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Winner of the 2001 Mid-Atlantic
Regional Archives Finding Aid Compiled by
David Hill
1994
Cynthia K. Sauer
1999-2001
Funding support for the initial processing of the microfilm
in this collection and developing a finding aid provided by
Dr. and Mrs. Eugene P. Link.
Funding for the further processing of this collection provided by
United University Professions.
Funding for the digitization of photographs from this collection provided by
United University Professions.
M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives
University Libraries / University at Albany / State University of New York
1400 Washington Avenue / Albany, New York 12222 / (518) 437-3935
VOLUME: 161.17 cubic feet and 6 reels of microfilm
ACQUISITION: All items in this manuscript group were donated to the University Libraries, M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, by United University Professions.
ACCESS: Access to certain portions of this collection are restricted. Consult the Curator of Manuscripts, Special Collections and Archives for further information.
COPYRIGHT: The researcher assumes full responsibility for conforming with the laws of copyright. Whenever possible, the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives will provide information about copyright owners and other restrictions, but the legal determination ultimately rests with the researcher. Requests for permission to publish material from this collection should be discussed with the Head of Special Collections and Archives.
Box and Folder List:
United University Professions (UUP) is the union and collective bargaining agent for the faculty and non-teaching professionals of the State University of New York (SUNY). As of January 2, 2001, there were 24,322 individuals in the bargaining unit UUP represents.[1]
UUP (initially named SUNY/United) was created by the 1973 merger of the Senate Professional Association (SPA) and the State University Federation of Teachers (SUFT).[2] SPA, created in 1970, combined elements from the university-wide Faculty Senate with the State University Professional Association (SUPA) which had been created in 1969 to represent the non-teaching professionals at SUNY.[3] In January 1971 SPA defeated SUFT to become the first elected bargaining representative at SUNY. After its election, SPA received certification from the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), the governor-appointed body charged with administering the Taylor Law (the 1967 Public Employees' Fair Employment Act that allowed public employees in New York to bargain collectively for the first time). It then entered into negotiations with the Governor's Office of Employee Relations (GOER; also referred to as OER), the state's primary bargaining representative.[4] In August 1971, the State of New York and SPA signed their first contract.[5]
After its election as bargaining agent, SPA formalized its affiliations with the National Education Association (NEA) and its state affiliate, the New York State Teachers Association (NYSTA), which represented K-12 teachers throughout New York. SPA received both financial and organizational support from NYSTA. The 1973 merger between NYSTA and the United Teachers of New York (the New York affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers [AFT]) to form New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) pressured SPA to merge with SUFT and form UUP.[6] UUP voted to end its NEA affiliation in 1976,[7] and is currently affiliated with NYSUT, the AFT, and the state and national AFL-CIO. Like its predecessor SPA, particularly in its earliest years UUP received financial and organizational support from NYSUT. It continues to maintain a close relationship with NYSUT and to use NYSUT field representatives to handle contract and disciplinary grievances, and improper practice charges brought before PERB on behalf of its bargaining unit members. UUP's Director of Staff (formerly called the Executive Director) and Associate Director of Staff, who oversee the field representatives, participate in UUP's contract negotiations, and act in an advisory capacity to UUP, are NYSUT employees.
In its early years, UUP concentrated on establishing its membership and creating a position for itself as the collective bargaining agent for all SUNY teaching and non-teaching professionals, addressing a concern expressed particularly by professionals during the establishment of SPA and then UUP about whether it was possible for a union representing both professional and academic staff to adequately address the concerns of each group. This issue has persisted, to varying degrees, throughout UUP's existence. The diverse nature of the SUNY campuses included within the bargaining unit--including university centers, colleges of agriculture and technology, and health science centers--has also contributed to the challenges faced by UUP in representing the bargaining unit as a collective whole. UUP has twice had its position as bargaining agent challenged. In 1974, the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) unsuccessfully sought to become the bargaining representative for non-teaching professionals at SUNY, and in an election conducted by PERB in late 1978, UUP defeated the NYEA, a New York State affiliate of the NEA, which sought to replace UUP as the representative for the entire SUNY bargaining unit.
UUP's main purpose is to improve the terms and conditions of employment of those it represents.[8] The primary forum for addressing these issues is the contracts that UUP negotiates with the State on behalf of its bargaining unit members.[9] Debates over salaries and employee benefit packages have figured prominently in past contract negotiations.[10] Specific issues of concern have included job security, maternity leave, tuition waivers, hiring and tenure policies, sabbatical allotments, teaching workloads, student/faculty ratios, grievance procedures, parking fees, and expanding retirement investment options. In 1974, UUP achieved permanent appointment status for professionals, in 1977 it turned its focus to family sick leave and sabbatical leave, and in 1978 to the creation of minimum salaries for full-time employees. Benefits and sick leave for part-time employees also attracted UUP's attention in the late 1970s; pay equity and disparity issues were a focus between 1982 and 1985, and geographical differences in cost of living were a concern in 1988. In the early 1990s domestic partner care and day care coverage were of particular concern to UUP. At the end of the 1990s, new challenges were seen in distance learning, rapid changes in technology, privatization issues, and the growing use of part-time employees.[11]
Under the Taylor Law, UUP is forbidden to engage in work actions such as strikes. Instead, it uses public demonstrations and publicity when contract negotiations stall. UUP also uses these measures to make members of the State Legislature, SUNY management, and the general public aware of issues of concern to it, particularly cuts in the portion of the state budget allocated to SUNY.[12] The prohibition on work actions has also meant that from the beginning UUP has devoted itself to political action for advancing the interests of those it represents.[13] It has registered state lobbyists; sponsored its own, and participated in NYSUT-sponsored, "lobby days" in Albany; and devoted significant resources to monitoring legislative activity and making its positions known to the governor and state legislators. UUP also expresses itself politically through candidate endorsements. UUP's affiliation with NYSUT broadens its legislative outreach and impact.[14]
UUP's other defined goals include advancing education in a democracy and democracy in education, and promoting the principles of unity and collective bargaining in higher education.[15] Its broad range of concerns, primarily expressed through resolutions and motions adopted by its Executive Board and Delegate Assembly, have included environmental issues; freedom of expression; and the availability of public higher education. In the 1990s, coalition building with other higher education advocacy groups and community outreach became a focus of UUP's activities.[16]
UUP has an administrative office headquartered in Albany and chapters based at each SUNY campus, as well as at SUNY Central Administration in Albany. Each chapter elects delegates to attend the Delegate Assemblies held three times each year. The delegates in turn elect six statewide officers (President, Vice President for Academics, Vice President for Professionals, Secretary, Treasurer, and Membership Development Officer) and the members of UUP's Executive Board. Statewide officers are elected for two-year terms and until the Scheuerman administration, were limited to six years in office. The presidents of UUP, their campus affiliation, and years in office have been as follows:
Lawrence DeLucia (State University College at Oswego), 1973-1975
Samuel Wakshull (State University College at Buffalo), 1975-1981
Nuala McGann Drescher (State University College at Buffalo), 1981-1987
John M. (Tim) Reilly (State University at Albany), 1987-1993
William E. Scheuerman (State University College at Oswego), 1993-present
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Notes
1. Program, Winter 2001 Delegate Assembly.
2. United University Professions, Delegate Assembly Minutes, October 12-13, 1973, 3. For a detailed discussion of the "difficulties" faced by SPA and "several decisions and forces that [determined] the course of collective bargaining in SUNY," see Herman Doh, "Collective Bargaining in SUNY: The Story of the Senate Professional Association," Journal of the College and University Personnel Association (Jan. 1974): 22-39. Another study of collective bargaining at SUNY and the competing interests involved is Ebba Wikander McArt, "Common Interests as a Basis for Collective Bargaining in the State University of New York (SUNY) System," Ph.D. diss. (University of California, Berkeley), 1979. A copy of the Doh article is located in Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary, Series 5, Correspondence--Alphabetical Files, "H," 1985. Also by Doh and Stanley Johnson (but not included in the collection) is "Collective Bargaining in SUNY: The Experience of 50 Local SPA Leaders During the First Year," Journal of the College and University Personnel Association 25 (April 1974): 55-73.
3. State University Professional Association, Organizational Meeting Minutes, December 12, 1969, 1-2.
4. E.D. Duryea and Robert S. Fisk, Collective Bargaining, the State University and the State Government in New York (Buffalo: The State University of New York at Buffalo, 1975), 17-19.
5. Duryea and Fisk, Collective Bargaining, 8.
6. Duryea and Fisk, Collective Bargaining, 7-8.
7. United University Professions, Executive Board Minutes, June 25, 1976, 6.
8. United University Professions, Constitution as amended through Fall 1996 Delegate Assembly.
9. In its negotiated contracts and handling of grievances and improper practice charges, UUP represents the entire bargaining unit. However, membership in UUP is voluntary, although New York State's Agency Fee law enacted in the late 1970s requires that every member of the bargaining unit pay dues to UUP. Members of UUP receive additional benefits, such as eligibility to vote on negotiated contracts, to participate in UUP elections, and various employee benefits, such as life insurance, provided by UUP to members only.
10. Duryea and Fisk, Collective Bargaining, 32.
11. United University Professions, 25 Years (1998), 2-4, 9-10.
12. United University Professions, 25 Years, 8.
13. United University Professions, Executive Board Minutes, August 10-11, 1973, 2.
14. United University Professions, 25 Years, 7.
15. United University Professions, Constitution as amended through Fall 1996 Delegate Assembly.
16. United University Professions, 25 Years, 9-10.
The records of United University Professions (UUP) document the activities of the union and collective bargaining agent for the faculty and non-teaching professionals of the State University of New York. They begin in the 1960s with UUP's antecedents, the State University Professional Association (SUPA) and the Senate Professional Association (SPA), and continue through June 2000 for the materials produced by UUP's Communications Department, and through May 1993 (the end of the Reilly presidential administration) for most other series.
Most aspects of UUP's activities are covered by the records, including the actions of its policy-making bodies the Delegate Assembly and the Executive Board; the work of UUP's standing and ad hoc committees; the activities of UUP's presidents as seen through correspondence, subject, and project files; activities on and issues of concern to individual campus chapters seen through correspondence between chapter representatives and chapter members and UUP's Administrative Office and the newsletters created by individual chapters; the records of contract negotiations between UUP and the State; correspondence between UUP and SUNY Central Administration as well as the Governor's Office of Employee Relations on specific labor/management issues; UUP as presented in its publications and advertising campaigns; and photographs, video, and audio tape records of many of UUP's activities. The records also reflect UUP's continual involvement with other organizations interested in higher education, with other educational labor organizations both within New York State and nationally, and with organized labor in general.
Not only do the records document the activities of UUP's officers and administrative office, they also present the concerns of those UUP represents-the SUNY bargaining unit--documented mainly in correspondence and chapter files and in the negotiations surveys completed by UUP members commenting on the employment issues of utmost concern to them. As UUP has a substantial interest in the function of the State University and its funding, many of the records in the collection document the activities and policies of SUNY with regard to specific subjects and information on the annual SUNY budget.
One of UUP's functions is to represent the members of its bargaining unit in contractual and disciplinary grievances filed with SUNY and OER, and in improper practice charges brought before PERB. However, there are no comprehensive records regarding these activities included in the collection. The records of UUP's Grievance Committee provide some details regarding the grievances UUP has pursued on behalf of bargaining unit members, and there is correspondence scattered throughout the collection dealing with grievances (although primarily administrative matters such as setting hearing dates and filing appeals). The complete grievance and improper practice case files remain in UUP's possession.
The records of UUP are divided into eleven subgroups, as detailed in the Series Description. The first subgroup, the minutes and transcripts of meetings of UUP's Delegate Assemblies, minutes of the meetings of UUP's Executive Board, and the minutes of SUPA and SPA, were the first records included in this collection. A subsequent processing effort conducted several years later resulted in the addition of the ten other subgroups. Access to some series is restricted.
Some topics and activities of UUP are addressed in detail within a single series or two, such as Delegate Assemblies, Executive Board meetings, negotiations, committee work, chapters, and special projects. However, materials related to each of these subjects is also found scattered throughout the various groups of subject and project files that make up the collection. While a great deal of overlap exists among the various series that make up the collection, for the most part the overlapping series do not entirely duplicate each other. In addition, over the years, different individuals have used different subject headings for the same subjects. The index to the box and folder list provides some guidance on the location of materials on the same or similar topics, as do the cross-references contained in the various series descriptions.
An overall theme in the records is UUP's concern with the state's funding of SUNY and the impact that cuts in the SUNY budget and, as a result, in campus programs would have on bargaining unit members. UUP has also given continual attention to the actions of SUNY management and how they impact bargaining unit members, making sure that the rights of those it represents are protected. There have also been some discernible changes over the years in UUP's interests. For the first decade or so of UUP's existence (and during the years of its predecessors), the records reveal a concern with the organizational character of the union and increasing its membership and, as a result, its power as bargaining agent. Much of the discussion involved issues that arose because of the diverse nature of UUP's membership, particularly the distinct concerns of non-teaching professionals, as well as librarians and health professionals who worked at the various SUNY campuses. In the 1980s UUP began to express itself more on social and ideological issues like intellectual freedom and the environment, and at times these non-work-related stances prompted complaints from members who disagreed with the union's positions, or who felt that UUP should not be taking positions on such issues in the first place.
The records of UUP included in this collection are complemented by related collections held in the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives at the University at Albany, SUNY. The records of the UUP Oral History Project (APAP-099) include interviews with over thirty individuals involved with the beginnings of unionization at SUNY and UUP's predecessors, the formation of UUP itself, and the first years of UUP's existence. The records of the United University Professions (UUP) Albany Chapter (APAP-054) document some of the activities of Albany Chapter. The papers of Eugene Link (APAP-025), a professor of history at SUNY Plattsburgh and an active member in the early years of UUP and in UUP's establishment of membership for retired members, also includes related material. The records of WAMC/Northeast Public Radio (APAP-138) include episodes of programs on which UUP leaders appeared. For additional labor collections in the Department, see the Labor subject guide.
Over 4,000 images from the records of UUP are available for viewing online from the University at Albany Libraries' Digital Collections database. Funding for the digitization of these photographs and their description was provided by United University Professions.
Selected materials from this collection are available in the exhibit Documenting Labor Inside and Out: Labor History in New York State's Capital District.
Subgroup I: Governing Bodies, 1968-1993. 6 reels of microfilm. Arranged in four series.
Minutes of meetings of the non-teaching professional staff prior to the formation of the State University Professional Association (SUPA) in October 1969; minutes of meetings of SUPA's Executive Committee and Governing Board; and minutes of meetings of Senate Professional Association's (SPA) Executive Board and its Representative Council. Many of the minutes in this series document the debate over whether non-teaching professionals should affiliate themselves with SPA or remain autonomous to work for their distinct interests. Some of the SPA minutes are barely legible.
Minutes of the proceedings of UUP's Executive Board, the body authorized to carry out policies established by the Delegate Assembly and execute written agreements on behalf of UUP. The Board meetings consist of reports by committee chairpersons and officers and the consideration of a variety of resolutions and motions reflecting a concern with a broad range of institutional, social, and political issues. Lists of committee appointments, committee and task force membership lists, and income and expenditure reports for the union are intermittently included. The Board is required to meet at least four times each year, but from the beginning it has met approximately five to ten times annually. See Subgroup IV Office of the Secretary, Series 1 - Executive Board for correspondence and materials distributed at or relating to Executive Board meetings.
Minutes of the proceedings of the Delegate Assembly, the primary policy-making body of UUP. The minutes reflect the concerns and activities of UUP in the most concise and comprehensive form, because it is in the forum where various chapters from around the state meet to voice local concerns and discuss and vote on policy matters. The Delegate Assembly meets three times during each academic year-Fall, Winter, and Spring.
The minutes document budget debates (sometimes with itemized budget projections), the election of officers and Executive Board members, amendments to the constitution, and reports from committee chairpersons and officers. The first two years of the minutes include what appear to be verbatim transcripts of the president's report and the reports of various other officers. Afterwards, the reports and the rest of the proceedings are all given in condensed form. In later years, the reports of the officers and committee chairpersons, as well as programs for each Delegate Assembly, were included in packets mailed to delegates prior to the Delegate Assembly and/or distributed to delegates upon their arrival at a Delegate Assembly. See Subgroup IV Secretary, Series 2 - Delegate Assemblies for these and other materials relating to the Delegate Assemblies.
Verbatim transcripts of the Delegate Assembly proceedings. This series includes only one Delegate Assembly for 1979 and two for 1980, however for the remaining years the transcripts cover all three Delegate Assemblies for each year. Each transcript is divided into two sessions, each covering one day of the Delegate Assembly. Some early transcripts include a list of officers, Executive Board members, committee chairs, and chapter delegates. About half of the transcripts have a table of contents. The transcripts for 1984 include a program for the fall Delegate Assembly. See Subgroup IV Secretary, Series 2 - Delegate Assemblies for the packets containing officer and committee chairperson reports, finiancial information, delegate listings, schedules and programs, and related materials for Delegate Assemblies.
Correspondence at statewide and chapter levels; meeting minutes, both for statewide and Buffalo chapter; bargaining unit mailings; newsletters; and financial records maintained by Joseph Drew, UUP's first statewide treasurer, who was active both in the statewide SPA and the SPA chapter in Buffalo prior to UUP's creation.
The records in this series relate mainly to the Senate Professional Association, although some materials are included relating to the State University Federation of Teachers and other contenders for bargaining agent before the creation of UUP. The organization to which the records in each folder primarily relate is indicated in parenthesis in the folder title. The records in this series provide the most information available regarding the financial condition of SPA and UUP at its formation-the state of which was an issue for the union, particularly given its financial reliance at times on NYSTA. (Additional early UUP financial records are located in Series 1 of Subgroup V, Office of the Treasurer.) The records in this series also reflect the differing concerns of professional and academic employees in their selection of a bargaining agent and in negotiations. Also discussed are the cost of the various organizations competing to be bargaining agent in terms of dues versus what they offered their members, and the issue of affiliation with larger organizations such as AFT, NYEA, and NEA and the implication that affiliation with each would have on the bargaining unit. The mailings made by the various contenders for bargaining agent reflect their positions on these and other issues.
Correspondence and third-party reports make up the bulk of this series, and some of the materials appear to have been reference files rather than related to matters in which SPA/UUP was directly involved. Other materials, such as correspondence and minutes from meetings of the SUNY Board of Trustees, information on the SUNY budget, or about the SUNY Faculty Senate document the environment in which SPA and UUP were created and in which they negotiated contracts. The same can be said for the materials included in the series relating to New York State United Teachers, which was an influential force in UUP's formative years.
UUP-specific materials include information on contract negotiations, the merger between SPA and SUFT that created UUP, and UUP's general operations. Materials relating to particular articles of the SPA/UUP agreements with the State are included by article number (primarily articles dealing with compensation and evaluation and promotion). Copies of agreements and contracts for collective bargaining in other states, some of which have had sections relating to particular subjects highlighted and/or annotated, are also included along with information regarding collective bargaining in education in other states. Occasionally subject folders contain copies of a SPA newsletter or bulletin that addressed the particular issue. The folders titled "History" contain mainly correspondence and newsletters relating to SPA, SUFT, and other organizations such as NEA that were active during the years preceding the formation of UUP. The folders entitled "Managerial/Confidential" contain materials relating to the initial creation/designation of the bargaining unit that UUP would represent.
The records in this series were maintained by an original member of the SPA/UUP administrative office staff and reflect activities office-wide. They include the most information available on the issues that SPA/UUP was involved in during its formative years and first five years of UUP's existence, particularly the DeLucia presidential administration (1973-1975). The other records in this Subgroup II and the records in Series 1 of Subgroup V, Office of the Treasurer, complement the records in this series. Series 3 of Subgroup IVA, Special Projects, also contains a small amount of SPA, SUFT, and SUPA related materials.
The records in this series are some of the many plagued by the inconsistent use of subject titles and filing categories. For example, a general file labeled "committees" contains information relating to various SPA/UUP committees, but some records related to specific committees are located under the subject heading relating to that committee, such as the records relating to the Legislation Committee included in the folders marked "Legislation". Other examples include the closely related materials filed under separate headings such as "librarians" and "SUNY librarians" and "Presidential Speeches" and "Speeches". In order to preserve the original designations given to the various materials during preliminary processing efforts, the original filing categories/folder designations were maintained in these situations. The index for the box and folder list should be consulted to determine the location of related materials on any given subject.
Correspondence, third-party reports, and conference and meeting materials make up the bulk of this series. Although a prior processing effort identified this series as SPA-SUFT files and the title has been retained, with the exception of two folders in the series specifically related to SUFT, the connection to SUFT of the materials in the other folders is unclear. Many of the materials post-date the merger of SUFT into UUP and numerous pieces of SPA correspondence, board minutes, and other SPA-related materials are also included. This series includes information relating to articles in UUP's negotiated contract related to health science centers and clinical practice concerns, and materials related to NYSUT meetings and activities. Unique to this series are the materials relating to collective bargaining in education in various states. Folders identified by state names contain correspondence between SPA and/or UUP and collective bargaining agents in other states (often other NEA affiliates), requests for information on SPA/UUP's collective bargaining experiences, and newsletters and other publications created by other educational bargaining agents.
Incomplete sets of newsletters of the State University Federation of Teachers (S.U.F.T. News) and the Senate Professional Association (SPA Bulletin, SPA Spokesman, and For Your Information). The earlier newsletters concentrate on issues regarding negotiations with the state, while in its last year the SPA Spokesman became a more general newsletter covering activities such as improper practice filings and committee work. For Your Information was a newsletter for SPA (and later SUNY/United) leadership and similarly covered a broad variety of subjects, including negotiations, improper practice filings, upcoming Delegate Assemblies, and the election of chapter and statewide leaders.
Subgroup III: Office of the President, 1971-1997. 35.20
cubic feet. Arranged in five series.
Primarily outgoing letters and memoranda, along with occasional reports of the President, minutes of Executive Board meetings, and reports on higher education. The most incoming correspondence is included in the files covering the Drescher and Reilly administrations (1984-1993). Infrequently an outgoing letter includes a notation that the incoming letter being responded to is filed under the correspondent's name in the alphabetical files. These files are included in Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary, Series 5.
This series covers part of the Drescher administration, all of the Reilly administration, and part of the Scheuerman administration (with future additions anticipated for the Scheuerman years). There are no official chronological files available for the DeLucia or Wakshull administrations, although two folders containing chronological correspondence for the last year of Lawrence DeLucia's administration were found in the working files of one of UUP's first Executive Directors and included in this series.
The primary author is UUP's President. Correspondents include UUP's Executive Board, statewide officers, chapter presidents, committee chairpersons and committee members, individual members of UUP, AFT and NYSUT representatives, the trustees of SUNY, the governor and legislators of New York State, the Governor's Office of Employee Relations, and representatives of other labor unions. Topics covered in this series include interactions with the State University and State/UUP Joint Labor/Management Committees; grievances including the allocation of legal defense funds; chapter relations including correspondence with chapter presidents as a group and individually regarding specific campus concerns or invitations to attend chapter events; committee appointments; responses to members who have voiced a complaint or opinion on UUP and its activities; thank you letters to members for forwarded copies of articles and books and for their participation in activities such as lobbying days and phone banks; congratulatory letters to elected officers, appointed committee members, and winners of honors from SUNY or within their profession; letters to newspaper editors on SUNY budget issues; and letters expressing solidarity (and sometimes monetary support) to other labor groups in their relations with management. Other topics include negotiations, election endorsements, retirement benefits concerns, and correspondence with AFT and NYSUT. The SUNY budget and retrenchment are recurring topics particularly in the Scheuerman files. Personnel matters for the UUP executive office and inquiries and complaints on member benefits are also occasionally dealt with. There is a small amount of correspondence relating to President Reilly's position as a Professor of English at SUNY Albany and his specific research interest in African-American authors included in his chronological files.
The materials are in reverse chronological order by either date sent or received. There is some overlap between the chronological files during the change over of presidential administrations, as well as between some files particularly in the 1988-90 period. Indexes to the correspondence were part of the Drescher and Reilly files, and appear to be in the order materials were added to the file, rather than chronological order. The indexes provides the date, sender and recipient (both often identified by initials only) and a brief description of the subject matter. There is no index for September 3, 1991 to January 31, 1992, and from February 1993 on.
E-mail messages broadcast to chapters, chapters presidents, executive board members, and labor relations specialists keeping them informed about UUP position on and/or handling of various issues such as the SUNY budget, negotiations, activities of the SUNY Board of Trustees, and legislative developments. Messages also discuss chapter election results and upcoming meetings and workshops (both substantive and logistical aspects); forward AFT updates; and provide summaries of press reports of interest ("UUPdate") and information regarding upcoming Delegate Assemblies.
UUP's President Tim Reilly was the primary sender of these messages, although the series also includes messages broadcast by other officers, committee chairpersons (primarily Janet Potter, chairperson of the Legislation Committee), and by various chapter representatives. Although primarily consisting of group messages, this series also includes some individual messages that deal with specific issues of concern to just one individual or chapter. For the most part, both the sender and recipient group(s) are clearly identified on the messages, however, for some of the messages recipient information is not included and the sender is sometimes only identified by his or her e-mail address (consisting only of the sender's initials) rather than a full name.
The bulk of the records in this series were created during the presidency of Samuel Wakshull (May 1975-May 1981) and were either originally or during a previous processing effort divided into two subseries, Subject Files and Administrative Files. For the most part there is no overlap in the subjects covered by the records in these two subseries. While misfiles were frequently discovered and corrected during processing; no systematic effort was made to locate and correct all misfiles. Additional subject files covering some of the years of the Wakshull's administration are located in Series 2 and 3 of Subgroup II, UUP Predecessors and Early UUP Years, and Series 6 of Subgroup IV Office of the Secretary.
Primarily correspondence from UUP's President relating to various subjects and issues of concern to UUP members, and with SUNY management and SUNY's Chancellor. Included much less frequently are articles, third-party reports and publications, brochures, court and arbitrator decisions, financial statements, and other materials supplementing the topics being addressed in the correspondence. This subseries includes a substantial amount of information regarding the challenge to UUP's position as collective bargaining agent on the SUNY campuses by the NEA/NYEA in the mid-1970s, as well as on the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) which was also an active challenger to UUP during the NEA/NYEA challenge period. In addition, this subseries contains correspondence relating to the first few years that the agency fee law was in place.
Correspondence is often filed under the name of the individual to whom it was addressed, including various individuals working at SUNY Central Administration, at the Chancellor's office, and at the Governor's Office of Employee Relations. However, correspondence from these representatives, as well as those of NYSUT, are also found in the relevant subject files. In addition, materials related to NYSUT committees, projects, and personnel are filed under the general NYSUT headings or under project, individual, or committee names. Materials related to committees are often filed under the "Committees" heading as well as under the subject name itself (such as "Grievances"). The files in this subseries were initially identified during an earlier processing effort. During the course of processing the rest of the collection, additional files were found dealing solely with the Wakshull years and were incorporated into this subseries. They are identified by an * in front of the folder title.
Incoming and outgoing correspondence from UUP's President, Executive Director, and other UUP personnel; as well as internal correspondence between the President, Executive Director, membership coordinator, and NYSUT legal counsel. Materials were filed by chapter involved, under individual name (relating to grievance matters, and also for UUP personnel matters), and occasionally by subject. Topics covered include retrenchments on campuses; appointments to and resignations from committees; campus specific concerns; grievances; questions from members regarding benefits and membership; resolutions sent in by chapters; minutes for chapter board meetings as well as chapter labor/management meetings; and information on chapter officers. The amount and type of information available for each chapter varies widely. Additional records on individual chapters make up Subseries 3.3 in Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary. Agency fee issues and the separation of UUP from NEA are infrequent topics of discussion. The records for the Grievance Committee in this series include reports to the President presenting the committee's position on/view of the grievances under its consideration. These reports provide some of the most detailed information available regarding the issues that UUP has sought to remedy through grievances on behalf of its bargaining unit members.
One recurring concern reflected in the President's correspondence with chapter leaders is the reasons behind the resignation of UUP members, particularly as UUP was seeking during this period to shore up its membership not only to defeat the NEA/NYEA and other challengers, but to provide the strongest front possible for future contract negotiations. Although the bulk of the materials in this series cover the Wakshull administration (1975-1981), this series also includes some documents from the DeLucia administration (1973-1975).
Primarily subject files containing incoming and outgoing correspondence, third-party reports, SUNY correspondence and SUNY-produced materials, materials distributed by various higher education organizations, copies of legislation, SUNY budgets, and other materials relating to each topic. The primary correspondent is UUP President Nuala Drescher, and for the files that date back to the prior administration, UUP President Samuel Wakshull and his Director of Staff Evelyn Hartman. Correspondence recipients include chapter leadership; Executive Board members; individual UUP members; the governor of New York State and state legislators; and staff members of NYSUT, particularly its higher education lobbyist, legal counsel, and president, informing them about UUP's position on an issue or seeking NYSUT input regarding a matter.
Some testimony given by President Drescher on various subjects is also included. The activities of SUNY are documented by correspondence sent from SUNY directly to UUP, as well as correspondence distributed by SUNY Central Administration to campus presidents or that the management of a particular campus distributed to campus groups such as department heads and deans, as is the case in the "Discretionary Monies" folder. There is some administrative correspondence with GOER setting up meetings and informing them of upcoming meetings involving UUP leadership.
A broad range of topics are covered in this series, with UUP's legislative activities and yearly concerns regarding the SUNY budget most heavily documented. The legislative-related folders include correspondence with NYSUT's higher education lobbyist, press releases, news articles, copies of testimony, copies of legislation, correspondence to chapter presidents regarding status of bills of interest, and correspondence with legislators. The SUNY budget materials include copies of budgets, information distributed by SUNY Central Administration for campuses regarding the annual fiscal plan; UUP analyses of budgets; and UUP mailings to chapter leadership regarding the budget. The amount of information available about each topic, as well as the directness of its connection with UUP, vary widely. For example, while the "Day Care-Campus Reports" folders include the responses made by chapters to a request from UUP for information about their involvement with campus day care centers, the folders for the Empire State Day Care Services Corporation mainly contain minutes and reports for board meetings prepared by that organization and dealing solely with that organization and sent to UUP's President as a member of the board of directors.
This series is an artificial gathering of subject files that primarily cover Drescher's years in office (1981-1987), but that were otherwise not identified by who kept them or in what capacity. It includes a small group of files that appear to have been maintained for just the 1982-1983 academic year. As Drescher's chronological file was not begun until August 1984, these earlier files provide a source for Drescher's outgoing correspondence during early time periods. Correspondence filed after Drescher's chronological file was begun appears to have been filed both chronologically and by subject. The subject files in series 7 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary, provide additional subject files covering the years President Drescher was in office.
Correspondence, reports, meeting agendas and minutes, and other distributed materials regarding various UUP committees that the president was a member of, or kept informed of the activities of; correspondence, reports, and materials distributed regarding projects (one-time and continuing) that UUP was involved in (such as the committees of UUP's AFT and NYSUT affiliates that UUP was represented on, conferences that UUP's president attended, and testimony given by UUP's president before various State Senate and Assembly committees); and correspondence, reports, and reference materials on topics in which UUP had a continuing interest (such as the proportion of the annual New York State budget allocated to SUNY, retirement benefits for SUNY employees, proposed legislation affecting SUNY and UUP's lobbying efforts, and the Public Employees Benefit Fund which provided benefits to members of UUP, NYSUT, and PEF [the Public Employees Federation]). There are numerous handwritten notes made by the president on various documents included in this series. Some of those notations, along with notes of his secretary, are purely administrative, i.e., confirming his attendance at a conference or meeting. However, some are more substantive, such as his notes from a particular meeting, his questions or thoughts noted on a report, his handwritten inquires to others involved in a project asking for elaboration on a particular issue or point, notes on meeting agendas regarding the actions taken, and draft correspondence.
Reilly's files for Delegate Assemblies and Executive Board meetings to varying degrees duplicate the materials in the separate Delegate Assemblies and Executive Board series in Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary. These records also frequently include Reilly's handwritten notes on the distributed agenda and other distributed materials, as well as correspondence received by Reilly and not included in the Secretary's files for these meetings. Files do not exist in this series for all the Delegate Assemblies and Executive Board meetings held during Reilly's administration. Occasionally materials are included in meeting files that seem to merely reflect that they were received at the time of the meeting, not that the subject of the correspondence specifically related to the meeting. Similarly, the materials retained from the NYSUT and AFT executive bodies meetings that Reilly attended are only those that had his handwritten notes or that dealt specifically with UUP.
Particularly heavily documented subjects include the annual SUNY and New York State budget, particularly the 1988-1989 budget; problems with the funding of state employee retirement plans, including the TIAA-CREF option in the late 1980s; UUP's involvement with its affiliates AFT and NYSUT and the functioning of the Public Employees Division of the New York State AFL-CIO; extensive correspondence between Reilly and committee chairpersons regarding recommended members for their committees and with current and prospective committee members regarding their interest in serving on the committee; UUP's legislative and lobbying activities; a myriad of topics relating to SUNY besides its budget such as the proposed restructuring of the SUNY hospitals. This series also includes materials related to some administrative UUP activities, such as life insurance offered to its members, and files devoted to various officers or departments in UUP's administrative office and their activities on behalf of UUP and those it represents.
This series is a somewhat artificial gathering, the bulk of which is made up of records that appear to have been maintained by Reilly's secretary. As a result, at times the files include his secretary's notes on setting up meetings or who will or will not attend a particular meeting or conference. There are also notes from Reilly to his secretary instructing her as to the handling of the document in question, such as where it should be filed or who it should be distributed to. In addition, some records more appropriately maintained by UUP's Secretary somehow ended up with the records included in this series rather than the subject or other files maintained by the Secretary. For example, the only location for information regarding UUP's Humane Animal Experimentation Task Force is in this series, not in the committee, task force, and working group records included in Series 4 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary. This series is also limited in that there is irregular coverage of repeating events. For example, a "committee activity register" reporting the dates of meetings and tasks accomplished of each of UUP's committees, only exists for the 1988-1989 year. Similarly, there are abrupt ends to topics that theoretically should continue through the end of Reilly's term, such as the records filed under "Vice President for Professionals" that end in April 1990, rather than continuing to the end of Reilly's tenure as President. Still, regardless of their organization or origin, the records in this series provide probably the best sense for the wide variety of issues UUP and its president address at any one time as well as the administrative functioning of UUP and its administrative office, and the views and opinions of President Reilly. In many instances, the files in this series were continued into the Scheuerman administration. It is anticipated that those materials will become part of a new "Projects/Subjects--William E. Scheuerman" series in the future.
This subgroup includes only the records of substantive projects that affected members of the UUP bargaining unit as a whole and for which the Vice President for Professionals was primarily responsible rather than the individual working files of each Vice President for Professionals. Other documentation of the work of the Vice President for Professionals is included in the officers reports distributed at Delegate Assemblies and made part of the Delegate Assembly records included in Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary, Series 2, and in the various subject and project files maintained by both the President and the Secretary.
The 1982-1985 contract between the state and UUP provided for a study of the promotional opportunities for professional employees of the State University of New York. After the commissioned study was issued by consulting firm Arthur Young in May 1986, steps were taken to implement its recommendations. A Management Advisory Committee on Classification and Compensation (MACCC) was established by the State University and given the responsibility of adopting a structure of professional titles that would provide promotional opportunities for professional employees. UUP participated in a joint labor/management committee of the same name formed to provide input to the larger SUNY MACCC (which was made up of just SUNY representatives). The joint labor/management MACCC acted in an advisory capacity only.
This series includes correspondence between SUNY and its campuses, between SUNY and UUP, and primarily between UUP and its professional members and its chapter vice presidents for professionals, chapter presidents, and others, keeping them informed of the status of the reclassification project. Also included is correspondence from chapters reporting on reclassification activities on campuses, including their implementation of the "Albany Plan"-a system implemented by the administration of the SUNY Albany campus for the internal promotion of professional employees which other campuses were required to adopt and adapt for their own professionals; correspondence appealing denials of reclassification for specific titles sent to UUP's Vice President for Professionals; correspondence supporting the creation of titles within specific job families; the Arthur Young study; and listings of titles designated for reclassification. The primary correspondent is Thomas Corigliano who was Vice President for Professionals at the time. Other correspondents include SUNY representatives, UUP President Tim Reilly, UUP Director of Staff Samuel Livingston, the Assistant Director of Staff and various field representatives, and UUP's chapter leadership.
During processing the bulk of the materials in this series were placed in chronological order. Folder titles in quotation marks indicate original folder titles; the rest were assigned during processing. Materials regarding the reclassification project are also located in the project and subject files of President Reilly included in Subgroup III, Series 5; in the records of the Professional Employees Promotion Study Committee and the Promotion and Compensation Committee included in Series 4 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary; and in the subject files included in Series 7 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary. The latter group of records are organized by chapter and mostly contain lists of individuals and titles to be reclassified.
Between December 1987 and May 1996, UUP employed a Safety and Health Specialist who reported to the Vice President for Professionals. The activities of the Safety and Health Specialist included conducting campus visits, reporting potential safety and health problems, and making recommendations on addressing them to UUP chapter leadership; responding to requests from chapter leadership to address specific safety and health concerns on individual campuses; conducting training for campus representatives on safety and health issues; attending health and safety committee meetings on behalf of UUP; attending professional seminars and conferences; and reviewing and interpreting reports dealing with safety and health matters received by UUP and its chapters.
This series consists of records kept by the Vice Presidents for Professionals, primarily copies of correspondence of the Safety and Health Specialist, Rodney Whalen, to chapter leaders reporting results of campus safety visits and responding to requests for assistance, and reports made by the Safety and Health Specialist to the Vice President for Professionals (first Thomas Corigliano, then Thomas Matthews), regarding his activities on behalf of UUP. Also included in this series is a group of booklets/handbooks prepared by the Safety and Health Specialist on health and safety issues, materials addressing specific safety and health topics, and a limited amount of material regarding the joint labor/management committee on AIDS. For additional materials relating to UUP's Safety and Health Specialist and UUP's concern with safety and health issues, including AIDS, see President Reilly's project and subject files in Series 5 of Subgroup III; the records of the UUP AIDS Working Group and the Safety and Health Committee in the committee files in Series 4 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary; and the subject files in Series 7 of Subgroup IV.
Subgroup IIIB: Office of the Vice President for Academics
There are currently no records in this subgroup.
Subgroup IV: Office of the Secretary, 1968-1999. 61.73 cubic feet. Arranged in eight series.
Correspondence arranging meetings of the Executive Board and sending out materials to be considered by the Board such as agendas; proposed resolutions (both for UUP Delegate Assemblies and for NYSUT Representative Assemblies); officer reports and testimony; third- party reports on higher education, the budgets for New York State and SUNY, and other topics of concern. Minutes of past Executive Board meetings were also routinely distributed. This series also contains correspondence enacting decisions by the Board and correspondence acknowledging receipt of materials for consideration by the Board. Some of the correspondence is actually addressed to chapter presidents and/or other leadership groups, but the Executive Board was copied (although in some instances this is not clearly indicated).
The minutes for Executive Board meetings held from May 1973 to May 1993 are included in Subgroup I, Governing Bodies, Series 2. Additional materials regarding Executive Board meetings are located in Series 3 and 5 of Subgroup III, Office of the President, subseries 6.1 of this Subgroup, and Series 1 of Subgroup V, Office of the Treasurer.
Several separate groupings of records, in various organizational states, were combined to create this series. Files from 1985 on were filed in separate categories: "correspondence" and "minutes and agendas" (the latter of which also included numerous attachments and materials distributed at or prior to Board meetings). Some earlier files were similarly categorized, but with a great deal of overlapping and misfiling between them. For ease of use they were combined into a single chronological group. Materials in the files were put into chronological order unless the dates were so widely divergent that it appeared they may have been a set of materials distributed at a single time, in which case the materials were left together. This is particularly true for the minutes and agenda files from 1988 on, which were rubberbanded together with the memorandum used to send materials to board members. These groupings are now separated by blank sheets of paper. For the most part, the dates on the folders represents the dates of the memoranda distributing the meeting agendas (sent out a few weeks before each meeting); although the attached materials often pre- and post-date the memorandum. Beginning with the files for Executive Board meetings held in 1994, just the date of the meeting is given on the folder. There is some duplication between materials distributed to the Executive Board and those distributed at Delegate Assemblies, such as officer reports.
Programs for Delegate Assemblies ("DAs") (containing schedules, lists of delegates and committees, membership reports, and agendas); minutes for current DA and immediately preceding DA; reports of officers and standing committee chairpersons, including a treasurer's report usually presented at the Spring DA with budget proposals and financial statements; reports on the implementation of pending business approved by past DAs; correspondence to delegates prior to DAs regarding schedule, agenda, and UUP-wide membership report (used to determine the number of delegates for each chapter); other correspondence relating to DAs including setting up committee meetings and meeting space for political caucuses; resolutions proposed by chapters and committees for consideration at DA; and news articles, third party reports and correspondence, UUP-created reports, and other materials distributed to delegates regarding issues under consideration. Attendance and rooming forms on which chapters reported the names of their delegates and their elected term are also included for some of the DAs prior to 1986.
Minutes and transcripts for Delegate Assemblies are included in Subgroup I, Governing Bodies, Series 3 and Series 4, and include minutes for years not covered by the materials in this series (1973-1976). Some additional materials relating to DAs held between 1973 and 1976 are included in Subgroup II, UUP Predecessors and Early UUP Years, Series 2, and in Subseries 6.1 of this Subgroup for the years 1973-1981. Materials from some of the Delegate Assemblies held during President Reilly's term in office are included in Series 5 of Subgroup III.
Files were in no standard order originally and an attempt was made during processing to generally arrange them in the following order: program, agendas, officer and committee chairperson reports, resolutions, correspondence and "other" materials. However, no attempt was made to group materials such as officer and chairperson reports with the memoranda that purported to send them to delegates if they were not found attached to the memorandum to begin with. Expense vouchers (a three-part carbon form included in every DA packet) were not retained. The actual packets mailed to delegates prior to each DA and the packets distributed to delegates at the DA were included in some later files, particularly from the Fall 1993 DA on, often with a listing of the materials that were included in each packet. The general DA files for this time period include early mailings made with rooming forms and delegate apportionment information, copies of resolutions used at the DA, the secretary's notes from the DA sent to the stenographer for use in preparing the transcript for the DA, and miscellaneous materials distributed at the DA or relating to the DA, including election related materials from the Spring DAs.
Letters, memoranda, and other mailings made to chapter presidents from UUP's Administrative Office primarily from statewide officers and committee chairpersons, along with copies of reports, testimony, benefits information, and other materials distributed to chapter presidents for further dissemination among chapter members. Topics include SUNY and chapter budgets including testimony of UUP's President on SUNY budget; statements by New York State's governor and legislators on higher education; UUP's lobbying activities; benefits available from NYSUT and UUP for active and retired members; voter registration and election endorsements; summaries of Executive Board meetings; status reports on negotiations and contract ratification; solidarity campaigns; new member recruitment activities; agency fee procedures; chapter presidents' meetings; upcoming Delegate Assemblies; information regarding chapter secretaries and the CWA contracts covering chapter secretaries.
Some materials in this series are not specifically identified as being sent to chapter presidents (i.e., there is no accompanying cover memorandum), however because regular mailings are made to chapter presidents, this does not preclude that such materials were not also distributed to this group. In other instances, attachments referred to in some mailings were not included with the records in this series. The amount of correspondence in these files drops off substantially after May 1993. From approximately 1990 on, a significant portion of the information disseminated to chapter presidents was sent via electronic mail. See Subgroup III, Office of the President, Series 2 for electronic mail correspondence.
Correspondence setting up meetings of chapter presidents, meeting agendas, participant lists, and some materials distributed at meetings. These files only cover the Reilly administration.
Correspondence between chapter representatives and statewide officers and Administrative Office, and inter-chapter correspondence that was copied to UUP's Administrative Office, including memoranda and other materials distributed by campus administration on policies and other issues that chapter officers wanted to make statewide officers aware of. Topics include status of grievances; chapter meetings; chapter elections (including disputed elections); individual campus issues such as the proposed sale of a building used for campus or policies particularly impacting one campus; statewide issues such as SUNY policies and operations as a whole; negotiations commentary and committees; correspondence to campus presidents; and news articles sent to UUP's President on chapter informational picketing and higher education issues. Files for the health science centers (particularly for Brooklyn Health Science Center [formerly the Downstate Medical Center]) also contain correspondence regarding clinical practice management plans, and draft agreements. Chapter newsletters are also included in this series, although most are not complete runs. They are in separate folders for the mid 1970s to the late 1980s, after which time newsletters were included in the main chapter folders. Chapter newsletters inform members about upcoming meetings, the status of negotiations, messages from the chapter president, information on grievances affecting the chapter, and SUNY budget issues.
Chapter records precede the formation of UUP and include materials from the predecessor SPA chapter as well as occasional SUFT materials, including occasional newsletters. Early chapter files also include correspondence regarding members concerns' over the proposed merger of SPA and SUFT, early attempts to increase membership, frequent reports certifying elected officers for purposes of representation at the Delegate Assemblies, and copies of the chapter's constitutions and by-laws. The records from 1975 to 1977 contain many letters on administrative grievance matters, as well as election report forms and correspondence regarding members' resignations and chapter newsletters. The chapter files deal with the NEA/NYEA challenge to UUP in 1977-1978 to varying degrees. Other one time issues covered in this series include a 1974 survey of chapter activities, and correspondence in 1986 and 1987 regarding discretionary salary increases. The bulk of the files for the years 1989 to 1991 are made up of rosters of members receiving increases in salary and additional correspondence regarding discretionary salary adjustments, as well as chapter election reports. Election reports and "Article 16.4" information (by which the campuses are required to inform UUP of new employees) are frequent in the files covering 1991 to 1994. Correspondence between UUP's President and chapter leaders and members about campus-specific issues such as parking, teaching workloads, and grievances from CWA regarding chapter secretaries, as well as grievances filed by chapter members are common in the records from the 1990s.
Chapter files were maintained in several groupings, often with overlapping dates. In the course of processing, these files were organized into chronological order and duplicates eliminated. The files are currently arranged alphabetically in two chronological groupings, 1968-May 1993 and June 1993-1996. Misfiles were frequently found and corrected during processing, although no systematic review was made to ensure that all misfiles were found and corrected. The most common misfiles were between similarly named chapters, such as Stony Brook and Stony Brook Health Science Center, the three Buffalo-area chapters, and the various health science centers.
There are occasional gaps, or extremely sparse coverage, in the records relating to various chapters, particularly prior to 1980 and for the early 1990s. Additional chapter files (mainly covering 1975 to 1981) are located in Subseries 3.2 of Subgroup III, Office of the President. In addition, for the records in this series, particularly for the period of the late 1970s and 1980s, the amount of correspondence existing for a chapter seems to be directly related to the degree of activism and involvement of the chapter president in UUP at the statewide level. During a preliminary processing effort undated materials were included at the very back of the earliest file. However, these materials may or may not predate the other materials in the folder. Infrequently correspondence in this subseries includes a notation that the incoming letter being responded to is filed under the correspondent's name in the alphabetical files. These files are included in Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary, Series 5. Finally, it should be noted that although UUP's Administrative Office maintains files on individual chapters, they do not necessarily present a complete record of the activities of any given chapter, nor do they represent all of the records of a chapter. Individual chapter offices may have more extensive records relating to their chapter's past activities.
The records in this series document, to varying degrees, the activities of UUP's standing committees, ad hoc committees, joint labor-management committees, task forces, and working groups. Included for most committees are the administrative correspondence created at UUP's administrative office setting up meetings, obtaining approval from the Governor's Office of Employee Relations for organizational leave time for meeting attendees, and confirming committee appointments. Lists of committee members are also frequently included.
The substantive work of each committee is documented by meeting agendas and minutes; the materials, such as third-party reports, distributed to committee members for their use in preparing for committee meetings; correspondence between UUP's President and the committee chairperson; and correspondence from UUP's officers and the committee chairperson to the committee as a whole. The records for joint labor-management committees include reports and correspondence prepared by the state with regard to the committee, as well as communications between only UUP's participants on those committees. If a formal report was at some point prepared by a committee or task force, drafts of the report are often included in that committee's or task force's records. Finally, the reports made by the committee chairperson to Delegate Assemblies are occasionally included in this series. (Committee chairperson reports are also found in the Delegate Assembly records in Series 2 of this Subgroup.)
As of February 2001, UUP's standing committees are: Retired Membership, Affirmative Action, Elections and Credentials, Finance, Grievance, Legislation, Membership, Negotiations, Part-Time Concerns, Solidarity, and Women's Rights and Concerns. Over the years, UUP's ad hoc committees, task forces, and working groups have addressed a variety of issues, particularly in the area of higher education and improving SUNY (for example, the Student Retention and Recruitment Committee, the Public Education Committee, the Undergraduate Education Task Force, the Teacher Education Task Force, the University Development Committee, and the Excellence Committee). Issues of concern to particular segments of UUP's bargaining unit have also been addressed (for example, the Colleges of Technology Task Force, the Health Science Center Concerns Committee, and the Nursing Profession Work Group). Joint labor-management committees have addressed safety and health issues, child care, health benefits, professional study leaves, employee assistance programs, salary disparities, and providing retraining and re-education opportunities for retrenched employees. Finally, some of UUP's committees have focused on improving UUP and its operations such as the Constitutional Study Committee, the Computer Technology Committee, and the Re-Imagine UUP Committee.
Committee-specific materials include election result reports and correspondence on possible election irregularities for the Elections and Credentials Committee; financial summaries and the report of the treasurer, and chapter budget requests and approval requests for extraordinary expenditures for the Finance Committee; chapter responses to a survey on membership and membership recruitment activities in 1982 for the Membership Committee; proposed legislation and state budgets for the Legislation Committee; and studies on indoor air pollution and other workplace health concerns for the Safety and Health Committee. There is some overlap between the records of the Membership Committee and Retired Membership Committee because correspondence were occasionally addressed to both groups, and they deal with an overlapping area of interest. The files for the Negotiations Committee has correspondence, appointment letters, and meeting information for UUP's Negotiations Team and its Ad Hoc Advisory Committee for Negotiations, occasional negotiations bulletins and responses to members on issues of concern for negotiations, and multiple copies of lists of committee and team members as well as some attendance lists for negotiations meetings and workshops. Grievance committee records include reports to the president recommending the continued pursuit or the abandonment of specific grievances. Background materials for some of the applications submitted to the Legal Defense Fund Committee are included with the records of that committee.
The amount of materials available for each committee, task force, and working group, and the degree of organization of those materials, varies. The records that make up this series were primarily taken from the main committee records maintained by UUP's statewide secretary. Frequently, however, additional folders for specific committees were encountered during processing and incorporated into this series. Except in a few instances when the additional materials were retained separately because the identity of the individual maintaining the records was known, the new materials were interfiled in chronological order into the main committee files, which were themselves organized, to the extent possible, into chronological order during processing. The records for the Legislation Committee during the 1980s were in particular disarray and it was only possible to put them in rough chronological order. Throughout this series, undated materials were kept near their original location but due to the sometimes widely varying dates of the documents found on either side of undated documents, some undated materials may not be correctly located by date. The names of a few committees and task forces have changed over the years, however for the most part just one name is used for each committee in the folder list for this series.
Materials related to committee work during the mid-1970s can also be found in the SPA/UUP Administrative Office General Files in Series 2 of Subgroup II, usually under the name of the topic that each committee dealt with rather than the committee name itself (i.e., Legislation or Membership rather than Legislation Committee or Membership Committee). Committee files for 1975-1981 are also located in Subgroup III, Subseries 3.1, Wakshull Administration, Subject Files. Finally, the project and subject files in Series 5 of Subgroup III include materials relating to the work of some committees, task forces, and working groups during the Reilly presidency from May 1987 to May 1993.
Outgoing correspondence from members of UUP's Administrative Office, including the President, Executive Director (later Director of Staff), Secretary, communications associates, field representatives, benefits specialists, and office manager. Recipients include individual members of UUP, chapter officers, NYSUT representatives, SUNY administrators on individual campuses and statewide, representatives of the Governor's Office of Employee Relations, legislators, editors of New York newspapers, and representatives of various unions and other organizations that UUP had contact with in conducting its business. Incoming correspondence are occasionally attached, more so during the Drescher administration (1981-1987) than during the Wakshull administration (1975-1981), but enclosures referred to in outgoing letters are rarely included. Topics include appointments to committees; questions regarding the reasons for members' resignations; communications regarding chapter-specific issues; inquiries about benefits provided to members, which during the 1970s was primarily life insurance; later correspondence from benefits specialists covering a wider variety of benefit issues; and grievances. For the most part grievance-related correspondence are administrative (i.e., to set up hearings with the State and the grievant, to inform the grievants of the status of their grievance including decisions by UUP not to appeal a grievance, and to inform the State that a grievance decision will or will not be appealed).
Additional topics include requests for leave time for committee participation; negotiations; contact with the AFT and NYSUT; Delegate Assemblies; correspondence with State and SUNY representatives; and correspondence with members and UUP leadership on one-time issues. Occasionally a copy of a chapter newsletter is included with a member's correspondence inquiring about or commenting on something that they read in the newsletter. Infrequently the outgoing correspondence in Subgroup III, Office of the President, Series 1--Chronological Files, and Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary, Subseries 3.3-Chapter Files includes a notation that the incoming letter being responded to is filed under the correspondent's name in these alphabetical files.
The files begin in May 1975, when Samuel Wakshull became UUP's President and end in 1996 during the Scheuerman administration, and are arranged alphabetically in two chronological groupings, May 1975-May 1993 and June 1993-June 1996. Materials were filed alphabetically under the name of the recipient except in cases when the recipient worked for an organization, such as NYSUT, in which case the correspondence was filed either under the recipient's name or the organization's, or under both names. The vast majority of letters sent to SUNY/GOER representatives about particular grievances are filed under the name of the grievant, not the recipient of the letter. Although correspondence continued to be filed alphabetically through 1996 (when this series was discontinued by UUP's Administrative Office), the regularity of the correspondence in this series drops off significantly towards the end of 1990 and early 1991. Correspondence dated after that time were more often from the Director of Staff and the office project coordinator than the President, and primarily dealt with individual grievances.
A preliminary processing effort created four boxes under the general heading "Secretaries Files," with the folders in two of the boxes additionally designated as belonging to Edward J. Alfonsin (UUP's Secretary from 1975 to 1981, although some of the files pre-date his tenure as Secretary). It is unknown if this arrangement was original to the records themselves or created during preliminary processing. The records in this series overlap the records in other series in this collection, particularly the records of Delegate Assemblies and Executive Board meetings. However, the membership lists in this series are not found elsewhere in the collection.
This series includes Delegate Assembly and Executive Board records, and subject files. The Delegate Assembly records include programs, minutes, correspondence and other documents relating to proposed resolutions and actions taken at Delegate Assemblies, membership reports used to determine the number of delegates allocated to each chapter, and reports from chapters indicating their elected delegates. Also occasionally included with the Delegate Assembly materials are lists of the academic and professional members at each chapter. Materials related to the Executive Board mainly include correspondence sent to the Board with information on upcoming meetings, letters of resignation, and meeting minutes. Additional materials are organized by subject matter, primarily relating to the Research Foundation of the State University of New York and whether Research Foundation employees (who are not part of the UUP bargaining unit) were being used in place of retrenched members of the bargaining unit.
Correspondence and other materials regarding Delegate Assemblies, Executive Board meetings, workshops, chapters, NYSUT, and various other subjects. Unique to this series are the "Membership Lists" identifying members by category (academic or non-teaching professional) for each chapter. Under the folder headings "Collective Bargaining Elections" and "National Education Association" are materials dealing with the NEA/NYEA challenge. "Chapter Materials" include election reports from various chapters, supplementing the materials in the "Election Material" and Election Report" folders.
Subject files designated as those of the Secretary, although the exact individual maintaining the files is unknown as they span several Secretaries' terms and include materials from prior to UUP's creation through the Reilly administration. The bulk of the files cover the end of the Wakshull administration, the entire Drescher administration, and the first year or so of the Reilly administration. It is suspected that the project and subject files from the Reilly administration included in Series 5 of Subgroup III in some way superseded these files except with regard to a few subjects.
This series primarily includes correspondence, UUP-produced materials, and third-party reports and publications. Correspondents include UUP's President, Secretary, Vice Presidents, and occasionally UUP's Director of Staff. The recipients include chapter leadership, individual members, representatives of other higher education and labor organizations. Among the materials that date back to the Wakshull administration, some infrequently include handwritten notes that may be those of Evelyn Hartman, UUP's Executive Director during the Wakshull administration. To some extent, the materials in this series are slightly more administrative to UUP's operations than those included in the project and subject files of Presidents Wakshull, Drescher, and Reilly in series 3, 4, and 5 of Subgroup III. For example, this series includes materials relating to UUP's incorporation and dissolution as a corporate entity, correspondence between UUP, Hartford Life, and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company regarding the excess major medical and group life insurance UUP provides for its members; correspondence regarding lending UUP phone lines to NYSUT, setting up a credit union for UUP's administrative office staff, and some agreements and correspondence with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) which represents UUP's clerical staff. The series also includes such reference materials as agency fee procedures, PDQWL grant application forms, and the policies of the SUNY Board of Trustees for a number of years. No one topic is particularly focused on, although the amount of materials for each subject varies widely. The lobbying materials include handwritten lobbying reports made by UUP members on lobbying days reporting which legislators (or their staff) they met with and their reactions to UUU's concerns.
UUP is affiliated with New York State United Teachers, the American Federation of Teachers, and the AFL-CIO. UUP's President has at times been a vice president of the AFT and served on its Executive Council, as well as on the Board of Directors of NYSUT. In addition, UUP sends representatives to the annual NYSUT Representative Assembly, the biennial AFT convention, and the biennial New York State AFL-CIO convention. Only a few officers attend the AFL-CIO conventions, while a substantial number of delegates are elected to attend the RAs and AFT conventions as representatives of UUP.
The materials in this series relate to the conventions of these affiliates and include mailings to all UUP delegates regarding the convention details including administrative information such as hotel accommodations and travel arrangements, as well as correspondence regarding UUP resolutions to be proposed at the conventions. Also included are the materials that the affiliate distributes in connection with the convention, including booklets with proposed resolutions, agendas, promotional literature about programs sponsored by it and/or benefits offered by it, a copy of its constitution, listings of delegates, budget reports, officer reports, daily summaries of proceedings, and news articles or reports relating to key topics of concern. In some instances, particularly in the Reilly years (for which the most information is available), a separate file is included which contains Reilly's copies of some of the UUP and affiliate-distributed materials annotated by him, as well as occasional handwritten notes. The Secretary's files contain the more administrative and logistical materials.
The records in this series provide an opportunity to examine UUP's interactions with its affiliates in statewide education (NYSUT), education nationally (AFT) and organized labor statewide (AFL-CIO) and the various resolutions it has sought to have adopted by each organization. Additional materials relating to affiliate conventions can be found in the Secretaries' Files, Series 6 of this Subgroup, while materials dealing with the more direct relationship between UUP and its affiliates, such correspondence between UUP and the leadership of these affiliates, can be found in the various subject and correspondence series in this collection. Consult the index to the box and folder list for the exact locations.
Subgroup IVA: Special Projects, 1967-1993. 4.33 cubic feet. Arranged in four series.
This subgroup was created for records relating to specific projects that UUP was involved in but for which the specific office of origin was unknown or unclear because two or more departments were involved in it. This subgroup also contains records of one-time projects of UUP's Research Department that dealt with UUP as a whole. Related materials for these specific projects can be found elsewhere in the collection, as noted in the individual series descriptions.
In the late 1970s UUP faced the most serious challenge to its position as bargaining agent from the New York Educators Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association. UUP disaffiliated itself from the NEA in 1976. The NEA/NYEA challenge culminated in an election for bargaining agent conducted by the New York State Public Employment Relations Board in December 1978. Through much of 1978, UUP campaigned for its continuation as bargaining agent for SUNY faculty and non-teaching professionals, with the assistance of professional organizers from the AFT and NYSUT field representatives.
This series is an artificial gathering of NEA/NYEA challenge materials found during the course of processing the collection. The primary records are the "excelsior listings" (poll lists) used during the representation election ballot count conducted on December 22, 1978. They give the names, addresses, and positions of every member of the UUP bargaining unit and the number of the ballot sent to each member. The excelsior listings are in order of the ballot numbers (which were assigned by chapter). The excelsior listings were also hand-marked to indicate who were members of UUP and from which individuals ballots were received to be counted. There are two copies of the ballot count excelsior listings. One set is organized into seventeen separate groups in 1,000 ballot intervals that were used at the actual counting tables, and include a list of the observers for UUP, NEA/NYEA, the State, and PERB for those ballots, instructions for UUP observers, and forms for UUP's observers to record challenged ballots. Although the excelsior listings do not indicate the vote made by each individual, they do provide a record of who voted in the challenge election and whether or not they were members of UUP. The excelsior listings also provide a snapshot of UUP's membership, and are the only records available in this collection that list the entire UUP bargaining unit further annotated as to who was a member of UUP. Also included in this series are campaign materials, the results of a pre-election Harris poll commissioned by UUP, and a series of news clippings regarding the challenge and election.
Other materials relating to the NEA/NYEA challenge, including correspondence detailing UUP's organizing activities during the campaign, can be found in the subject files of President Wakshull in Subseries 3.1 of Subgroup III; the records of UUP's Treasurer Joseph Drew in Subgroup V; and in the photographs and printed memorabilia in Subgroup VIII, Communications Department.
During the 1980s and early 1990s UUP worked to correct salary disparities on behalf of its bargaining unit using a fund established in its contracts with the state. The contracts specifically prohibited the use of the fund for across-the-board salary increases and left the determination of the exact allocation of the disparity funds to a joint state/UUP committee. The primary intent of the disparity project was to identify specific categories of employees whose salaries were below national standards, not to address individual salary disparities. This did not prevent many bargaining unit members, however, from writing to UUP to make a case as to why their individual salary was unfair and should be corrected. For the most part, particularly for the latter disparity funds, materials submitted by individual applicants were not retained.
The records in this series are organized alphabetically within two groups, based on the contract year to which the appeals related. The first set of applications were made in late 1983 and early 1984, primarily by groups (particularly librarians). The application files include correspondence and supporting documentation demonstrating how the applicants' salaries compared locally and with their profession at large, and additional materials supporting their claim for disparity payment. There is no uniform set of materials provided by each group or individual applicant. Also included in this series is correspondence, including additional letters to UUP making the applicants' case for disparity funding as well as individual commentary and complaints regarding being overlooked for disparity payments. The rosters included in this series list by campus and title the disparity payments to be made; it is unclear however if these were drafts or the final copies of the payment rosters. Only group applications are included in this series for the later disparity program in 1987-88. Like the earlier applications, they contain varying amounts of information submitted by each applicant group.
For additional materials relating to salary disparity, see the project and subject files of President Reilly in Series 5 of Subgroup III; and the records of the Disparity Committee in Series 4 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary.
In the late 1980s, UUP created an "Archives Committee," responsible for creating a plan for the long-term management and preservation of UUP's records. The records of the Archives Committee are included in Series 4 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary. It is unknown if the committee specifically solicited historical documents or if an awareness of the committee and its charge prompted members to send to UUP materials they thought were historically important. Regardless, this series is an eclectic mix of materials relating to the Senate Professional Association, the State University Federation of Teachers, the State University Professional Association, and UUP. It reflects activities both statewide and on individual campuses and includes correspondence, meeting minutes, newsletters, negotiations proposals, handwritten notes, and workshop handouts. The records document some of the activities of the American Association of University Professors on SUNY campuses; mailings received by members of SPA welcoming them to that organization and informing them of the issues of the day; meetings of SUFT and SUPA; SPA's negotiations in the early 1970s and UUP's negotiations in the late 1970s; and some of the materials distributed to its leadership at the many workshops UUP has held over the years. One folder in the series documents student strikes on the SUNY Albany campus in 1970 and the response of faculty to those activities. Some of the materials in this series duplicate those found in Subgroup II, UUP Predecessors and Early UUP Years, and in the negotiations records in Subgroup VI for the applicable contract years. However, some of the campus-specific materials and the correspondence sent by SPA to its members are unique to this series, as are the set of workshop booklets.
UUP's Research Department conducts research on a variety of topics to assist UUP's leadership, committees, negotiators, and other UUP constituencies. One method of research is surveys sent to all or portions of UUP's membership. The completed survey forms (for the most part anonymous) often contain handwritten comments from members, documenting not only their thoughts and concerns regarding the subject of the survey, but occasionally broadly sweeping criticism of or praise for UUP in general. The surveys distributed to gather member input on negotiations are included in Series 3 of Subgroup VI, Labor Relations-Negotiations. Included in this series are the completed forms from other surveys conducted by the Research Department.
The Re-Imagine UUP Committee was responsible for examining UUP's structure and operations and producing a report regarding the type of union UUP was to be in the future. The records for the committee, along with its report, are located in Series 4 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary, supplemented by the project and subject files of President Reilly in Series 5 of Subgroup III. In the course of preparing the report, the Committee engaged the AFT and a research consulting firm to conduct surveys of UUP bargaining unit members. In order to supplement the information gained through those methods, and to cover issues the committee felt it needed more information on, a single page, two-sided survey was inserted into the Voice.
The insert solicited input on the direct election of officers, term limitations, what UUP should expect from its affiliates, whether affiliations benefit UUP, the make-up of UUP's Executive Board, UUP's lobbying efforts, and UUP's promotion of curricular and pedagogical reforms. Approximately 300 survey forms were returned, most with handwritten comments. No formal tabulated results exist, but the first survey form in the group has percentages written on it. Also included in this series are a number of completed surveys that appear to have been received too late to be tabulated.
In early 1993, UUP's Research Department conducted a survey of both academic and professional newer members (classified as those who had been employed for less than ten years at their current campus). The tabulated results for both groups are included in this series, along with the completed survey forms for academic newer members only. The four-page survey form solicited information on topics such as possibilities for tenure, ability to obtain continuing appointment, workload, preferred salary mechanisms, availability of child care, flexibility of hours, impact of union participation on career, familiarity with UUP, and ways in which UUP could best serve the needs of newer academic members.
Subgroup V: Office of the Treasurer, 1972-1981. 1.0 cubic
feet. Arranged in one series.
Only the records of UUP's first Treasurer, Joseph Drew, have been maintained as a unit. For the most part, the work of later treasurers is recorded in the treasurer's reports and UUP annual budgets distributed at Delegate Assemblies and made part of the Delegate Assembly packets included in Series 2 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary.
Contains Executive Board meeting minutes (both draft and final), materials distributed at Delegate Assemblies, financial records including budget reports; finance committee meeting records, and other materials relating to UUP negotiations, committees, and projects, maintained by Joseph Drew who was treasurer of UUP from 1973-1974 and October 1975-July 1981. Drew was also active in both the statewide Senate Professional Association and the SPA's Buffalo chapter prior to the creation of UUP. These records deal frequently with UUP's predecessors, particularly the Senate Professional Association. See Subgroup II, UUP Predecessors and Early UUP Years, for additional records for that and other predecessor organizations.
Subgroup VI: Labor Relations-Negotiations, 1968-1999.
25.73 cubic feet. Arranged in four series.
Additional materials regarding negotiations are located in Subgroup II, UUP Predecessors and Early UUP Years; the files of Presidents Wakshull and Reilly in Subgroup III; and the files of Joseph Drew including in Subgroup V, Office of the Treasurer. The records of UUP's Negotiations Committee are included in Series 4 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary. Many of these records, however, deal more with the mechanics of negotiations and the operation of the Negotiations Committee, than the details of negotiations themselves. The materials in this Subgroup best document the overall negotiations process and the specific issues under discussion for any given contract.
There was no discernable order to negotiations materials through the 1988-1991 contract and during processing they were grouped by the individual contract to which they relate. "Collected Materials" was used to describe materials that were grouped together either by date or subject matter prior to processing, or for materials that were not originally in any order but for which a date or topical order could be readily assigned. At some point, possibly during preliminary processing activities, some of the files now designated as "Collected Materials" were reviewed by someone apparently involved in negotiations and approximate dates assigned to some of the materials. These dates have been written in pencil on the documents. Undated materials were left where they were originally found. During processing, indications were found that many of the files in the 1970s were those of Edward J. Alfonsin (UUP's Secretary from June 1975-June 1981 and member of several negotiations teams), and that many of the materials from the 1980s were from Fred Day (one of the field representatives provided to UUP by NYSUT). However, such materials were only designated by creator when that distinction could be confirmed and it was deemed important to understanding the context of the files.
Agreements, proposals, and "Collected Materials." The latter includes correspondence between the Senate Professional Association and the State of New York and some minutes of SPA's negotiations committee meetings. Topics covered include SPA counter proposals; informing members of the status of negotiations; questions regarding the extent of SPA's representation, with some correspondence from the State University Professional Association (SUPA); discussions of how SPA could best achieve what it wanted to do; the negotiations impasse declared around May 1971; and the establishment of fact-finding and a mediator. In addition, the 1971 agreement had yearly reopeners for salary and salary levels were frequently discussed. The "Collected Materials" in this subseries may have been from the files of Phil Encinio, originally an NYSTA-NEA representative, and by November 1971 SPA's Executive Secretary and Executive Director. The "Collected Materials" for the first half of 1973 included in this series were the files of Alan D. Willsey (chairman of UUP's Legislation Committee) and they overlap both the 1971-1974 contract and the 1974-1976 contract.
Minutes of negotiation meetings; negotiations bulletins; contract proposals; and correspondence, including requests to New York State for salary data. Salary was the primary issue in the 1974-1976 contract negotiations. A folder of "Collected Materials" for the first half of 1973 included in the previous subseries relates to the 1974-1976 contract as well.
Typed transcripts of negotiations sessions as well as handwritten notes taken at the negotiations table, correspondence, numerous annotated drafts of contract language, and contract proposals. The negotiations of the 1977-1979 contract are some of the most heavily documented in this Subgroup. See Series 3 of Subgroup IVA, Special Projects, for additional copies of proposals and handwritten notes related to this contract.
Proposals, correspondence, petitions from members regarding concerns over no single salary schedule in proposed contract, handwritten notes taken at negotiations table, transcripts of negotiations sessions, and information on agreement sent to members. Items of particular concern included part-time staff, medical practice plans, and health care. Retirement benefits and deferred compensation were also issues.
Several drafts of both contract demands and final agreement; informal typed notes on negotiating sessions and negotiating team meetings; handwritten table-taken notes from negotiation sessions; negotiation surveys; correspondence on various topics including concerns for negotiations, and preparatory work to get ready for negotiations and to get understanding of members concerns; and negotiations committee correspondence, notes, and miscellaneous reports on topics of concern. Quality of life issues such as health benefits, workloads, grievances, and compensation levels were of particular concern.
One of the most heavily documented negotiations processes in this subgroup. Multiple drafts and annotated copies of contract demands and language of final contract; transcripts and minutes of negotiation sessions and of UUP negotiations team; notes and correspondence of Tim Reilly, UUP's chief negotiator; correspondence; reports; news articles, petitions, and correspondence regarding UUP actions to protest impasse in contract negotiations; and reports and exhibits prepared for hearing to settle contract impasse. Most of the "Collected Materials" are arranged topically. Salaries, promotion, and health coverage were some of the main issues of concern.
Also included in this subseries are press releases, proposals, and correspondence regarding contract negotiations and final contracts between the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) and the Public Employees Federation (PEF) with the State of New York. They appear to have belonged to Fred Day, the NYSUT field representative assisting UUP with negotiations. Negotiations for the CSEA and PEF contracts were taking