Letter to the Editor Asks Staff to Weigh In
April 23, 2008
Letter to the editor:
People are coming together at UNH, talking about their careers, experiences,
hopes, dreams and fears.
There is fear about escalating costs, shrinking raises, decisions being made
that affect us but over which we have no control. And the question is being
asked: What can an affiliation with the AFSCME union do for us, or not?
There are a couple of things I know. I know that when our transportation people
pose the idea of $240-a-year parking permits, they used comparison universities
of their choice whereas an affiliation with AFSCME would give us resources
to find our own comparisons.
I know that we have no input into how a 5.5 percent declared raise will be
divided up but our organized faculty does have a say in theirs. I know that
many of us spend HOURS working on our performance evaluation in hopes of squeezing
out as much of the merit portion as we can for ourselves.
But some (many?) will never see a full merit raise because they are supervised
by people who believe everyone has room for improvement therefore no one exceeds
expectations to the extent they deserve the full merit piece.
There are other supervisors who buck the trend of the annual performance evaluation,
write up their own outstanding eval for their support staff and give as much
as allowed under the guidelines for salary distribution. There are a lot of
apples and oranges among staff at a university.
I know that receiving “high priority” emotional inflaming email
from HR is anything but high priority in my workday, and disturbing to say
the least. Stories of single mothers not being able to afford dance lessons
for their child, if they have to pay $30 monthly union dues, is a pretty underhanded
piece of propaganda and an insult to the single parents that could not afford
dance lessons even without paying union dues. In fact, it’s rather ironic,
considering the need among that population of staff.
I know that staff are being asked to weigh in on the issue. If you want to
be apathetic, that’s your choice, but examining the issue, getting your
questions answered, and coming to your own conclusion would be the more responsible
thing to do, I think.
We have an excellent opportunity to do that, this week, as folks from all
over the country, staff from other universities, come in to share their experiences
at organizing with us. Also, if you’ve received an invitation to attend
a lunchtime discussion why not go, you’ve nothing to lose. If you didn’t
get a personal invite but see a discussion taking place while walking our beautiful
campus during lunch, stop and join in; the more that weigh in on the issue,
the better.
Marilyn Qua
Office of Sponsored Research
17+ years at UNH
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