Lecturer rally planned on EMU campus

While negotiations for the University's Graduate Employees Organization members have resulted in a tentative agreement, the quest for union status and improved job benefits is just beginning for hundreds of Eastern Michigan University employees.

Today at noon, members of Eastern Michigan University Lecturers Organizing Congress are scheduled to stage a rally at Welch Hall on the EMU campus to protest administrators' prevention of lecturer unionization.

Lecturers are non-tenure track faculty members who are hired by the university to teach.

EMULOC member Mary Jean Banic said the primary goal of the protest is to show that the university's more than 400 lecturers deserve recognition.

"There are a lot of lecturers on this campus that make a large contribution to the quality of life on campus," said Banic, an English lecturer. "While we love what we do, we do feel underappreciated."

During the past year, EMULOC has petitioned the Michigan Employment Relations Commission to grant a union election. While the verdict is not expected for several months, EMULOC members said they will continue to fight in the interim.

"The point of the rally is we don't want to sit and wait for the legal proceeding to occur," said Jon Curtiss, a union organizer and former GEO member.

"We can't depend on MERC to make the right decision," Curtiss added, explaining that the commission denied the 1997 request for unionization.

EMULOC members chose the time and location of today's rally to coincide with Eastern Michigan's regular Board of Trustees meeting, held inside Welch Hall. In addition to protesters outside the building, EMULOC members plan to attend the meeting to present a petition signed by the university's lecturers demanding administrators recognize EMULOC as a union and negotiate wages, job security and departmental input.

University lecturers also plan to share with the board what chemistry lecturer Julie Frentrup calls "horror stories." Frentrup said many lecturers, including herself, must take on additional jobs to compensate for low wages. Although she said many lecturers make up for lost wages by teaching classes at more than one campus, she edits textbooks, writes software for Prentice Hall and is a professional musician.

"I have been offered jobs outside my area of study for higher salaries than I'm making for the one I was formally trained in," said Frentrup, who has worked at the university for 15 years.

Support for lecturers is not limited to EMULOC. Eastern Michigan's chapter of the American Association of University Professors has endorsed the demands of the group.

Student Body President Adrianne Marsh said although the student government has not made any formal endorsement, many students are sympathetic to lecturers needs.

EMULOC is also receiving support from the University. GEO Chief Negotiator Eric Odier-Fink said some GEO members plan to attend the rally.

EMULOC is a group "fighting for a union contract," he said. "It my responsibility as someone who just got one to get over there and offer support."

03-16-99