12/13/09

Dear Longy Faculty Colleagues,

On behalf of the Berklee Faculty Union, I write to support your efforts to establish a faculty union at Longy School of Music. I well remember how trying the campaign period before the election can be, as management sends out incessant communications containing misinformation, disinformation and outright fabrications about unions and unionizing.  There must be a template for this nonsense somewhere.

Let me tell you what belonging to the American Federation of Teachers has done for us at Berklee. Our salaries and hourly rates are four to five times higher than they were when we organized.  We have added dental, disability, life insurance, employer contributions to retirement, paid family leave, professional leave and special leave, as well as won significant improvements to the already existing health insurance plan. All of these benefits are available for both full and part time faculty. Likewise for job security, extended contracts and a grievance system.

Since we unionized the student population has grown from 1500 to over 4000 while faculty size has increased from 135 to 570. That’s a lot of jobs for many of our musician colleagues both around the city and country. Contributions and gifts to the college during that same time period have skyrocketed our endowment from $10,000,000 to $180,000,000.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Unionizing clearly benefited both Berklee and its faculty.

Can something like this happen at Longy?

After you vote in favor of a union in January, you will elect a negotiating team. You, through them, will then determine the kind of Faculty Contract Agreement best suited to your school and your faculty needs.  No “outsiders” will tell you what to do.  It is your union.  You elected it. You control it. Any “outsiders” will be there simply to provide support and legal advice, something that, in my experience at Berklee, AFT-MA does very well.  But the work-a-day items are yours to determine and yours to negotiate. It’s your faculty contract. And it’s up for renegotiation every two or three years, which gives you the opportunity to continue making improvements and to keep what is working and change what isn’t.

Your contract supplies the framework in which you, your chairs, your deans and, yes, even your president must work. It determines your wages, hours and working conditions, thus establishing the ground rules everyone must play by. Over time at Berklee, administrators of every level came to agree that having a binding document that clearly defines faculty rights and responsibilities is good for all concerned.

You face an important decision in January. My colleagues at Berklee and I hope you will join us as another unionized music faculty. We musicians need one another. As for all the yammering you’re enduring from management right now, ask yourselves this question: Why is it they so desperately want you not to unionize?

You have an opportunity to determine your own fate at Longy. Don’t miss it. Vote YES for a union in January.

On behalf of the Berklee Faculty Union, I remain,

Mike Scott

President, Berklee Faculty Union
Professor, Harmony Department