Union Says Agreement Ends Lockout at NYC University

About 400 members of the school’s Brooklyn campus were locked out a few days before classes were scheduled to begin September 7.

Over Labor Day weekend some 400 members of the Long Island University Faculty Federation (LIUFF), the union that represents the professors, were locked out of their classes and had their pay and health care insurance terminated.

“The agreement will immediately return students and faculty to their classrooms”.

“If in fact they do not come to some resolution, I will be contacting every member of the board, including the chairman of the board, asking that they step up and come to some resolution so that we can get back to instruction on the campus of LIU”, she said. While LIU described these professors as “adjuncts with advanced degrees”, students said some were teaching assistants, and many didn’t seem qualified. Earlier this week, students who were dissatisfied with the performance of the replacements staged a mass walkout from their classes.

The union also says the school has accepted their proposal to engage a mediator.

Full professors and adjuncts were locked out of the university’s Brooklyn campus a few days before classes were to start on September 7.

The administration and the union agreed to extend the faculty’s recently expired contract to May 31, 2017, giving both sides more time to continue negotiations, according to the union.

Caroline Ortiz, a sophomore majoring in chemistry, said she commuted one hour from Queens for classes that lasted only 10 minutes, where the instructor left after taking attendance.

“Our first priority is and always has been our students”, said Gale Haynes, the university’s chief operating officer. Science labs were canceled because instructors didn’t have required safety licenses.

The faculty federation, affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, has filed a charge of unfair labor practice against the university alleging bad-faith bargaining.

The union has been seeking a pact that would make minimum salary levels for professors at the Brooklyn campus equal to those of their counterparts at LIU-Post in Brookville, Long Island.

The university also has a campus on Long Island that was not affected by the labor troubles.

“The university seeks to eliminate a parity clause, despite a long history of greater resources and compensation for suburban LIU-Post; continues to offer Brooklyn a lower salary increase; seeks onerous changes such as post-tenure review; and aims to impose harsh new exploitative conditions on part-time adjunct faculty, including elimination of its benefit trust fund”, read a statement by the LIUFF.

A student who preferred not to be identified looks up at a “Welcome” sign hung from the fence at the Long Island University campus in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016.