TC3 Adjunct Professors Win Union Authorization!

We’ve just received great and heartening news in hearing that the Adjunct Professors who have been organizing a union for the past two years at Tompkins-Cortland Community College (TC3) just received word from the NYS Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) that they have won their case! The Tompkins County Workers’  Center (TCWC) has played an important community/labor role in bringing attention to the plight of the TC3 Adjuncts and will continue to support them as they move into contract negotiations.

Read below for more details from the TC3 Adjunct Association’s statement below:

As most of you probably remember, back in June of 2015 the TC3 Adjunct Association (TC3AA), the Tompkins-Cortland Community College Faculty Association (the union which represents full-time faculty), and the College participated in a hearing at the Public Employment Relations Board (or “PERB,” the State entity that oversees unions and employers in the public sector). The TC3AA and the Faculty Association argued that the TC3AA (the union for adjuncts and tutors at the College) should be separate from the existing faculty union. The College argued that the adjunct union and the fulltime union should be merged.

Recently we received word that Judge Carlson of the Public Employment Relations Board has ruled in our favor that the TC3 Adjunct Association should be a stand alone union! We submitted the requisite paperwork to show that the TC3AA has the majority support of the adjuncts and tutors at the College. Once PERB has verified this they will “certify” the TC3AA as the official union for the College’s adjuncts and tutors. We know getting to this step has been a long and often frustrating process with unfortunate delays but now we are literally almost done.

But we’re almost done with the FIRST step. Now we need to turn our attention to building our organization and preparing for negotiations. When we met with representatives from TC3 management after the judge issued his ruling, we were pleased to hear that the College is interested in settling a contract with the TC3AA as soon as possible. That’s great news, but there will be a lot of work needed to make it happen. We are up for the task!

We are very excited at this long awaited moment and we hope we can continue to count on your support and encouragement as we move toward in the coming weeks and months to build a strong union and win a fair contract for TC3 adjuncts and tutors!

Sincerely and On Behalf of the TC3AA Executive Council,

Herman Altmann (Biology), Cindy Coleman (Sociology), Nancy Crane (Modern Languages/Spanish), Barbara  Need (English), Pat Sewell (Environmental Studies), Sherry Tacktill (English), Gregg Weatherby (English), Diane Williams-Altmann (Biology)