that the university’s budget calls for a net increase of only 16 faculty, in place of the 50 per year that had been proposed last year.</div> <bR> <div> Chancellor Lombardi often says that rhetoric is fine, but an institution’s budget demonstrates its true priorities. Chancellor Lombardi wrote that if the legislature provided at least 10 million dollars per year for three years, the university could hire 80 to 85 faculty per year, and meet the 250 plan goal in three years. (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/budget/250/index7.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/budget/250/index7.h"><U><U>http://www.umass.edu/budget/250/index7.html</U></U></A></FONT>)</div> <bR> <div> This year, after paying the cost of <U>all</U> the raises on campus (including raises for administrators), the state appropriation is still $6.4 million more than last year. That should permit the addition of 49 faculty, which would meet the 250 plan goal in five years. (This calculation uses the university’s own budgeted amount of $130,000 per new faculty hire, an amount that includes the cost of one new T.A. and additional staff support for each faculty hire.) </div> <bR> <div> We urge the chancellor to re-examine the university budget and priorities, and to authorize a net addition of 50 faculty, rather than the 16 currently budgeted.</div> <bR> <div> Finally, as Section 8(a)(iv) of the Constitution of the Amherst Faculty Senate allows, we also call for a General Faculty meeting.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_9_18_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(9-18-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Member:</div> <bR> <div> We have three very important requests and a piece of good news for you this week:</div> <bR> <div> 1. <U>Vote for Deval Patrick</U> tomorrow.</div> <div> The MSP has endorsed Deval Patrick and is eager to ensure his election, in the primary and in the general election. Please let the MSP office know (msp@external.umass.edu; 545-2206) if you can spend even a half an hour tomorrow (Tuesday) making phone calls from the MSP office to local voters. He is the best candidate for public higher education. And the more we can do to secure his victory, the more we will be able to be involved with future higher education policy.</div> <bR> <div> 2. Take ten minutes to fill out the <U>MSP Bargaining Survey</U> at <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.massteacher.org/surveys/msp06.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.massteacher.org/surveys/msp06"><U><U>http://www.massteacher.org/surveys/msp06.htm</U></U></A></FONT> </div> <div> We can't overstate the importance of the survey: it gives the bargaining team a clear sense of the membership's priorities, and it gives the team credibility when they make arguments on behalf of the membership at the bargaining table. [If you have trouble with the link, please copy the URL into your web browser’s address line.]</div> <bR> <div> 3. Attend the <U>all-member lunch this Wednesday.</U> </div> <div> RSVP to msp@external.umass.edu immediately and then show up in Campus Center 101 anywhere between 11:30 and 1 to have a good lunch, hear from the new president and vice president of the MTA, vote for a bargaining team, and get involved in the bargaining campaign.</div> <bR> <div> 4. <U>Retro pay</U> coming – finally!…</div> <div> The final installment of our retroactive pay from the 2001-04 contract -- covering the time period July 2001-June 2002 -- will be paid on October 20. This includes a 3% across-the-board increase along with merit increases from a 2% pool (based on work performed between September 1999 and August 2000). </div> <bR> <div> Max Page</div> <div> President, MSP</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_9_26_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(9-26-06)</B></div> <bR> <div> MSP and the Student Government Association, in collaboration with GEO, GSS, the ALANA caucus, and a variety of student organizations, are launching a Voter Registration drive. Our aim is to register at least 1000 students to send a non-partisan message to the next governor and legislature. Between now and October 17th, students will be tabling, canvassing, and making classroom visits.</div> <bR> <div> You can help in two ways:</div> <bR> <div> 1.  Announce this drive in your classes and ask for volunteers. There are two brief training sessions for interested students, this Wednesday, September 27 at 5:00 p.m. and this Thursday September 28 at 5:30 p.m. in the Student Government Association (SGA) office, Student Union 420. Students need only attend one, and refreshments will be served.</div> <bR> <div> 2.  Volunteer to open your classes. A student volunteer will come (at a time arranged with you), make a brief pitch, ask students to register to vote, and have them complete the card in class. The whole thing should take about 10 minutes. If you are willing to allow this, please contact the MSP office (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>) with the following information:</div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Your name, email address and phone number.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">The day/time/location of the class or classes you are willing to open.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">The number of students in the class.</div> <bR> <div> Once we get this information from you, a student will contact you to make the arrangements. Thanks very much!!</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (10-19-06) -- </B><B> <A NAME="general_faculty_meeting"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>General Faculty Meeting</B></div> <bR> <div> We need everyone to attend a rare General Faculty meeting (called because of the petitions you signed) to express our concern that the 250 Plan is in danger. See some of the background information at: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp/id101.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp/id101.htm"><U><U>http://www.umass.edu/msp/id101.htm</U></U></A></FONT></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> General Faculty Meeting </div> <div> Thursday, October 26th, 3:30 p.m. </div> <div> Herter Hall 227 </div> <div> (the agenda for this meeting can be found at: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/senate/fs/agendas/2006-2007/GENERAL%20FAC%20MEETING%20AGENDA%20102606.pdf" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/senate/fs/agendas/2"><U><U>http://www.umass.edu/senate/fs/agendas/2006-2007/GENERAL%20FAC%20MEETING%20AGENDA%20102606.pdf</U></U></A></FONT>) </div> <div> It is extremely important that we make a strong showing at this meeting, to show the Chancellor that we care deeply about the 250 Plan and expect him to both reorient his priorities to make hiring more faculty the top priority, and to work with us to do a better job in fighting for more resources from the legislature.</div> <bR> <div> Max Page </div> <div> Associate Professor of Architecture and History </div> <div> President, Massachusetts Society of Professors (the union of faculty and librarians at UMass-Amherst)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (10-19-06) -- </B><B> <A NAME="retro_pay"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>Retro Pay</B></div> <bR> <div> Many of you have waited five years for this, but tomorrow in your paycheck you will see the retroactive pay dating back to the work you performed in 2001-2002.  So many of us believed it would never happen, but it did, thanks to your persistent calls, the hard work of our MTA lobbyists, and the backing of the membership of MTA, who made funding our contracts a top priority.</div> <bR> <div> Anyone who worked between 7/01 and 6/02 and was active on the payroll on 7/31/06 should receive this payment.</div> <div> So, enjoy your long-deserved raise.</div> <bR> <div> And then -- please call your legislators to thank them and remind them that there is still a piece of unfinished business: the Romney-Healey administration blocked retirees from receiving their equally-deserved retro payments, and the Legislature must pass legislation as soon as it reconvenes to rectify this.</div> <bR> <div> <I>Your Friends at MSP</I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (10-25-06) -- </B><B> <A NAME="special_faculty_meeting"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>Special Faculty Meeting Regarding Amherst 250 Plan</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear Colleagues,</div> <bR> <div> Tomorrow’s General Faculty meeting to discuss the state of the 250 Plan and the priorities of the administration is very important and we need you to be there (Thursday, 3:30, Herter 227) to show how much this issue matters to the faculty, and to express your concerns. There are no formal presentations -- the whole meeting will be dedicated to faculty telling your colleagues and the Chancellor how you feel about the importance of faculty hiring. If you can only be there for just a half an hour -- we still need you. We want to show the Chancellor, your colleagues, and the press that the faculty are very concerned about the 250 Plan and that we want to be sure the budget (underfunded as it is) reflects our highest priorities.</div> <bR> <div> Please visit <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp/id101.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp/id101.htm"><U><U>http://www.umass.edu/msp/id101.htm</U></U></A></FONT> to get some background information on the issues.</div> <bR> <div> See you tomorrow.</div> <bR> <div> Max Page</div> <div> MSP President</div> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (10-27-06) -- </B><B> <A NAME="thanks_for_a_successful_general_faculty"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>Thanks for a Successful General Faculty Meeting</B></div> <bR> <div> At yesterday's extraordinary General Faculty meeting, 150 of our members showed up to insist that the Chancellor’s 250 Plan be honored.</div> <bR> <div> I want to thank everyone who showed up to insist that faculty hiring remain the top campus priority. I have attached a news report of the meeting below.</div> <bR> <div> A number of people I spoke to after wondered whether or not we had any impact. I have no doubt we did. The sheer numbers and the eloquence of the questions and statements made it crystal clear to the Chancellor that the faculty are not satisfied with his budgetary decisions. At our university, where all budgetary decisionmaking power rests with one individual, we achieve our goals through concerted action, and principled protest. The General Faculty meeting was one significant action. We have already have seen the Chancellor shift his position in anticipation of the meeting: he increased the number of authorized 250 searches for this year from 16 to 26; he renewed his pledge to achieve the plan’s goals by 2011; and he gave the plan a visible presence on the UMass homepage. All these reflect the pressure he feels from his faculty.</div> <bR> <div> One note on the Chancellor's comments: His insistence that there is no money is belied by the increase in the number of adminstrators over the past several years, the cash available to purchase frat row, the million dollars available to renovate the Provost's Office, and so on.</div> <div>  </div> <div> All of these are justifiable expenses. But are these more important than restoring the faculty? The argument that there is not a dime available to put back into the 250 Plan is simply not backed up by the facts.</div> <div>  </div> <div> You helped make this plan a top priority. We intend in the coming months to keep the pressure on so that the Chancellor does as well.</div> <div>  </div> <div> Thanks again for making your voice heard.</div> <bR> <div> Max Page, MSP President</div> <bR> <div> P.S. For more information, see <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp/id101.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp/id101.htm"><U><U>http://www.umass.edu/msp/id101.htm</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div> <div> From today’s <U>Republican (</U><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.masslive.com/news/topstories" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.masslive.com/news/topstories"><U><U>http://www.masslive.com/news/topstories</U></U></A></FONT>)</div> <div> Faculty asks questions on UMass hiring</div> <div> Friday, October 27, 2006</div> <div> By DIANE LEDERMAN</div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:dlederman@repub.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:dlederman@repub.com"><U><U>dlederman@repub.com</U></U></A></div> <bR> <div> AMHERST More than 100 University of Massachusetts faculty packed the auditorium at Herter Hall yesterday afternoon to find out why more faculty haven't been hired as promised.</div> <bR> <div> The meeting was scheduled by faculty petition.</div> <bR> <div> Chancellor John V. Lombardi unveiled the UMass-Amherst 250 Plan last year following a report by the Massachusetts Society of Professors that there were 259 fewer faculty on campus than in 1990. The plan called for hiring 250 new faculty in five years. The net gain in faculty this year was 12, with three more hires pending.</div> <bR> <div> Some questioned spending priorities, such as the $2.5 million to buy fraternities and $1 million to renovate the provost's office.</div> <bR> <div> Professor Sara Lenox, from Language, Literature and Cultures, talked about yield. When the university wants to ensure a certain number of students attend, officials accept more than that number.</div> <bR> <div> "We need to authorize a lot more searches than 50 to satisfy the 250 plan," she said. Otherwise, UMass won't meet the goal of 50 new hires a year.</div> <bR> <div> English professor Suzanne M. Daly said the administration should "see what's going on with the failed searches."</div> <bR> <div> Dan Clawsen, a sociology professor, said that more than $68 million in additional student fees has been generated since fiscal year 2003. He asked why even half that money isn't being used to pay new professors. And without the additional faculty, students having to "pay so much is an outrage," he said.</div> <bR> <div> Philosophy professor Ann Ferguson said, "Some of our departments are at risk because of shrinking numbers."</div> <bR> <div> After about a dozen spoke, Enoch Page, an anthropology professor, questioned the purpose of the discussion when no one from the administration was responding.</div> <bR> <div> Lombardi then said he tries "to hear people before I respond. I am here to listen."</div> <bR> <div> Lombardi said the Legislature has not provided the necessary funding for the plan. The university can't hire faculty without the physical structures to support them. The university can't hire faculty and assume "God will take care for the rest."</div> <bR> <div> "We believe faculty are the highest priority along with the structures."</div> <bR> <div> Max Page, president of the Massachusetts Society of Professors, the union of faculty and librarians for the Amherst campus, said he wasn't expecting any solutions.</div> <bR> <div> "I think it (the meeting) was valuable," Page said. The turnout, "shows how important the issue is."</div> <bR> <div> "There needs to be a grassroots effort" to secure additional funding from the Legislature, he said. </div> <bR> <div> But Enoch Page (no relation) said faculty let the meeting "just get away. We should have seized the moment" and talked about "anything we need to do to pressure the Legislature."</div> <bR> <div> But he said he thinks some faculty "are also afraid of the administration." He said the faculty is demoralized with the lack of hires, especially with the numbers of faculty of color.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_10_30_06_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(10-30-06) -- Patrick Visit/Bargaining Sub-Committee Meetings/Union Social</B></div> <bR> <div> This message includes three announcements of potential interest to MSP members. Please mark them in your calendars and attend if possible.</div> <bR> <div> 1. <B>Deval Patrick</B>, Democratic candidate for governor (and his running mate for lieutenant governor, Tim Murray) will be speaking on campus at 3 p.m. TOMORROW (Tuesday, 10/31) at the Curry Hicks Cage. MSP is very pleased that Deval is able to come to UMass so please come and join your neighbors from local communities to give him a good welcome. This event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 2:30.</div> <bR> <div> 2. Each of MSP's three main pre-bargaining sub-committees are hosting open meetings to discuss their preliminary proposal ideas and to get feedback from members. Please come to one or more of these:</div> <bR> <div> <U><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Compensation Committee</U> -- dealing with all aspects of salaries and benefits. <B>Tuesday, November 7th, 9 a.m., CC 174-76</B>. (Please RSVP by 11/2 at noon to reserve a breakfast). </div> <div> <U><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Part-Time Contract Faculty</U> (both benefited and adjuncts) – hoping to improve conditions for part-timers. <B>Wednesday, November 15th, 10:15 a.m., CC 168C.</B> </div> <div> <U><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Family Issues</U> – hoping to improve recruitment and retention by making this the most family-friendly campus. <B>Friday, November 17th, 9:30 a.m., CC 101. </B>(Please RSVP by 11/13 at noon to reserve a breakfast).</div> <bR> <div> 3. Union Social. MSP, together with the other campus unions, invites members to relax, chat, drink, and build union solidarity. No agenda! Our next social is scheduled for Thursday, November 2nd from 4 – 6 p.m. in the Graduate Lounge on the concourse level of the Campus Center (across from the Blue Wall). We hope to see you there!!!</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="11_3_06"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>11-3-06) -- MSP Endorsements -- Please VOTE on November 7th</B></div> <bR> <div> MSP has made three endorsements in Tuesday’s election as being in the interests of working people, public higher education, and expanded democracy.</div> <bR> <div> <B>1. We urge our members to vote for the Patrick/Murray ticket for Governor/Lt. Governor. </B></div> <div> Among his many positive attributes, Deval Patrick recognizes the importance of public higher education and understands that it has been chronically under-funded and under-valued by the Romney/Healey administration. He has said <I>“Higher education opportunities in Massachusetts will be second to none. Because 85 percent of our public college and university graduates live and work in Massachusetts after graduation, supplying tomorrow's high-skilled workforce, I will invest in public higher education so that quality goes up and costs to students and their families go down.”</I> Kerry Healey and the Romney administration cut funding for higher education by 15 percent. The Patrick campaign noticed how large the turnout was in the primary in the Amherst area, and since then we have helped to register 1,600 students. We believe a really large vote for Patrick in this area on Tuesday will help the University and the cause of public higher education.</div> <bR> <div> <B>2. We urge our members to vote YES on Question 2. </B></div> <div> Question 2 would increase political accountability and voter choice by allowing cross-endorsement (also called fusion) voting. Common in most states in the past, it allows a candidate to be endorsed by more than one party and appear on more than one ballot line. It provides a mechanism whereby voters can send a clear message on the issues they care about most without throwing their votes away on a candidate with no chance of winning (or helping elect the greater of two evils). Please visit <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.massballotfreedom.com/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.massballotfreedom.com/"><U><U>http://www.massballotfreedom.com/</U></U></A></FONT> for more information.</div> <bR> <div> <B>3. We urge our members to vote YES on Question 3.</B></div> <div> Question 3, the Better Child Care Initiative, would allow licensed and other authorized child care providers who work in private homes under the state's subsidized child care system to have the freedom to form a union and bargain collectively with the relevant state agencies. If child care providers can work together and have a voice in their conditions of work, this would likely raise safety and health standards to protect children, expand training for child care providers to raise the quality of care; and reduce turnover and stabilize the child care profession so children get the consistent, quality care they need. Please visit <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.yeson3forkids.org" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.yeson3forkids.org"><U><U>www.yeson3forkids.org</U></U></A></FONT> for more information and to see the ballot initiative language.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="11_14_06"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>11-14-06) -- MSP Endorsements -- Please VOTE on November 7th</B></div> <bR> <div> As you have probably read in the newspapers, Governor Romney announced major cuts to the current state budget. Under powers known as his "9C Powers", he plans to freeze $425 million in spending previously approved by the legislature. The term "9C" comes from the section of the laws giving the governor the power to make unilateral cuts. The cuts amount to 1.7% of overall state spending.</div> <bR> <div> Romney announced that his cuts will include a one percent across-the- board cut with very few exceptions. The list of cuts (see link below) includes significant cuts to education, higher education, and state employee accounts.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Insurance Premiums for State Employees</B></div> <div> Romney cut $30 million from the GIC (Group Insurance Commission) line-item funding state employee health insurance coverage. If the funding for this line-item is not restored, state employees' health insurance premiums will increase OR the Romney controlled GIC could change the health care plans to save $30 million.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Cuts to Higher Education</B></div> <div> Romney cut over $38 million from a wide variety of higher education accounts including:</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">$3.7 million from state colleges. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">$3.1 million from community colleges. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">$8.4 million from UMass. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">$14.6 million from UMass collective bargaining reserves. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">$5.8 million from state and community college collective bargaining reserves.</div> <bR> <div> Since the retroactive pay raises recently approved by the legislature have already been paid to state employees, the effect of this freeze would be to cut the college and university budgets by that same amount.</div> <div> For a complete listing of the cuts, please go to:  <A HREF="http://www.mass.gov/Agov2/docs/11.10.06.9c.cuts.pdf" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.mass.gov/Agov2/docs/11.10.06."><U><U>http://www.mass.gov/Agov2/docs/11.10.06.9c.cuts.pdf</U></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>What can be done?</B></div> <div> MTA is asking the legislature to reconvene quickly in order to reverse the 9C cuts. It is unclear as of this writing whether or not the legislature will come back for a special formal session during 2006. Please contact your state legislators, as well as the Senate President and Speaker of the House, and ask them to take action on these cuts as soon as possible.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Senate President Robert Travaglini</B></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-1500</div> <div> Email: <A HREF="mailto:Robert.Travaglini@state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Robert.Travaglini@state.ma.us"><U><U>Robert.Travaglini@state.ma.us</U></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>Speaker of the House Salvatore DiMasi</B></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2500</div> <div> Email: <A HREF="mailto:Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@hou.state.ma."><U><U>Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>Senator Stanley Rosenberg</B> (including Northampton, Amherst, Belchertown, Hadley, Hatfield, Pelham, South Hadley, Bernardston, Buckland, Colrain, Deerfield, Erving, Gill, Greenfield, Leverett, Leyden, Montague, New Salem, Northfield, Shelburne, Shutesbury, Sunderland, Wendell, and Whately)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-1532</div> <div> District Phone: 413-584-1649</div> <div> Email: <A HREF="mailto:Stan.Rosenberg@state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Stan.Rosenberg@state.ma.us"><U><U>Stan.Rosenberg@state.ma.us</U></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>Representative Ellen Story </B>(including Amherst and Granby)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2011</div> <div> Email: <A HREF="mailto:Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us " TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us "><U><U>Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>Representative Stephen Kulik </B>(inlcuding Belchertown, Chesterfield, Conway, Deerfield, Goshen, Huntington, Leverett, Montague, New Salem, Pelham, Shutesbury, Sunderland, Wendell, Williamsburg, Whately and Worthington)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2210</div> <div> District Phone: 413-665-7200</div> <div> Email: <A HREF="mailto:Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>Representative Peter Kocot </B>(including Hatfield, Montgomery, Northampton, Southampton, and Westhampton)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2210</div> <div> Email: <A HREF="mailto:Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>Representative John Scibak </B>(including Easthampton, Hadley and South Hadley)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2220</div> <div> District Phone: 413-539-6566</div> <div> Email: <A HREF="mailto:Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us " TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us "><U><U>Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>Representative Christopher Donelan </B>(including Athol, Erving, Gill, Greenfield, Orange and Warwick)</div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2230</div> <div> District Phone: 978-544-2180</div> <div> Email: <A HREF="mailto:Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state.ma.us " TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state."><U><U>Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="11_16_06"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>11-16-06) -- MSP Parental Leave Survey</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP members:</div> <bR> <div> In 2001, MSP was successful in bargaining a new parental leave policy for its members. This policy allowed members to take parental leave up to a year after a child (6 or under) joined your family and to stop the tenure clock for a year afterwards. Since that time many faculty have taken advantage of this policy. Others were eligible but decided not to take parental leave, but likely benefited from having it as an option. As we negotiate a new contract this spring, it is important to gain insight into how our members have experienced the parental leave policy.</div> <bR> <div> We ask all MSP members that were eligible to take parental leave/stop the clock since it was put in place in July, 2001 to log on to the link below and take this survey. Likewise, we will be conducting interviews with members to better understand balance of family and work issues within departments.  MSP members are asked to take this survey if they were eligible to take parental leave, even if they did not.</div> <bR> <div> Our definition of family is inclusive of same-sex partnerships, adoptive families, as well as heterosexual partnerships.</div> <bR> <div> MSP will use this data to better advocate for academic parents through bargaining and support services. Please do log-on and complete our survey which is located at:  <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://massteacher.org/surveys/leave.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://massteacher.org/surveys/leave.htm"><U><U>http://massteacher.org/surveys/leave.htm</U></U></A></FONT>. (The deadline to do so is December 15th).</div> <bR> <div> If you have any questions about the study, please contact KerryAnn O'Meara at <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:kerryann@educ.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:kerryann@educ.umass.edu"><U><U>kerryann@educ.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>.</div> <bR> <div> Sincerely,</div> <bR> <div> Eve Weinbaum, Associate Professor of Labor Relations and Research Center</div> <div>   and Chair of MSP Family Issues Committee</div> <div> KerryAnn O'Meara, Assistant Professor, Higher Education, EPRA</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="11_29_06"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>11-29-06) -- Deval Patrick on Campus Friday</B></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <U>Deval Patrick to Attend Higher Education Summit at UMass-Amherst</U></div> <bR> <div> <U>Campus Center Auditorium 10:30 – 12:00 Friday, December 1</U></div> <bR> <div> Governor-elect Deval Patrick has accepted our invitation to attend the Higher Education Summit organized by MSP and other campus groups this Friday. He and his public higher education working group will host a “community meeting” on public higher education in the Campus Center Auditorium to which all students, faculty, staff are invited.</div> <bR> <div> MSP urges members to:</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">attend the community meeting</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">share your thoughts on public higher education at the community meeting, and </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">announce it in class and encourage your students to attend</div> <bR> <div> Members of the coalition believe that this is a unique moment to push forward with a visionary agenda for improving public higher education in the state.</div> <div>  </div> <div> Governor-Elect Patrick has established 15 working groups, each of which will be holding a community meeting to get input on policies and priorities. We are very pleased that the first one is on public higher education and that it is taking place on our campus. </div> <bR> <div> The Public Higher Education Coalition, of which MSP is a part, has prepared a report entitled “Advancing Public Higher Education: A Roadmap for Governor Patrick.” The report calls for increasing and stabilizing the funding for the public higher education system; dramatically easing tuition and fees; expanding the accessibility of the system; investing in more teachers and researchers; and democratizing public higher education. We expect the report will be the basis for discussions with Patrick and his advisors. It will be available at the Summit on Friday and on the MSP website (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp"><U><U>www.umass.edu/msp</U></U></A></FONT>) by Thursday afternoon.</div> <bR> <div> The public meeting will be followed by strategy sessions from 12 to 1 (lunch provided), open to all. Our goal is to use this event to help build the sleeping giant of Massachusetts politics: a unified statewide coalition of public higher education stakeholders.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Campus Center Auditorium 10:30 – 12:00 Friday, December 1</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="12_4_06"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>12-4-06) -- </B><B>Report on Deval Patrick Visit and Upcoming Membership Meeting</B></div> <bR> <div> This email covers two items: a report on the Higher Education Summit attended by Deval Patrick on our campus last Friday and a reminder regarding MSP’s Membership Meeting.</div> <bR> <div> <U>MSP</U> <U>Membership</U> <U>Meeting</U></div> <div> MSP's next membership meeting is scheduled for Monday, December 11th at 4:30 p.m. in CC 163C. At this meeting, we plan to finalize and ratify our proposals for upcoming bargaining which we expect to begin in early January. These proposals have been created after a thorough review of all the ideas generated from our survey, our committees, our department meetings and our discussions with individual MSP members. Please RSVP to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> if you have not done so already. Refreshments will be served.</div> <bR> <div> <U>Higher</U> <U>Education</U> <U>Summit</U></div> <div> Last Friday, December 1st, was an important day for our union and, more importantly, for public higher education. Your union, in concert with other campus unions and student groups, held a Higher Education Summit with Deval Patrick and his higher education transition team. In an hour-long, closed-door session, a small group of us including John Lombardi, Jack Wilson, Steve Tocco, Anne Wass (MTA President), Ellen Story, and Senator O'Leary (Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on Higher Education) discussed the findings of our "roadmap" for public higher education. We have set the parameters of the debate by putting these ideas before the Governor-elect so forcefully, and so soon after his election. The unforgettable moment came in the middle of the meeting when Deval Patrick turned to Jack Wilson and Steve Tocco and asked, "How do you both feel about the report?" They both insisted that we had identified the key issues and they agreed with almost all of it. </div> <bR> <div> I can't emphasize how significant this was: on our invitation, the Governor-elect held his first community meeting here, at the flagship campus, on the topic of public higher education; he read and discussed a visionary report -- written in large measure by our own Dan Clawson, in concert with students, faculty, and staff who have been working diligently for three weeks -- which calls for, among others things, stable and increased funding for the University, free community college education, more teachers at every public college and university campus, and new guarantees that the state will honor collective bargaining agreements; we helped bring out 700 people, many of whom testified before the Governor-elect's higher education transition team; and we held a series of "breakout sessions" -- with over a hundred people participating -- to discuss the report and how to build a statewide coalition. Everyone, I believe, left with a new bounce of hope about the possibility for substantially improving our public higher education system.</div> <bR> <div> Friday was a great day, but now it’s important to expand the coalition and plan further activities to turn our vision into reality. If you are interested in helping, please join us on Wednesday, December 6th at 4:30 p.m. in CC 811-15 to discuss next steps.</div> <bR> <div> Please visit <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp"><U><U>www.umass.edu/msp</U></U></A></FONT> to view the report (Advancing Public Higher Education: A Roadmap for Governor-Elect Deval Patrick).</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="1_11_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>1-11-07) -- Old and New Contracts</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Members,</div> <bR> <div> Happy New Year! I am pleased to let you know that the final salary increase of our current contract, worth an average of 3% (2% cost of living and average 1% merit) will be in your paychecks this Friday, January 12. This is a well-deserved raise and we are glad to have it delivered on time. (Please note that the effective date of this raise is January 1st which falls in the middle of a two-week pay period, so this first check will include one week at the old salary and one at the new.) </div> <bR> <div> But all of us should enjoy this well-deserved salary boost with an awareness that our retirees have not yet received the retroactive pay increase from FY02 which we all received in October. Ex-Governor Romney made sure of that with an 11th hour veto of a funding bill. Our parent union -- the MTA (Massachusetts Teachers Association) -- will be filing a bill next week to rectify the situation and get our retired members their due. </div> <bR> <div> The last pay increase of our current contract must mean that bargaining for the next contract is not far behind. In fact, last Friday, your bargaining team [myself (Architecture), Sharon Domier (Library), Holly Lawrence (SOM),</div> <div> Stephanie Luce (Labor Center), and Randy Phillis (Biology)] joined with the UMass-Boston faculty and librarian negotiating team and presented our proposals to the administration. These proposals -- ratified at our December 11 meeting – can be seen on the MSP website at: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp/contracts.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp/contracts.htm"><U><U>http://www.umass.edu/msp/contracts.htm</U></U></A></FONT>. </div> <bR> <div> I was very pleased that we convinced the administration to begin negotiating immediately after the start of the new year. This was vital given our goal to have the contract settled and funded by June 30, 2007. The hard work all of you did in the fall -- filling out the survey, expressing your views at meetings, researching particular issues -- paid off in your team being well-prepared for our first meeting, and confident that we were representing the wishes of our members.</div> <bR> <div> I intend to send an update on bargaining after each session, so that each of you is informed on how that process is proceeding, and so that each of you can get involved. We are much more likely to win the proposals we ratified in December if we are ready to apply pressure on the administration -- through good arguments, research, publicity, public protest, calls, emails, and other actions. We may very well need all of those in the coming months.<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Max Page<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> MSP President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="1_25_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>1-25-07) -- Academic Calendar Change Survey</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Members: </div> <div> As you may know, Chancellor Lombardi has proposed, and the Faculty Senate is currently reviewing, a revised calendar arrangement beginning with Academic Year 2009-2010. Under this proposal the Spring Semester would begin the second week of January and commencement would be held in the second week of May. This proposed change would effectively abolish the Winter Session (J-Term).</div> <bR> <div> MSP has received inquiries from members about the implications of such a change and there is currently an administrative proposal at the bargaining table about this issue. Before entering into discussions with the administration about this, the MSP would like to know how you feel about the proposed change so we’ve created a short (it will literally take only a moment of your time) survey to gauge our members’ sentiment. The survey deadline is Friday, February 9th and you can log on by using the following link: <A HREF="http://massteacher.org/surveys/msp.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://massteacher.org/surveys/msp.htm"><U> </U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://massteacher.org/surveys/msp.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://massteacher.org/surveys/msp.htm"><U><U>http://massteacher.org/surveys/msp.htm</U></U></A></FONT>.</div> <bR> <div> Thanks so much!</div> <bR> <div> Max Page</div> <div> MSP President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT </B><B> <A NAME="_1_25_07_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>(1-25-07) -- Retiree Retro Pay -- MTA Bill Filed</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear Retirees, </div> <bR> <div> We are forwarding you a note from Arline Isaacson, MTA's lobbyist, outlining the bill the MTA filed to have you receive the FY02 retroactive pay you deserve. Arline urges that all of us contact our legislators to urge them to make this happen as soon as possible. We are sending a similar message to our active members asking them to make calls as well. If you do not have contact information for your legislators, it can be found at the bottom of this message.</div> <bR> <div> Thank you all for your continued involvement and advocacy. I hope that before too long this long overdue bill will be paid. </div> <bR> <div> All the best, </div> <bR> <div> Max Page </div> <div> MSP President</div> <div> ---------------------------------------------------- </div> <bR> <div> ----- Original Message -----<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B>Subject:</B> Re: AN ACT RELATIVE TO HIGHER EDUCATION FINAL RETROACTIVE PAYMENTS</div> <bR> <div> Retirees Retro Language. This is the bill MTA filed with Rep. Dave Flynn as the lead sponsor. The language is essentially the same language that passed the legislature and was vetoed by Romney in 2006. The only changes MTA made involved corrections to a few sections where the legislature had used the wrong dates. As soon as the bills are assigned numbers, I'll get that word out to folks. </div> <bR> <div> In all likelihood, this language will pass not as a stand alone bill, but as a line item in a budget bill. NOTE: The <B>money </B>for this would <B><U>not</U></B><B> </B>have to be enacted again. That already passed in the 2006 session. The only thing we need now is to get the attached wording passed into law so the money could be spent on the retirees.</div> <bR> <div> Therefore, it makes sense to encourage retirees to contact their legislators and to ask legislators to move quickly on getting this vetoed language passed in the first supp budget dealt with in the legislature. Noone yet knows when the first supp budget will be taken up, but it will presumably be before the House budget comes out in the spring. </div> <bR> <div> <I><B>An Act Relative to Higher Education Final Retroactive Payments to retirees</B></I></div> <div> <I>SECTION 15. Employees covered by the terms of the collective bargaining agreements in item 1599-4131 of section 2A of Chapter 192 of the Acts of 2006 who, after July 1, 2001, retired or otherwise terminated employment, or the beneficiary of such an employee who died after July 1, 2001, shall be paid, not later than 30 days after the effective date of this act, a lump sum amount equal to the difference between: (a) the salary specified in the relevant agreement; and (b) the salary each received for the time they were employed during the period July 1, 2001 through June 30, 2002; provided, however, that notwithstanding chapter 32 of the General Laws, the amount of the retirement allowance paid under said chapter 32 to an employee who prior to retirement was covered by the terms of the collective bargaining agreements in said items 1599-4131 of said section 2A of Chapter 192 of the Acts of 2006 and who retired after July 1, 2001, shall be calculated as though the employee's regular compensation for any period of employment from July 1, 2001 through June 30, 2002 had been received by the employee in accordance with such agreement and appropriate retirement deductions withheld. Appropriate adjustments shall be made to an employee's retirement allowance, including payments retroactive to the effective date of retirement.</I></div> <bR> <div> <I>Employees covered by the terms of the collective bargaining agreements in item 1599-4133 of section 2A of Chapter 192 of the Acts of 2006 who, after July 1, 2001, retired or otherwise terminated employment, or the beneficiary of such an employee who died after July 1, 2001, shall be paid, not later than 30 days after the effective date of this act, a lump sum amount equal to the difference between: (a) the salary specified in the relevant agreement; and (b) the salary each received for the time they were employed during the period July 1, 2001 through June 30, 2002; provided, however, that notwithstanding chapter 32 of the General Laws, the amount of the retirement allowance paid under said chapter 32 to an employee who prior to retirement was covered by the terms of the collective bargaining agreements in said item 1599-4133 of said section 2A of Chapter 192 of the Acts of 2006, and who retired after June 30, 2001, shall be calculated as though the employee's regular compensation for any period of employment from July 1, 2001 through July 1, 2002 had been received by the employee in accordance with such agreement and appropriate retirement deductions withheld. Appropriate adjustments shall be made to an employee's retirement allowance, including payments retroactive to the effective date of retirement. </I></div> <bR> <div> <B>Area Legislators</B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="2" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="580" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 70 ><NOBR><div> Senator Stanley C. Rosenberg </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Sen.StanRosenberg@senate.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Sen.StanRosenberg@senate.state.ma"><U><U>Sen.StanRosenberg@senate.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-1532 </div> <div> District Phone: 413-584-1649</div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> Representative John W. Scibak </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.JohnScibak@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2220 </div> <div> District Phone: 413-539-6566</div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 52 ><NOBR><div> Representative Ellen Story </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.EllenStory@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2575</div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> Representative Peter V. Kocot </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us"><U><U>Rep.PeterKocot@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2210</div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 70 ><NOBR><div> Representative Stephen Kulik </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us " TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us "><U><U>Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us " TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us "><U> </U></A></FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2210 </div> <div> District Phone: 413-665-7200</div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> Representative Christopher J. Donelan </div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state.ma.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state."><U><U>Rep.ChristopherDonelan@hou.state.ma.us</U></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> State House Phone: 617-722-2230 </div> <div> District Phone: 978-544-2180</div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> For those of you who live in other areas, you can get contact info for your state representative and senator by visiting the link below and typing in your address and zip code: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.wheredoivotema.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.wheredoivotema.com"><U><U>www.wheredoivotema.com</U></U></A></FONT>.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="2_8_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>2-8-07) -- Fighting for a PHENOMenal UMass -- PHENOM's founding convention at the Statehouse</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Member, </div> <bR> <div> Your union is helping to build the first statewide organization to fight for dramatic improvements for public higher education in the state. Based on the principles laid out in the "roadmap" (found on our website at: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp/"><U><U>http://www.umass.edu/msp/</U></U></A></FONT>) which we, along with student and staff leaders wrote for Governor Patrick's visit here in December, a broader group of stakeholders across the state has come together to form an organization called PHENOM (The Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts).</div> <bR> <div> PHENOM will hold its founding convention at the Statehouse (at the Grand Staircase) on February 22 at 10:30 a.m. We expect to have representatives of student groups, faculty and staff unions, parents, and alumni from all 29 campuses of the public higher education system in attendance. The Governor's Education Advisor, Dana Mohler-Faria will speak at the convention. Following the convention, campus representatives plan to lobby key legislators to educate them about PHENOM’s progressive agenda for quality, affordable, well-funded public higher education. MSP has been proud to play a leading role in what we hope will be a major step toward advancing public higher education in this state.</div> <bR> <div> To help with this founding convention, we are asking you to:</div> <bR> <div> 1. Come to Boston: RSVP to the MSP office (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>). A free bus will leave at 7:45 a.m. on the 22nd.</div> <bR> <div> 2. Open your large lecture class (50 or over) for five minutes to student leaders who will make a pitch to your students to participate in the founding convention.</div> <bR> <div> 3. Excuse those students who may miss class on the 22nd to attend the convention.</div> <bR> <div> Many of you have been waiting and working far longer than me for a day when we could move UMass to the top league of public research universities. We believe that PHENOM will be an important mobilizing force to make that happen.</div> <bR> <div> Max Page</div> <div> MSP President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="2_26_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>2-26-07) -- Three Pieces of Good News</B></div> <bR> <div> I have the rare opportunity to deliver three pieces of good news to you:</div> <bR> <div> First, PHENOM: The Public Higher Network of Masssachusetts, which the MSP has taken a leading role in creating, held its founding convention at the Statehouse last Thursday. With a hundred students, faculty, and staff from across the state, as well as legislators and their staff in attendance, we launched the first statewide organization dedicated to advancing public higher education. We are now embarking on a postcard campaign, in which we are asking individuals to sign a postcard urging the Governor and their legislators to produce a budget and legislation that follow PHENOM's five principles. Please visit phenomonline.org to find out more.</div> <bR> <div> Second, while we were at the Statehouse, we learned that the Governor had signed parts of the supplemental budget that covered the retroactive pay for our retirees. If you remember, this is pay that dates back to 2001. Active employees were finally paid the money we were owed this past October. But in July, then-Governor Romney had vetoed the funding bill in such a way that retirees were not covered. The clock ran out on the legislature (which does not meet in formal session in the fall) and we had to wait for the new legislative session which began in January. Our lobbyists at the MTA worked hard to get this through at the earliest possible time, and Senator Stan Rosenberg worked through last minute language changes to bring the bill to the Governor's desk. This long delay was a travesty, but it has now been righted.</div> <bR> <div> Finally, it appears our continued advocacy on behalf of the 250 Plan is working. We were informed on Friday that the administration has chosen to add $2 million toward the hiring of additional tenure-track faculty. This will result in an additional 19 hires over the coming year, along with staff, TA, and startup support. We are exceptionally pleased that the Chancellor has heard and finally responded to the appeals of our members, who have consistently placed the 250 Plan at the top of their list of priorities. The Chancellor's action follows the MSP's fall and winter campaign, which included a General Faculty Meeting and a recent report on the rapid growth in administration salaries over the past several years. </div> <bR> <div> Max Page </div> <div> MSP President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="3_2_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>3-2-07) -- Retiree Retro Pay</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear Retirees -- </div> <bR> <div> As we reported to you all last week, Governor Patrick has signed the bill that funds the FY02 retroactive pay increases for our retirees. We at MSP are thrilled (as you are) that this long overdue pay increase is finally being paid. </div> <bR> <div> Many of you have written asking when checks will be cut and mailed. According to the bill, the administration has 30 days from the effective date of the legislation to pay and we have been assured by the administration that they do intend to meet this deadline. Although we have not yet heard exactly when payments will be made, there are rumors that checks may go out as early as the next pay period which is March 9th. </div> <bR> <div> <U>VERY</U> <U>IMPORTANT</U>: Please make sure that the payroll office has your current address on file. If your address is not correct with them, your check will be returned to the University and the funds will ultimately revert to the state. If you are at all concerned about the University's records in this regard, please contact Human Resources at (413) 545-0380.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="3_9_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>3-9-07) -- PHENOM and MSP General Assembly</B></div> <bR> <div> <U>Give us 10 minutes of class time</U></div> <div> PHENOM, the new public higher education coalition that MSP helped found, is doing a massive post card campaign to demonstrate public support for Affordability, Better Funding, More Faculty Hiring, Democracy, and Improved Access. MSP asks that you allow a student to come to your class, preferably the week of March 26, to do a very short non-partisan presentation about the state of Massachusetts public higher education, the promise of PHENOM, and the signature campaign. As we saw with voter registration, the most effective way to reach thousands of people is in classes – this is happening on campuses around the state! [We are also prepared to do a longer more in-depth presentation if you would like - let us know.]  Please RSVP with the date, time, location, and size of the class, and someone will be in touch with you. Thank you!</div> <bR> <div> <U>Save the Date! April 12 at 12 Noon – MSP General Assembly</U></div> <div> Will we have a great contract settlement to report? Will we still need to be mobilizing around key issues? Come find out! We will also hold elections and vote on MSP’s budget for next year. This is an important meeting. Please RSVP to register and reserve a lunch.</div> <bR> <div> <U>Save the Date April 25 – Lobby at the State House</U></div> <div> We will be joining students, faculty, and staff from around the state to advocate for a better higher education budget and for some specific pieces of legislation. PHENOM will be turning in thousands of post cards and making a big splash. Buses will go from Amherst. Please RSVP if you are able to come.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="3_21_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>3-21-07) -- Spring Membership Lunch and Higher Ed Advocacy</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Members --</div> <bR> <div> Two items are covered in this email: </div> <bR> <div> 1) MSP's spring membership luncheon has been scheduled for <U>Thursday, April 12th</U> at noon in the Amherst Room on the 10th floor of the Campus Center. Agenda items include:</div> <bR> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Bargaining Update and Discussion </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Amherst 250 Plan Update </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Discussion about PHENOM (Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts)<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Approval of MSP/JCC Budgets for 2007-08<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Nominations for MSP Board/Officers/MTA Annual Meeting Delegates</div> <bR> <div> <B>Please RSVP no later than April 4th to reserve your lunch!!!</B></div> <bR> <div> 2) Many of you have agreed to open your classes for 10 minutes so that a student can come and do a short presentation about PHENOM and about how students can help advocate for public higher education. If you haven’t yet replied, please RSVP to say if there is a time the week of April 2 or April 9 that would be possible.  Thanks!</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="4_9_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>4-9-07) -- Contract Negotiations and Thursday's Membership Lunch</B></div> <bR> <div> To:  All MSP Members</div> <bR> <div> Re: Contract Negotiations and Thursday’s Membership Lunch</div> <bR> <div> This is what your union is facing at the bargaining table:</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">the possibility of only getting a one-year contract offer from the administration;</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">the threat of a change to the academic calendar by the administration despite your saying, by a 2 to 1 margin in our survey, that the change is not good for faculty or for students;</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">the adminstration's demand for complete, perpetual ownership of any online course you develop.</div> <bR> <div> We need you to attend the General Assembly -- this Thursday, Noon, in the Amherst Room (10th floor) of the Campus Center -- to:</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">hear</B> a detailed update of the issues in bargaining</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">voice </B>your opinions about the issues</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">strategize </B>about a plan of action to win a good contract </div> <bR> <div> It is crucial that the bargaining team hear from you, the members, about these and other important issues as we head into the intense final month or two of contract negotiations.</div> <bR> <div> At the meeting we will also approve the budget, elect new board members, officers, and delegates to the MTA Annual Convention, and discuss plans for the April 25 PHENOM rally at the Statehouse.</div> <bR> <div> Please RSVP immediately so we can reserve you a lunch: <A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="4_17_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>4-17-07) -- Contract Negotiations Update</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Member:</div> <bR> <div> We are entering a critical phase of negotiations, when positions harden and we focus on a narrow range of topics of fundamental importance to us. As I said at the General Assembly last week, there is no guarantee of winning important gains. It will require hard work by the bargaining team and, more importantly, by you.</div> <bR> <div> As of today we still have no offer on salaries or professional development funds from the Governor's Office. We have been in contact with the Governor's Office, and are using all our connections to the Patrick administration to push them to act quickly on a fair monetary offer. </div> <bR> <div> At Friday's bargaining session with the Amherst administration, your bargaining team discussed other central issues we wanted serious action on, including improvements to the sabbatical system, a phased retirement system, improved working conditions for contract faculty, and funds for salary anomalies which address inequities often affecting women and people of color in greater numbers. Unfortunately, at this point we see very little movement from Provost Seymour's Office on these key issues. </div> <bR> <div> While we did not discuss the online course ownership policy at the last bargaining session, the MSP remains absolutely committed to retaining both the individual faculty members' rights over courses they develop and the union's right to shape online course policy at the university. Please see an MSP position paper about this issue, as well as one about the proposed academic calendar change, at the MSP website: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umass.edu/msp/id106.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umass.edu/msp/id106.htm"><U><U>http://www.umass.edu/msp/id106.htm</U></U></A></FONT>. A number of other issues, particularly those that apply to both the Amherst and Boston campuses, will be discussed at the "main table" next Friday.</div> <bR> <div> All of this means that to achieve a good contract we are probably going to have to call on you to convince the Provost on our campus, and the President and Board of Trustees in Boston, that it is in their best interest to move on issues of greatest importance to the MSP. </div> <bR> <div> To that end, please take note of the following important dates in our campaign for the contract and public higher education this spring. We may be alerting you to others.</div> <bR> <div> <B>April 25 PHENOM Lobby Day.</B> Email Ferd Wulkan (<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:wulkan@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:wulkan@external.umass.edu"><U><U>wulkan@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>) to reserve a seat on the free bus to the Statehouse where we will deliver thousands of postcards to the Governor and every legislator, and will pursue a legislative program that would have a profound effect on this campus. This is the launch of an unprecedented group -- students, faculty, and staff from all 29 public colleges and universities unified on behalf of public higher education -- that your union has been instrumental in forming. Please make the day a success by spending the day lobbying on behalf of our university.</div> <bR> <div> <B>May 3 Special Faculty Senate Meeting</B> -- Board of Trustees Chair Steve Tocco will address the Faculty Senate in Thompson 102 at 1:30 PM. The Board is our employer, and he will need to hear how bargaining is going and how we feel about it. Unless we have miraculous movement on both economic parameters (controlled by the Governor) and other significant non-monetary issues (controlled by the Provost on our campus and by the President's Office in Boston) we will need to let Mr. Tocco know that we demand more progress, and quickly. He has in the past said he is eager to get our contract settled on time. We need to hold him to that.</div> <bR> <div> Sincerely,</div> <div> Max Page, President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="4_23_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>4-23-07) -- PHENOM and Bargaining Update</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Member,</div> <bR> <div> Over the past 12 years it has been hard to imagine heading to the State House for anything other than to head off a crisis, or to get long-delayed contracts funded. But we are in a new era where we truly can imagine a substantial new investment in our university -- provided we are willing to show up and make it clear to the legislature that there is a constituency that will insist on it. So: </div> <bR> <div> We need you on the bus to Boston this Wednesday, April 25 (leaving from Haigis Mall at 7:45 a.m.). Email <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:massphenom@gmail.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:massphenom@gmail.com"><U><U>massphenom@gmail.com</U></U></A></FONT> to reserve your spot. </div> <bR> <div> If none of us shows up, why should they believe it matters to the people of Massachusetts? The Board of Trustees has made it clear they too believe this is a new era and have called on everyone to attend our PHENOMenal day for Higher Education April 25. Please make arrangements so you can be there.</div> <bR> <div> I also have a brief bargaining update. First, the very good news: the Family Issues Committee has completed an agreement with the administration that contains some notable gains: the first-ever child care subsidy for new faculty ($150,000 over three years); an automatic delay in the tenure clock for parental leave; the right to request leave without pay for family care reasons (such as elder care); and an ongoing MSP-Administration committee to develop further improvements to family and work-life policies. The Committee [Eve Weinbaum, Nerissa Balce, Joyce Berkman, John Brigham, Paula Chakravartty, Miliann Kang, Laura Lovett, Jen Lundquist, Katie McDermott, KerryAnn O'Meara, Becky Ready and Dean Robinson] deserves everyone's thanks for their year-long work to get these policies in place.</div> <bR> <div> And now the more disturbing part of the report. The Governor's Office of Administration and Finance has still not offered economic parameters to us, so we cannot move forward in bargaining salary increases or professional development funds. We are getting impatient, as time is running out for us to achieve what you asked us to achieve: a good contract, completed by June 30. We have begun contacting the Governor's staff directly and will ramp up the pressure on Governor Patrick if we don't have movement in the coming weeks. Furthermore, our local administration continues to balk at accepting our proposals -- on contract faculty, anomalies, sabbatical policy, and phased retirement -- that help promote the university's research mission and address inequities. These proposals have the added virtue of being inexpensive and, in some cases, saving the university money. </div> <bR> <div> I want you to plan to be at the special Faculty Senate meeting on Thursday, May 3 (1:30 pm, Thompson 102), when Board of Trustees Chair Steve Tocco addresses the faculty. He needs to hear your displeasure at the pace of negotiations and the unwillingness of the Provost and Chancellor to move on our key proposals that will benefit the university. </div> <bR> <div> Max Page </div> <div> MSP President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="5_2_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5-2-07) -- </B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Tahoma" > </FONT><B>Why you need to show up at Steve Tocco's presentation</B></div> <bR> <div> Here's what really bothers me: your union researches proposals that are good for the university, inexpensive, and that have been employed by other universities, including our benchmark universities (Indiana, Illinois, Berkeley) and the Chancellor and Provost can only respond with their favorite word: "No."</div> <bR> <div> At yesterday's bargaining session with the administration, they told us that after consideration of our proposals, their firm answer was a resounding no.</div> <bR> <div> No to anomaly raises for dozens of faculty in HFA and SBS -- the colleges with the greatest number of women and people of color, and the lowest salaries. SBS has granted few or no anomaly raises over the past several years and HFA won't be granting any this year and next year. </div> <bR> <div> No to a phased retirement system that would allow departments to plan for an orderly replacement of faculty, maintain involvement of senior faculty even as new faculty is brought in, and give our members a way to ease out of full-time teaching and research.</div> <bR> <div> No to a more flexible sabbatical policy that would allow faculty to earn credits toward leave, and use it when they most need it most for their research and when it fits the schedule of their families. No to an investment in faculty by offering seventy-five percent pay for a full year sabbatical, which would promote the research mission of the university and we have proven to be a net cost savings for the university. </div> <bR> <div> No to improved pay for contract faculty, whose current floor is barely at 200% of the federal poverty line, and about thirty percent below the actual annual income economists estimate is required for meeting the basic needs for a family of four in Western Massachusetts. The administration says -- this is a quote -- it is their duty to offer the lowest pay possible to hire part-time instructors. We say that is disgraceful.</div> <bR> <div> After five months of bargaining we find the administration unwilling to budge on proposals that address the advancement and equity of the university. We are happy to be the ones coming up with the good ideas. But, alas, we need the administration to let us help them do their jobs. </div> <bR> <div> Please come to the meeting and tell the Chair of the Board of Trustees -- your employer -- that you are displeased with the way his Chancellor and Provost are negotiating this contract.</div> <bR> <div> Max</div> <bR> <div> P.S. Here are some questions you should continue asking Steve Tocco. Remember: Tocco is, potentially, our ally. He has a lot riding on having contracts completed peacefully and on time. </div> <bR> <div> 1. The Chancellor has established three universities -- Indiana, Illinois, and Berkeley -- as our benchmarks and has required every department to compare itself to the departments at these three schools. Both Illinois and Berkeley offer sabbatical policies that are more flexible and supportive of research than ours. (They allow faculty to earn credits and take leave when they most need it, as opposed to only at the end of six years of service. </div> <bR> <div> They also provide faculty 2/3 or ¾ of their pay for a full year sabbatical). Can you tell the Chancellor and Provost that if you want a top-rated flagship campus, you have to invest in your faculty like a top-rated flagship campus?</div> <bR> <div> 2. The Chancellor and Provost refuse to implement a phased retirement system (allowing faculty to go to part-time work for three to five years before retiring), which would allow for an orderly transition of faculty in departments and programs, and exists at many top universities. Can you help explain why UMass is different from all these other universities that have found these programs to be inexpensive (they usually save money) and good for faculty and management?</div> <bR> <div> 3. We have heard you are sympathetic with the frustrations we have had in getting timely contracts, and that you find the collective bargaining process in Massachusetts inefficient and undesirable. We agree. But at the moment this is the system we have. What specifically are you doing to get a fair salary offer and an improved professional development package from the Governor immediately, so we can for once have a contract signed, sealed, and delivered by June 30? </div> <bR> <div> 4. UMass has a system of providing anomaly raises to faculty who find their salaries out of line with colleagues in their departments or colleges, due to problems such as coming in during a bad budget year, or pay differences by gender or race. The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the College of Humanities and Fine Arts -- the ones that are have the lowest salaries and the greatest concentration of women faculty and faculty of color -- yet do not find money to pay faculty anomaly raises that they are qualified for. We think the administration should prioritize finding money to increase the number of anomaly raises. This is good for morale, and good</div> <div> human resource practice. Would you be willing to support us in this demand of the administration?</div> <bR> <div> Max Page</div> <div> Associate Professor of Architecture and History</div> <div> President, Massachusetts Society of Professors (the union of faculty and</div> <div> librarians at UMass-Amherst)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="5_9_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5-9-07)</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Members:</div> <bR> <div> I want to report to you on several matters.</div> <bR> <div> First, I can report a victory on a matter of great importance to all of us. We have convinced the Chancellor that his proposed radical change to the <B>academic calendar</B> is unacceptable. Instead of effectively eliminating January term, the Faculty Senate will this week vote to approve a calendar for spring 2010 that we believe is acceptable: the spring semester would start one week earlier, and end one week earlier. This preserves courses and programs in January, as well as nearly a month between the end of fall semester and the beginning of spring semester for research and teaching preparation. We won this because of the large participation in our online survey and your detailed comments on why the change was both unnecessary for students and detrimental to faculty.</div> <bR> <div> Second, we will be meeting with UMass President Jack Wilson this Friday morning to hear the <B>salary offer</B> the Patrick administration is proposing for our next contract. The good news is that they are offering parameters in time to meet one of your top goals from our survey this past fall: having a new contract by June 30. The worrisome news is that we are getting bad signals about the size of the salary offer. I am going to report to you on Monday about those parameters and what we will all need to do to improve the offer.</div> <bR> <div> Third, the MSP Board voted nearly overwhelmingly to support the petition campaign to have <B>Andrew Card's honorary degree</B> revoked. The MSP is not leading this campaign, but many members expressed their outrage at our university offering an honorary degree to someone central to a whole host of policies that stand in direct opposition to the values of a university. These include, but are not limited to, the orchestrated lies and deceptions that led us into a quagmire in Iraq, which has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and American soldiers, and drained our national wealth away from, among other things, educating our citizens.<B> </B></div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">To <B>sign the petition</B> asking that UMass revoke its offer of an honorary degree to Andrew Card, go to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.petitiononline.com/no4card/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.petitiononline.com/no4card/"><U><U>www.petitiononline.com/no4card/</U></U></A></FONT></div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700dc00000000.png" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Those interested in participating in Commencement, and who need regalia, should immediately email Millie Hanas - today is the closing date to participate -- at <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:mhanas@aux.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:mhanas@aux.umass.edu"><U><U>mhanas@aux.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT> </div> <bR> <div> Finally, I want to encourage you to sign the petition that GEO has put together to call on the administration to lower the curriculum fee, something you urged us to fight for in this bargaining cycle. Our own Faculty Research Council has noted that the curriculum fee has "reduced the competitive advantage" our members have when applying for grants, and has called for a reduction in the curriculum fee. [Despite the high curriculum fees, UMass graduate employees receive the lowest wage when compared to graduate employees at UMass' peer institutions.] We urge you to sign onto the following petition, which MSP has endorsed: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/umassfees/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/umass"><U><U>http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/umassfees/</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> Max Page, MSP President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="5_14_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5-14-07)</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Members:</div> <bR> <div> This past Friday, we received our first concrete financial offer from Roy Milbury, the negotiator in the UMass President's Office. These are the key components:</div> <bR> <div> First, and perhaps most significantly, the Secretary of Administration and Finance is insisting on one-year contracts for all state unions. The Secretary has said that because of a structural budget deficit and lack of movement on some of his revenue-enhancing policies -- such as closing corporate tax loopholes and, potentially, casino gambling -- the Patrick Administration cannot make long-term commitments, and especially not good, long-term commitments. They hope that those revenue streams and economic development over the coming year will allow them to have a better prediction of the state's finances.</div> <bR> <div> Second, for that one year we are being offered a 3.5% raise. Three percent matches the "pattern" offered to other state unions; 0.5% is the amount they offered us "in lieu of steps." Steps are the yearly increases that many state employees -- including, for example, clerical and blue-collar staff on our campus -- receive, regardless of the state of any given contract. The administration is proposing that 2.5% be given "across the board" for all MSP members in good standing; 1% would be for merit, determined by departments and the Deans, as has been done in the past.</div> <bR> <div> Finally, there is no provision for professional development. As you all well know, we have received no professional development money (typically adding up to around $1600 per member total over three years) for the past three years, due to a double-cross by the Romney Administration.</div> <bR> <div> Needless to say, your bargaining team was very disappointed with this offer. We consider a three-year contract extremely important for our members, and for the ability of the University to attract and retain new faculty. To be willing to give that up and go with a one-year contract would require that the offer -- on economic and non-economic issues -- be very strong. So far, the offer is not even close.</div> <bR> <div> Let me be clear: we communicated our dissatisfaction with the offer and have made it clear that it must move: the amount that faculty and librarians receive "in lieu of steps" must more accurately reflect the true value of steps and we absolutely must have professional development monies in this contract.</div> <bR> <div> We are hoping to meet with UMass President Jack Wilson in the coming week to accelerate the bargaining process in the hope of achieving one of our key goals: to obtain a good contract completed by July 1st.</div> <bR> <div> Max Page</div> <div> MSP President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="5_17_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5-17-07)</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Members,</div> <bR> <div> I thought it important to convey to you my initial thoughts about the dramatic changes to the administration of our campus and to the whole <U>UMass</U> system that were revealed yesterday.  At this point, what we know is that Chancellor Lombardi is being eased aside to allow President Jack Wilson to take on a far greater role in running our campus. This reorganization -- to unify the different segments of the public higher education system, to promote integration among the campuses, to enhance Amherst's role as the flagship -- is in line with the structural reorganization of the state and community college systems that the Governor will announce within the next two weeks at UMass Boston.</div> <bR> <div> Certainly, many of us are very concerned about the way in which such a major change has been developed and announced. No one I know -- within the MSP, Faculty Senate, or on the third floor of Whitmore -- was consulted about this plan. </div> <bR> <div> However, because so much is up in the air about the plan, what concerns me and the MSP Board most in the immediate future is that we complete our contract negotiations in a timely and satisfactory manner. On Friday, I will meet with President Wilson (along with the other UMass faculty union presidents) and ask him to help resolve these negotiations quickly. I will urge him to personally call on the Governor to improve the salary and professional development offers they presented to us last week and which were woefully inadequate, and that he insist that the campus administration make serious movement on the local issues of greatest importance to us. I am quite certain that President Wilson does not want to have contract negotiations hanging over his head as he moves to take a greater role in Amherst. In the past, he has been a good advocate for our members; I hope he will start his new role in Amherst on the right foot.</div> <bR> <div> I want to encourage you to attend today's Faculty Senate meeting (3:30, Herter 227). President Wilson will speak about his plan for Amherst and will take questions. I also urge you all to attend in order to voice your opinions about the honorary degree for Andrew Card. The MSP Board has endorsed the effort to rescind the degree, and I will speak on behalf of a Senate resolution calling on the Board of Trustees to do just that.</div> <bR> <div> Max Page</div> <div> MSP President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="5_22_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5-22-07)</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Members:</div> <bR> <div> The plan for reorganizing the leadership of our university, decided without consulting virtually anyone on our campus has shocked and appalled many of us. So much remains unclear and so much is shifting on a daily basis; we have been hearing conflicting reports from many of our members across campus.</div> <bR> <div> In response, MSP is sponsoring an open, all-faculty meeting just after grades are due to discuss what the issues are and how the faculty and the union in particular, should respond. I am particularly interested in talking about the role of the faculty in university governance, what reorganization might mean for the union, and to strategize about the future, including any short/long-term actions.  This lunch meeting will be held on:</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Tuesday, May 29th</div> <div> 12:30 – 2 p.m., Campus Center TOC (11th Floor)</div> <div> PLEASE RSVP (to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>) BY THURSDAY, MAY 24TH TO RESERVE YOUR LUNCH</div> <bR> <div> Also, several of our members including Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Robert Paul Wolff, and William Strickland of the W.E.B. Du Bois Dept. of Afro-American Studies are helping to get enough signatures to call for a Faculty Senate General Faculty meeting. We don't know if or when that meeting will be scheduled, nor what the Rules Committee of the Faculty Senate will decide to put on the agenda. But I urge you to sign the petition so that we can have another forum to discuss a united action in defense of our rights as faculty. Petitions from the Faculty Senate are already in your departments and are also available for you to sign at both the Faculty Senate and the MSP offices located in Hampshire House.</div> <bR> <div> I hope to see you all soon.</div> <bR> <div> Max Page</div> <div> MSP President</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>MSP ACTION ALERT (</B><B> <A NAME="5_24_07"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5-24-07)</B></div> <bR> <div> Dear MSP Members,</div> <bR> <div> We are living in a very important time at our university.</div> <bR> <div> 1. Please attend the general faculty/librarian meeting today -- Campus Center Auditorium, 3:30 p.m. -- to hear again from UMass President Jack Wilson and to participate in a debate about a number of resolutions designed to challenge both the process and content of the reorganization that was "announced" (without consultation) last week. MSP officers worked together with the Rules Committee of the Faculty Senate to develop these resolutions.</div> <bR> <div> Please also RSVP (to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:msp@external.umass.edu"><U><U>msp@external.umass.edu</U></U></A></FONT>) to confirm your attendance at the MSP lunch meeting on <B>Tuesday, May 29 at 12:30 p.m</B>., which is being held to discuss both the impact of the recent events on our union and how we should respond to them.</div> <bR> <div> 2. The MSP has called on the Board of Trustees to revoke the honorary degree being awarded to Andrew Card at Graduate Commencement tomorrow. If he attends, many of our members will want to register their protest. You can read about actions being suggested at <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.umassgss.org/AWC" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.umassgss.org/AWC"><U><U>http://www.umassgss.org/AWC</U></U></A></FONT>. See also an op ed in today’s Boston Globe at <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/05/24/a_sheepskin_of_dishonor/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editori"><U><U>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/05/24/a_sheepskin_of_dishonor/</U></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> 3. As you may know, the University and the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO)/UAW Local 2322 are currently engaged in contract negotiations. They have reached very little agreement with the administration on their key issues: rolling back mandatory fees which have increased more than 126% since 2001 (something the MSP has been deeply concerned about); receiving cost of living raises; increasing job security, and improving structures that support a diverse student body, such as childcare support and diversity funding. Due to this lack of progress in bargaining, GEO plans to engage in a job action to demonstrate the value of their work to the university by withholding grades until the final hour on Tuesday, May 29th. The MSP officers, as a show of solidarity for GEO’s efforts to gain a solid contract, have voted to support their right to take this legitimate action and are asking that you not penalize any students for their participation in it.</div> <bR> <div> For more information on their negotiations please see <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://geouaw.org" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://geouaw.org"><U><U>http://geouaw.org</U></U></A></FONT>.</div> <bR> <div> 4. Our own negotiations resume next Friday, June 1. The higher education unions within our parent union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, have met with the leadership of the MTA in order to take a united stand toward improving the salary offer from an administration we expect to be supportive of higher education. We hope to have better news to offer you by the end of the next week.</div> <bR> <div> Max Page</div> <div> Associate Professor of Architecture and History</div> <div> President, Massachusetts Society of Professors (the union of faculty and librarians at UMass-Amherst)</div> </td> </tr></table></body>