The MCCEA: Origins and Evolution

 

At Flint Community Junior College the creation of faculty governance bodies and their eventual replacement by the Education Association was a slow, sometimes painful process. By 1960 a Central Council was meeting every few weeks to consider course proposals, curriculum changes, and other academic issues. Because many instructors felt the need for more faculty involvement, the group developed a constitution to create a Faculty Senate which would take effect January, 1963. Standing committees, made up of faculty and administrators, included Academic Affairs, Buildings and Grounds, Convocations, Curriculum, Faculty Services, Instruction, Inter-institutional, Rules, and Steering.

 

Roger Ban Bolt was the first Faculty Senate president; he was followed by Norvin Holm, Guy Yeaster, Norvin Holm (re-elected), and Ed Chase, Under their leadership, the Senate became a powerful force in the life of the college which strongly opposed the expansion of the University of Michigan's Flint branch to a four-year institution. When Public Act 379 (1965) was passed which gave teachers the right to bargain, Flint area teachers requested an election from the Michigan Labor Mediation Board to determine their bargaining agent, with the college faculty having to decide whether to establish a unit separate from K-12. The Faculty Senate asked June Feiger, president of the Michigan Federation of Teachers, and Ray McLaughlin, executive secretary of the Flint Education Association, to help determine the best course to take. Feiger stressed that the strength of a union was its being such a large group; McLaughlin stressed that the college faculty had concerns different from K-12 teachers.

 

Even though the FCJC faculty voted to be a separate bargaining unit, the Labor Mediation Board placed the college faculty in the K-12 unit. It also mandated an election to determine which group the Flint Education Association or the Flint Federation of Teachers, or neither would represent the college faculty. The Flint Education Association won. And on February 8, 1996, negotiations began for a three-year contract. By 1965, MAHE (a local district of the Michigan Association of Higher Education) had been active on campus, with Lillian Jenkins as president. Consulted by the Flint Education Association, she represented FCJC in negotiations. Her efforts led to a separate section, Article XIX, that dealt specifically with working conditions at the college probationary and continuing contracts, discharge procedures, teaching load; it also established the College Professional Study Committee and set pay rates for substitutes, part-timers, and summer teaching. (The substitute rate per contact hour was $5). An instructor's beginning rate at the Master's level 1966-67 was $6,402, plus $144 for hospitalization. College instructors received $210 more per year than K-12 teachers at the same level.)

 

Eventually, FCJC MAHE District became the Flint Education Association's agent in all Faculty Senate committees. By Fall, 1968, the FCJC faculty requested the establishment of a separate bargaining unit. In order to increase the probability that the Labor Mediation Board would agree to the request, the faculty secured a resolution passed by the FEA Representative Assembly stating that the FEA favored the creation of an independent bargaining unit for the college faculty to take effect at the end of the current contract.;The Flint Board of Education agreed to either support nor opposed the proposal. But the Flint Federation of Teachers, under the leadership of Leonard Meizlish, supported the formation of a separate bargaining unit. During the period, there was a move to expand FCJC to encompass the Genesee Intermediate School District. The EA actively participated in this endeavor and was assured that all faculty members would be retained by the new Board of Trustees without loss of right and that all contract obligations would remain in force.

 

EA Designated as Bargaining Agent

 

On April 2, 1969, the FCJCEA filed a petition with the Labor Mediation Board requesting separation from KJ-12 and an election to determine the bargaining agent. As a result of the election on May 7, the FCJCEA became the bargaining agent for the college faculty by 29 votes. A Professional Negotiations team that included Marie Bauer, Bill Bednar, Kathryn Caraway, Eli Labiner, Ed Schleg, and Don Winer researched available contracts and prepared proposals. On July 7, the Faculty team had its first meeting with the Board's negotiation team, which consisted of James Allen, Augie Brandt, Fred Robbins, Charles Roche, Olof Karlstrom, and Reese Dean, the Board's attorney.

 

Most Pressing Need is Bargaining

 

Negotiation were difficult and lengthy. A mediator was brought in for the last four sessions. After 220 hours of presenting proposals, waiting for the Board's counter-proposals, and signing short tentative agreements on separate Articles, a further 25-hour session on January 8-9, 1970, finally produced a tentative contract agreement. The long nightmare was over. During the negotiations, the EA had set up a phone message system to keep faculty informed. The EA was advised by the Michigan Education Association and provided with research materials. An experienced negotiator attended several sessions. It is especially gratifying to know that 25 years later many of those first contract provisions are in our current Master Contract the representation fee which has provided financial security to the MCCEA, the retention of divisional governance rights, health insurance, binding arbitration, sabbatical leaves. To all the bargaining team members who worked so hard to make the 1969-71 Master Contract a reality, and to all our colleagues who supported our efforts when seemingly little progress was being made, we offer profound thanks. The contract of 25 years ago was one in which we still take great pride. To Eli Labiner, especially, the MCCEA owes a debt of gratitude for his unwavering insistence that academic freedom provisions in Master Contracts be firmly established for the good of the faculty, students, and the entire institution.