Union Building Committees
UBCs provide process to solve problems

byJames Lee

What do reviewing a school budget, collaborating on a cafeteria menu, and revising emergency substitute site plans all have in common? They are all potential functions of a Union Building Committee.
Most Powerful Organizing Tool
The Union Building Committee, or UBC as it is commonly known, is one of UESF's most powerful organizing tools. A site-based committee of teachers and paraprofessionals, elected by their peers, the UBC's primary responsibility is to implement and enforce the teacher and paraprofessional contracts.

Since UBCs are the single, most effective way for teachers and paraprofessionals to collectively voice their opinions and ideas, UBCs are finding that they can take on much more. In addition to contract issues, UBCs can influence a site's academic program, increase participation in general union activity, and build staff cohesion and morale. How a UBC functions varies from school to school and whether it's at an elementary, middle or high school level.

One exemplary UBC is at Washington High School. At Washington, the UBC serves many functions. "We now define the contract as broadly as possible, viewing working conditions as maintaining the well-being of school, staff, and students. Anything we can (attempt to solve), we take on," according to long-time building representative Gerry Meister. "The committee has been able to expand upon its role as enforcer of the contract."

How to Start a UBC
at Your School Site

Starting a UBC at your site is a simple process that anybody can accomplish.

  1. Article XXV of the UESF contract empowers you to create this committee easily and quickly.
  2. Notify your union representative at the UESF office by calling 621.4438 to ask for any advice he or she can offer.
  3. Notify your administrator of your intent to form the committee. This courtesy should facilitate future relations between the committee and your administrator.
  4. Publicize the committee. UBCs have the right to a place on a staff meeting agenda. Inform your co-workers about the UBC and its functions. Stress that the goal is not to create more work, but rather facilitate overall communication and problem-solving.
  5. Hold elections to select committee members. These elections may be formal or informal.
  6. Announce the committee members. Tell all people involved, including administration and the UESF central office.
  7. You are ready to go. Set a meeting time and an agenda. Good luck!!!

--James Lee

Improved participation and mobilization
Among the benefits that Meister includes are improving overall communication, increasing participation in union political activity, and mobilizing teachers to cast their votes in union elections. Most importantly, says Meister, "we've provided a process for people to not complain about problems, but rather to solve them."

Many of the issues at Washington High School, a site with more than 100 faculty members and 2,600 students, are representative of the issues facing all large and middle-size campuses. Their Spring 2000 agenda, alone includes issues such as: Developing a formal process for obtaining building repairs in a timely manner; helping develop an improved hall supervision system; collaborating with the cafeteria supervisor to create hot lunch specials for the staff; and working with the principal to redesign the Spring Finals Schedule.

Hard work paid off at Fairmont
Four years of hard work have paid-off for building representative Cynthia Lasden at Fairmont Elementary. Elections are regularly held at the beginning of the year with full participation. The Fairmont UBC has expanded to three core members, and an increasing number of faculty members are taking interest.

"Our major success of the year," reports Lasden, "has been the revision of our Emergency Substitute Plan," a plan devised by each site to care for students when their substitute has not shown up. Faced with a higher number of such instances this year, the faculty revisited their plan. Through the UBC process, the staff decided to place the money that they'd otherwise have been paid for taking in extra kids when subs are absent into a supply fund. Lasden asserts, "What's really important here is that we were able to discuss options among ourselves and as a staff, agree to how we wanted to spend the money."

Other achievements of the Fairmont UBC range from maintaining an optimal schedule for primary grade teachers -- an issue of instructional minutes -- to simply encouraging the participation of all faculty members. As well, they have established a type of "check and balance" system between themselves and their administrator. For instance, the administrator now knows to regularly place the UBC on the faculty meeting agenda. Staff members have learned that they can speak-up to their administrator, feeling empowered by the status of the offical representation that the UBC gives them.


James Lee, former executive board member and second grade teacher at Lakeshore Alternative Elementary School, is currently on leave from the District. Please send news about the UBC at your site to the UESFwebster.

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