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Ma rch 11 , 2015 • $1 .0 0
BACK-ANDFORTH BATTLE
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Knobloch leads Marengo boys basketball past ACC into sectional final / C1
HERALD RALD
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LOW
48 27 Complete forecast on page A6
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Committee backs off rule change Proposal would have regulated County Board members’ comments By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com WOODSTOCK – A McHenry County Board committee is backing away from the idea of regulating the comments that members are allowed to make near the end of full board meetings. The Management Services Committee’s recommended
Efforts to target unions multiply
changes to board rules no longer include requiring board members wishing to discuss something during the “members’ comments” portion to have it added to the agenda by majority vote, committee Chairwoman Tina Hill, R-Woodstock, said. “We got enough feedback that we need to leave it to the [County Board] chairman to control the quorum,” Hill said.
But a compromise measure will move the comment period to after executive session, at the very end of the meeting. Besides helping time management in the event that the board has closed-session business, it gives board members the ability to skip what they may consider rambling, irrelevant or offensive comments, Hill said. “If members choose to not
wait and hear somebody rambling on about some topic that’s not germane to county business, or they believe is just not appropriate, they can leave and not miss executive session,” Hill said. A majority of the committee, which is wrapping up its post-election task of reviewing board rules, made the proposal last month to improve time
management and civility. While complaints by some board members that a few get long on the tooth and sometimes short on decorum have been ongoing for years, the recommendation came in the wake of remarks criticizing the decision by new County Clerk Mary McClellan to hire her husband for a position.
See COMMENTS, page A4
What’s next The McHenry County Board Management Services Committee will vote March 23 to forward its recommended changes to board rules for formal ratification April 9.
AREA COLLEGES ALREADY ACCUSTOMED TO UNIONIZATION
A voice for adjunct faculty
Right-to-work not only issue at hand By JONATHAN MATTISE and NICHOLAS RICCARDI The Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. – It’s not just Gov. Scott Walker. Republican lawmakers in statehouses nationwide are working to weaken organized labor, sometimes with efforts that directly shrink union membership. Walker’s signing of right-towork legislation in Wisconsin on Monday puts his defiance of organized labor even more at the center of his nascent presidential campaign. And the inability of unions to exact a price for the first round of legislation targeting them in 2011 is encouraging even more proposals to limit their power. The Republican wave in the November elections left many unions nationwide looking exceptionally vulnerable. In West Virginia, a union PAC spent $1.4 million trying to keep the statehouse in Democratic hands but couldn’t reverse the cultural trends turning the state red. Exit polls found that even union members were almost evenly split between the Republican and the Democrat in the major statewide race for U.S. Senate. Now Republicans, in control of the state legislature for the first time since 1931, are taking advantage of their opportunity, pushing measures to expand nonunion charter schools and scale back requirements that public projects pay higher, union-scale wages. In Wisconsin, Walker beat back attempts to recall him after he signed a law limiting collective bargaining by public-sector workers in 2011. His signature on the right-to-work law now makes Wisconsin the 25th state to ban contracts that force all workers to pay union dues. Both he and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who signed a right-to-work law in 2012 and also was opposed by unions, won re-election in November. “Their examples were inspiring,” said Victor Joecks of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a conservative think
Photos by H. Rick Bamman – hbamman@shawmedia.com
Marybeth Linse, biology adjunct faculty at McHenry County College and president of the adjunct faculty association, describes cartilage in the knee during a class Monday. BELOW: Linse collects a test from one of her students during Monday’s class at McHenry County College. By ALLISON GOODRICH agoodrich@shawmedia.com CRYSTAL LAKE – For Marybeth Linse of Ingleside, the formation of an adjunct professor union several years ago at McHenry County College meant more than negotiating higher pay and feeling more secure – it meant having a voice. “It got us a conversation with the administration and the ability to be heard as a real entity,” said Linse, the president of the MCC Adjunct Faculty Association. It has become increasingly common at institutions, specifically private and religious schools most recently, for adjuncts to form or join collective bargaining units. In the 2012-13 school year alone, 15,000 part-time faculty at 40 schools formed units, according to the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College in New York. But at two-year public colleges, organized part-time faculty – typically making up a majority of
teaching staff – have been common for some time, with a 42 percent unionization rate. That compares to 25 percent at four-year public schools and 7 percent at private schools, said the center’s Executive Director William Herbert, citing 2012 data. “Historically, collective bargaining among faculty actually be-
gan with the organizing that took place among community colleges,” Herbert said. “There’s always been a much higher percentage there.” Area colleges fell into step with that practice several years ago. And adjuncts who are part of those groups have described the efforts as key in securing job stability, professional development oppor-
tunities, and the incremental pay raises received over the years. Several years ago, MCC administration and faculty negotiated a contract that promised an eventual and significant pay raise for adjuncts. The goal has been to align the part-time pay with the rate at other area schools, and MCC administrators said that goal has been reached at about 90 percent. Linse, who’s been at MCC since 2003, confirmed, saying it’s gotten “quite close.” The 2011-12 contract shows adjuncts with less than a master’s degree who have been at MCC between one and four semesters received $1,815 for three credit hours – generally one course. In the most recent contract for 2015-16, adjuncts with the same credentials receive $2,475, and will get $2,625 by the start of the 2017-18. That’s a 45 percent raise in five school years. “Having the increases in salary, not being able to be fired at
See ADJUNCTS, page A2
See UNIONS, page A4
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