By Emerson Clarridge
The prospect of a faculty walkout threatening to disrupt the fall semester loomed this week as both sides in the ongoing labor dispute between the University's professors and administration engaged in heightened saber rattling.
Though negotiations are in the early stages, both sides appeared to be far apart on key issues and headed for a protracted summer of contentious talks before the current contract expires Aug. 31, professors said.
The University has proposed eliminating retirement health benefits for new professors and wants current professors to begin contributing to their health insurance plans, said Estelle Gellman, president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
The sharpest disagreement involves a salary increase, which the AAUP has suggested should be 8 percent. The union is waiting for the University to propose a counter offer, Gellman said.
Professors could walk out of their classes and form picket lines as students begin to return to campus in early September, an option that appeared more likely last week when it became clear the University would cut total compensation even if it did not insist on a significant insurance contribution, professors said.
"We have a very strong faculty that would want to take some action," Gellman said of the potential for a strike.
She fielded questions Wednesday at a raucous union meeting that was filled with professors eager to know what the University had put on the table.
The threat of a prolonged walkout presents a challenge for President Stuart Rabinowitz, said English professor Lee Zimmerman, who credited Rabinowitz with improving the academic reputation of the University and increasing its endowment since he arrived in 2001.
"Part of what it means to upgrade the University is to provide a decent working life for the faculty," Zimmerman said. There is broad support for a strike should the two sides fail to come to terms on a new contract, Zimmerman added.
"The faculty is certainly willing to strike if they need to," he said.
Some professors said their departments had difficulty hiring the best applicants, particularly with high housing costs on Long Island. An assistant professor typically earns $57,162 a year, according to the union.
"We're having trouble attracting top flight talent," said Richard Himelfarb, a professor in the Political Science Department.
"Hofstra faculty would be much better off if they were making 15 percent less and living in Kansas," he said.
Vice President of University Relations Melissa Connolly called the University's benefit package competitive, though she declined to describe the details of the offer.
"We want the faculty to be well compensated," she said, adding that the University is planning for a strike should the talks fail.
The University has added well-known labor attorney Robert Batterman to its team. Battermann, from the law firm Proskauer Rose, represented the NHL in a dispute with team owners that cancelled the 2005 season.
Some professors said Batterman's hiring was a particularly shrewd move.
"He's a notorious hard line union-busting kind of guy," Zimmerman said of Batterman, who joins Provost Herman Berliner and General Counsel Delores Fredrich on the University's negotiating team.
Connolly said Batterman is a well-regarded labor attorney that would advise the University in talks she described as having been, "amicable and productive."
The union sought this week to involve students in their campaign. Professors handed flyers and pins to students outside Axinn library.
Some union members said the effort to solicit student support had come too late and questioned the union leadership.
"As we wait, our leverage has declined," Himelfarb said, calling Gellman and top union officials "fundamentally feckless for not publicly charging that the University had not been acting in good faith."
Gellman, who has led the union for 15 years, said that negotiations this year had been unusually difficult.
She said that in the past, "we were able to conclude much earlier."
The University's AAUP chapter represents about 600 full-time faculty and adjuncts.
Professor Dennis Mazzocco distributes flyers outside Axinn Library informing students of contract negotiations.