Classes commence for the fall semester at Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus on Wednesday — but faculty members won’t be in their classrooms. Full-time and adjunct faculty members will remain locked out of the campus after their union, the Long Island University Faculty Federation, voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to reject a new contract offer.
The faculty’s previous contract expired on August 31, and the union and university administrators have been engaged in contentious negotiations over a new contract for months. Matters came to a head on Saturday, when administrators made good on a promise to lock out the faculty, who are all represented by the union. Under the lockout, professors are prohibited from having access to their emails, are barred from the campus, and are not being paid, among other things.
The faculty federation’s parent union, the American Federation of Teachers, has called the lockout highly unusual, if not unprecedented, in higher education. Consider the scope: A campus spokeswoman told The Chronicle on Tuesday that 236 full-time faculty members and about 450 adjuncts will not be teaching on the first day of classes.
And their classes will be covered through nontraditional means, by a patchwork of about 130 temporary instructors and roughly 100 administrators, many of whom presumably have little experience in the subject matter they’ll be called on to teach.
The administration’s hardball tactics have set off a firestorm of criticism from Brooklyn faculty members and labor advocates nationwide.
Single mom of 3. Caregiver of a child with a chronic autoimmune neuro disease. I now am unemployed + have no health insurance. #LIULockout
— Gloria W., MLIS, MPH (@OriginalG3045) September 3, 2016
Nothing says “your education is our top priority” like canceling your teachers’ health insurance. #LIUlockout
— N.V. Binder (@nvbinder) September 2, 2016
My first day as full time faculty and I’m being given information on how to apply for unemployment #LIUlockout
— Mikela Bjork (@mikelabjork) September 6, 2016
“They just went straight for the nuclear option, ‘Well, let’s lock them out. Let’s put the financial hurt on them,’” said Syed Ali, an associate professor of sociology. “Them doing that, it sends a really strong message of what they think of us, the lengths they are willing to go.”
The lockout was a pre-emptive measure, said Gale Haynes, the campus’s chief operating officer and general counsel. In five out of the past six contract negotiations, she said, the faculty has gone on strike. This time, administrators felt they had to try a different tactic. The last five strikes “essentially shut down” the campus, Ms. Haynes said, and in May, before negotiations had even begun, the union again voted to authorize a strike vote.
Administrators were wary after the strike-authorization vote, said Jennifer L. Solomon, a university spokeswoman, because, unlike public colleges, LIU is not protected by a New York State law that prohibits employees from stopping work as part of contract negotiations.
“When [faculty] go on strike, they take all of our ability and control over the negotiation,” Ms. Solomon said. “The university is held captive against their demands.”
Ms. Haynes described the lockout as a strategic change. Now administrators can ensure that classes will start on Wednesday, even if they are run by different instructors, she said.
On Thursday administrators will meet with union leaders for another round of negotiations.
“The ball is basically in both of our courts to find a resolution,” Ms. Haynes said.
But the realities of the lockout have posed unique challenges to those negotiations. For instance, since faculty members cannot use their university email accounts, administrators took to Twitter and Facebook to publicize their latest contract offer.
The irony was not lost on locked-out professors.
Annnnnd we are locked out of our email. This place, so inefficient in so many ways, has been ROCK SOLID on the organized #liulockout
— Emily Drabinski (@edrabinski) September 3, 2016
Surprised Reactions
Emily Drabinski, library-instruction coordinator, said administrators began searching for temporary faculty members for every department in July on Monster.com, and she, like other faculty members, thought they were preparing for a strike, not a lockout. “It honestly never occurred to me that a lockout was coming,” she said, “just because a lockout is extreme.”
Instead of teaching, Ms. Drabinski said, faculty members will rally on Wednesday to call for different contract terms and to protest the lockout. The protest is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and organizers are encouraging students to attend.
Union members say they want the new contract to, among other things, rectify a pay disparity between the Brooklyn campus and LIU’s Post campus, located in Brookville, N.Y.
But Christopher Fevola, the university’s chief financial officer, rejected the union’s reasoning about the disparity.
In the past, Mr. Fevola said, negotiations with the faculty federations at the Post and Brooklyn campuses have resulted in contracts “that have identical across-the-board salary increases for both unions.” If the Brooklyn union perceives a pay disparity, he said, it’s because of how it has been allocating the funds determined by the contract.
Contract specifics aside, the administration’s hard line seems to have strengthened the resolve of many faculty members. Tuesday’s vote to reject the contract offer was evidence of that. Casting ballots at a church near the campus, 226 members voted against the offer, and only 10 for it.
Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz is a web writer. Follow her on Twitter @FernandaZamudio, or email her at fzamudiosuarez@chronicle.com.
