Adjunct faculty at Nassau Community set strike vote

The union representing the adjunct faculty at Nassau Community College is warning its members to brace for a long strike, which would be illegal under the state Taylor Law prohibiting job actions by public employees.

The Adjunct Faculty Association, representing about 3,000 nontenured, part-time teachers at the college, has scheduled a strike vote for Thursday, when its current five-year contract expires, union officials said. But officials gave no indication of when an actual walkout might occur. The union and school officials have disagreed over wages.

Union president Charles Loiacono said in a letter to members earlier this month that a strike could cost the East Garden City school up to $70 million. He said students would demand their money back if they could not get credit for courses, and the state would cut its reimbursement because students would miss too many classes.

"The only necessity is for the AFA [union] to have the resolve to stay out once we are out," Loiacono wrote. "Our members will continue working their full-time jobs, so continuing the walkout until the magic number of attendance days come into play will be easy."

The college said in a letter to union members on Sept. 24 it would not lose money because reimbursement is based on enrollment at the beginning of the semester, not on days attended.

Loiacono and his labor attorney did not return telephone calls and e-mail requests for comment Monday.

The part-time teachers are paid a sliding scale based on their education level and the number of credit hours they teach. Someone with a master's degree and 30 additional credits, for example, would be paid $5,250 for teaching a three-credit course for one semester, attorney John Gross, the school's labor consultant, said. Loiacono, in his letter, put that salary at $3,336.

The school has proposed a five-year contract with a wage freeze in each of the first two years and possible raises in the other years, Gross said, while the union has proposed equality with full-time workers that equates to a 76.3 percent increase immediately.

The school said in a memo to all adjuncts last week that while it did not want a strike, if one occurred, it would impose the state-mandated fine of two days' pay per worker for each day of a strike, and it would stop deducting union dues from paychecks.