A budget bill working its way through Connecticut’s House of Representatives would have the effect of stripping many college faculty members of their rights to engage in collective bargaining, by reclassifying them as “managerial employees” if they are heads of academic departments or hold certain other decision-making roles.
The reclassification language, tucked into a measure that would carry out Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget recommendations related to the state’s Office of Policy and Management, is similar to legislation adopted by Ohio lawmakers last month over the strenuous objections of faculty union representatives. But whereas the Ohio measure was pushed by Republican lawmakers, the Connecticut measure is sponsored by key Democrats in the House and Senate. They include the speaker of the House, Rep. Christopher G. Donovan; the Senate majority leader, Sen. Martin M. Looney; and Sen. Donald E. Williams Jr., president pro tempore of the Senate.
Connecticut faces a projected $3.5-billion budget deficit, and Governor Malloy, also a Democrat, is demanding $1-billion in concessions from the state’s public-employee unions to help fill the gap.
The Connecticut measure would repeal certain laws distinguishing employees of the state higher-education system from other state workers. It would provide for college faculty members to be considered as managerial employees if they head a department, if their principal function is developing college policies, or if they play “a major role in the administration of collective-bargaining agreements or major personnel decisions.” Managerial employees are precluded from collectively bargaining with their employees under state law.
Among the organizations opposing the Connecticut legislation are the Connecticut State University affiliate of the American Association of University Professors and the Congress of Connecticut Community Colleges, a labor union whose members include community-college professors and administrators who provide services directly to students. Both groups have argued that the law would lead to the reclassification of large numbers of their members, whom they have urged to express their opposition to lawmakers.
Vijay Nair, president of the Connecticut State University-AAUP, said in a letter to lawmakers that higher-education institutions “by their very nature” depend on collaborations between faculty and management. “While participating in such collaborations does not give faculty managerial authority, the language in the proposed bill could be interpreted otherwise, to the detriment of not only the faculty members, but also the institutions,” the letter said.
The national office of the AAUP has also written Connecticut lawmakers in opposition to the bill. Its letter, signed by Gary Rhoades, the organization’s general secretary, and Cary Nelson, its president, argues that the measure resembles other recent attacks on the collective-bargaining rights of public employees in other states and that an overly broad definition of managerial employees at colleges “runs against past practice and convention in many academic settings.”
“As far we can tell, the bill provides no detailed analysis of or rationale for the proposed changes,” the letter from Mr. Rhoades and Mr. Nelson states. “It provides no evidence of legislators having considered any unintended consequences of the bill for the smooth and effective management of universities.”
The sponsors of the legislation could not be reached late Wednesday for comment.
