Unionized professional employees from Michigan State University met with AAP in September to share their experiences in maintaining a thirteen-year-old National Education Association affiliate, the MSU Administrative Professional Association (APA).
While academic professionals at UIUC are still in the organizing stages, much of what the MSU employees shared was helpful. Following is a summary.
Communications and Organizing. APA puts out a bimonthly newsletter and a more frequent, one-page informal sheet. The APA constitution guarantees newsletter space to members wishing to initiate petitions that affect Association business. "Brown-bag" lunches are held when members must discuss critical issues in a timely manner, and there is also an electronic mailing list for ongoing discussion of whatever is on members' minds. "Organizing is a never-ending process," said Tom Ferris, Michigan Education Association (MEA) staff liaison to APA. "But it pays off, he added, because 95 percent of our bargaining unit are dues-paying APA members. That means we bring a lot of credibility to the bargaining table."
Structure and membership. APA's goal is to have one representative for every 50 members. Units from which representatives are elected are defined geographically. Members also elect thirteen people to sit on the Executive Board (all at-large), and the Board elects the chair, vice-chair, and secretary/treasurer. Under the "strong chair" system adopted by APA, the chair appoints committees for bargaining, organizing, public relations, and other association functions; however, the chair must have the "concurrence" of the Board in making such appointments. According to APA chair Leo Sell, "this system insulates the Board from petty politics."
Contract. Features of the contract with MSU include "special conferences" for fast, informal arbitration of grievances; overtime protection; a merit program for rewarding good work without penalizing others; and a transfer program for soft-money employees who lose funding.
Sell says that APA's biggest success is not any single contract issue, but "simply giving power to once alienated workers. Now they have more than a hundred thousand MEA members to support them."