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Since 1900 \ Volume 106, Issue 120 | Monday, March 14, 2005
ATU, LTD
reconcile;
bus service
resumes
Union members approved the
contract offer 185-6, ending the
strike that began March 7
BY MEGHANN M. CUNIFF
SENIOR NEWS REPORTER
Lane Transit District is back in business.
After more than 25 total hours of mediation
marathons during the past four days, members
of the union representing more than three
fourths of the district’s employees approved
LTD’s latest contract offer 185-6 on Sunday.
Amalgamated TVansit Union Division 757’s
approval of the contract concludes nearly 11
months of contract negotiations and puts an
end to a county-wide driver strike that left LTD
buses immobile since March 7.
LTD mechanics went back to work Sunday
night to get the buses ready to resume
service today.
“We won, we know we won, but let’s not
gloat openly,” ATU Division 757 President A1
Zullo said at the beginning of Sunday’s
membership meeting.
uwiii paiuco oaiu nicy aic acuidiicu wiui U1C
contract settlement and are eager to see the
buses back on the streets.
“Both sides certainly gave up on some of the
interests they had in their packages to get an
agreement, and ultimately that means the com
munity wins because bus service will be back
on the street,” LTD Service Planning and Mar
keting Manager Andy Vobora said.
LTD and ATU had been at odds over their
2005-07 contract since May, with professional
mediator Wendy Greenwald leading more than
six mediation sessions between the two groups
over the course of three months.
After each failed mediation session, both sides
contended the other did not make any notable
concession, with the main point of conflict con
sistently being the cost of health-care coverage.
After the strike began, Eugene Mayor Kitty
Piercy, former state labor commissioner Jack
Roberts and local attorney Art Johnson formed
a mediation team that served as a negotiation
facilitator and room-to-room messenger be
tween LTD and union representatives.
LTD and union representatives credited the
team with paving the way for a contract that
both sides find satisfactory.
“If they wouldn’t have stepped in, we’d still
be on strike, without a doubt,” LTD driver and
union wage committee member Walt Boynton
said. Boynton has worked for LTD for 31 years.
“I think there’s a lot of bright people on that
group, and though they certainly didn’t have all
the background and detail, I think that they really
did help accelerate the process,” Vobora said.
Piercy said in a phone interview that the dis
trict’s desire to look out for the long-term well
being of the company and the union’s desire to
preserve health-care benefits was the biggest is
sue to balance during the mediation sessions.
“I believe a resolution was found that re
sponded to both of those needs,” Piercy said.
Piercy commended the involvement of her
husband, David Piercy, Roberts, and Johnson and
Margaret Hallock of the Wayne Morse Law Cen
ter, who she said were all “very skilled at working
together and thinking outside the box.”
Carol Allred, LTD bus driver and executive
board officer for ATU Division 757, said the medi
ation team’s “innovative” thinking was pivotal in
getting both sides to take a step back and reevalu
ate their positions on a number of issues.
BUS, page 16A
“You only get the benefits of diversity if you have enough numbers to break down isolation and stereotypes.
Greg Vincent | Vice provost for institutional equity and diversity
The
FACE
of
EDUCAnON
The University is attempting
to increase its recruitment
and retention of faculty of color
BY MORIAH BALINGIT & ADAM CHERRY
NEWS REPORTERS
Five percent of University employees are
Asian or Pacific Islander, 3 percent are Hispan
ic, 1 percent is black and 1 percent is American
Indian. The vast majority, 86 percent, is white.
“I look at the numbers, and they’re trou
bling,” said ASUO Women’s Center Interim Di
rector Erin O’Brien, who is Asian-American.
“But it feels even more isolating when you’re ac
tually living in it.”
Faculty and staff of color have struggled to
find their place at the University. Although their
numbers have risen in the past few years, some
say it hasn’t gotten much easier.
“It’s pretty bleak, despite what the adminis
tration often says,” Ethnic Studies Director Mar
tin Summers, also an associate professor of his
tory, said of the situation on campus. “Numbers
have increased, but it’s not very apparent as far
as moving around campus.”
The University is struggling to attract and
hold onto these faculty members. It has taken
the first steps in revamping efforts to recruit
and retain faculty of color with the proposed
Diversity Action Plan, a comprehensive set of
policies, initiatives and action items intended
to address issues of diversity in faculty, among
other things.
Greg Vincent, vice provost for institutional
equity and diversity, was hired in January
2004 to address issues of diversity and equity
on campus and was charged with the task of
developing the plan. The five-year plan
is currently in development, and Vincent
said the first set of policy recommendations
will be done by the beginning of spring term
and will be ready for implementation the
following term.
“One of the University’s goals is to build a
critical mass of people from diverse back
grounds through active recruitment and reten
tion of students and faculty,” Vincent told the
Emerald in December. “You only get the bene
fits of diversity if you have enough numbers to
break down isolation and stereotypes.”
Recruitment and retention
A main challenge the University faces in
building “critical mass” is the low retention rate
of faculty of color, something Lyllye Parker, an
academic adviser in the Office of Multicultural
Affairs, referred to as the “revolving door. ”
“Faculty of color are being hired, staying for
one to two years, then moving on,” Parker said.
Retention rates have long been central to the
discussion surrounding diversity in faculty. In
2001, Kenneth Lehrman III, then the director
of the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal
Kate Horton | Photographer
Greg Vincent is the vice provost of institutional equity and diversity.
Kate Horton | Photographer
Erin O’Brien, interim director of the ASUO Women’s
Center, said the Diversity Action Plan brings about huge
potential for change. "The University is at a crossroads,
and there’s a really good opportunity to make a change.”
Kate Horton | Photographer
Affirmative Action Director Penny Daugherty said
increasing diversity benefits everyone. "This isn’t a
matter of just benefiting women or racial or ethnic
minorities, it benefits us all. It makes our community
more innovative."
Opportunity, said retention of minority em
ployees was disproportionate; employees of
color were leaving at greater rates than their
white peers.
“Although minority faculty have been
successful, the overall retention of minority
employees remains troublesome,” Lehrman
wrote in a report to University President
Dave Frohnmayer.
That same year, the Office of Academic Af
fairs initiated exit interviews of faculty of color
who had left the University between 1996 and
2000, in part to address these concerns. The fi
nal report contained responses from 12 faculty
of color, although 36 faculty members had left
during that period.
The report summarized the respondents’ an
swers to a number of questions regarding their
experiences at the University and their reasons
for leaving. While many respondents cited rea
sons that were not related to diversity, some in
dicated clear frustration with the University’s
handling of diversity issues.
“Colleagues/department were paternalistic
on issues of diversity,” the report stated.
“1 felt wounded and hopeless when I left. Felt
my hire was classic tokenism,” read another
paraphrased quote.
One respondent said “some faculty attitudes
were that a faculty of color person was inferior. ”
Lorraine Davis, vice president for academ
ic affairs, said no discernible pattern for
leaving could be found among the
respondents’ answers.
The University’s history has been marred
with the departures of prominent faculty
of color.
In 1985, the University School of Law lost
its dean and one of its most prestigious schol
ars, Derrick Bell. Bell, who is black, resigned
after the law school faculty committee re
fused to extend a professorship to an Asian
American woman.
After the committee had conducted inter
views, it selected its top three candidates. When
the first two candidates, both white males, re
fused the offer, the committee decided to restart
the search rather than hire the woman.
“I felt a conflict between my responsibilities
as a dean and my beliefs in how hiring should
be done,” Bell told the Emerald in 1985. “I was
faced with having to reject a person I thought
was very well-qualified on the basis of a proce
dure I couldn’t go along with.”
Two years ago, professor Robin Morris
Collin also left the School of Law for
DIVERSITY, page 9A