The Union Will Not Support You

I was told this by one of my union representatives.

The union will not support you if you exercise one of the benefits in the new contract. To be specific, our recently negotiated new contract states that a faculty member may teach all of their baseload online, written in black and white; yet, apparently, faculty cannot exercise this benefit, because if we do, if we follow the contract, THEN, the administration will exercise their right to assign faculty baseload — to assign us our classes.

If . . . then.

And, if the administration exercises their right to assign baseload, then the union will not support faculty.

You see, for as long as I have been in this union, there has always been a stipulation in the contract that administration reserves the right to assign faculty baseload, which is — to tell us when and where and what we will be teaching, such that we have no control over our schedule.

Now, why would the union negotiate a benefit, write it into the contract, make this thing legally binding, if faculty cannot exercise this benefit?

Good question.

I asked this question, of the union president, and I was told that the benefit was negotiated because there are certain programs and disciplines that teach only online, and this benefit was negotiated to allow these faculty, these specific faculty, to do their work and NOT violate the previous contract, which allowed faculty to teach two classes out of their…