On behalf of the Massachusetts Society of Professors (MSP), I want to welcome you to UMass/Amherst, let you know a little bit about your union, and urge you to join as a full member.

The MSP’s primary responsibility is to protect and enhance your economic position and your professional rights. Yet in addition to carrying out our contractual obligations, we play an active role in campus life: we work with the Faculty Senate and administration on issues affecting the academic community; seat representatives on advisory and planning groups; actively lobby for University funding; represent the campus before the state's higher education and political authorities; and take the lead on a range of issues that affect the lives of faculty and librarians and the quality of education offered at the University.

The MSP is a member-driven organization in which faculty and librarians get together to decide what issues are most important to us, and then work together to promote those issues. For example, in response to a strong message from the membership, we won what might be the best parental leave policy in the country. The policy allows any tenure-track faculty member, librarian, or long-term full-time contract faculty member (father or mother) to take a semester off at full pay each time they have a new baby (biological or adopted). And if you have a child, you can delay for one year your tenure decision date. (Additional requests can be made for the birth/adoption of subsequent children, but the decision whether to approve or not rests with the department chair). In contract negotiations this year, we have been working to extend gains in making this a family-supportive campus, fighting for substantial salary increases and research support, demanding funds for improved physical conditions on campus, and continuing our successful efforts to provide better working conditions for our non-tenure track (contract) faculty.

If you have a problem, the union wants to be one of the places you turn to address that problem. Some problems are collective, which we can only solve by working together (say, getting more funding for the university). Other problems are individual (say, you don’t seem to be receiving your proper pay or benefits). Whatever the case, we want you to know that if you call us with a problem, we will treat everything confidentially, we will do our best to help solve your individual problem, and we will think about whether there are ways that collectively we can prevent future problems of this kind.

MSP has two full-time staff members, Lori Reardon and Ferd Wulkan, and the MTA provides us a full-time consultant, Michelle Gallagher, who works with us and with our colleagues on the UMass Boston campus.

Our Parent Union: The Massachusetts Teachers Association
We are affiliated with one of the most powerful political organizations in the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA). The MTA represents over 100,000 workers in public education and these workers are a very important source of political leverage since every politician in the state has MTA members as constituents. While most of MTA’s members are grade school and high school teachers, about 15,000 of them work in the UMass system (including the clerical and professional staff on this campus). We often work in coalitions with other unions (say about pensions or health care), and it is important to note that just about all eligible staff on this campus are unionized, making this the largest unionized workplace in Massachusetts.

Why you should join us as a full union member, not just pay a fee
“Bargaining unit members” as defined by our contract are all faculty and librarians (and are not only limited to those working full-time with benefits). Under Massachusetts law, we represent and defend all members of the bargaining unit, looking out for their rights and well-being regardless of membership status. In turn, state law requires that all unit members either pay a fee for basic services rendered (agency fee) or pay dues as a full union member.

It is important to note that nearly 90% of all faculty and librarians on campus have chosen to become full members of the union, and we hope you do, too. Membership dues are only about $4 more per week more than the agency fee, but the benefits are enormous. There are at least three reasons to become a full union member.

First, as a member, you have a voice in union affairs -- electing officers, creating policy, and setting bargaining priorities.

Second, union members, but not agency fee payers, are eligible for a smorgasbord of low-cost insurance programs, travel discounts, and other services. To my mind, more important is that union members, but not agency fee payers, are covered by a $1 million of liability insurance for events related to our professional activities. If a student sues you over a grade, or a corporation sues because it doesn’t like the results of your research, or a job candidate claims to have been discriminated against, union members have protection.

Third, the difference in cost between agency fee and union membership is mostly for the political advocacy that the union engages in. For example, most years we hire buses to take faculty, librarians, students, and other staff to Boston to lobby the legislature to provide adequate funding for the university. By law, that counts as something that union members, but not agency fee payers, pay for. But most people on campus understand it is one of the most important things we can do to create and maintain the best possible university. This year the MSP played a leading role in connecting with our new Governor, Deval Patrick, and with other public higher education campuses across the state. This effort, which began on December 1, 2006 when then Governor-elect Patrick came to our campus for a Higher Education Summit,has developed into a new organization (PHENOM) created to promote quality, affordable, accessible education for everyone in this state.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the MSP office (545-2206 msp@external.umass.edu) or me personally (545-6940 mpage@art.umass.edu).

Thanks for your support. I look forward to working with you in the future.

Sincerely,

Max Page
Art Department and MSP President