Collections : [New York State Modern Political Archive]

A preliminary processing effort created four boxes under the general heading "Secretaries Files", with the folders in two of the boxes additionally designated as belonging to Edward J. Alfonsin (UUP's Secretary from 1975 to 1981, although some of the files pre-date his tenure as Secretary). It is unknown if this arrangement was original to the records themselves or created during preliminary processing. The records in this series overlap the records in other series in this collection, particularly the records of Delegate Assemblies and Executive Board meetings. However, the membership lists in this series are not found elsewhere in the collection.

Subject files designated as those of the Secretary, although the exact individual maintaining the files is unknown as they span several Secretaries' terms and include materials from prior to UUP's creation through the Reilly administration. The bulk of the files cover the end of the Wakshull administration, the entire Drescher administration, and the first year or so of the Reilly administration. It is suspected that the project and subject files from the Reilly administration included in Series 5 of Subgroup III in some way superseded these files except with regard to a few subjects.

UUP is affiliated with New York State United Teachers, the American Federation of Teachers, and the AFL-CIO. UUP's President has at times been a vice president of the AFT and served on its Executive Council, as well as on the Board of Directors of NYSUT. In addition, UUP sends representatives to the annual NYSUT Representative Assembly, the biennial AFT convention, and the biennial New York State AFL-CIO convention. Only a few officers attend the AFL-CIO conventions, while a substantial number of delegates are elected to attend the RAs and AFT conventions as representatives of UUP.

In the late 1970s UUP faced the most serious challenge to its position as bargaining agent from the New York Educators Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association. UUP disaffiliated itself from the NEA in 1976. The NEA/NYEA challenge culminated in an election for bargaining agent conducted by the New York State Public Employment Relations Board in December 1978. Through much of 1978, UUP campaigned for its continuation as bargaining agent for SUNY faculty and non-teaching professionals, with the assistance of professional organizers from the AFT and NYSUT field representatives.

During the 1980s and early 1990s UUP worked to correct salary disparities on behalf of its bargaining unit using a fund established in its contracts with the state. The contracts specifically prohibited the use of the fund for across-the-board salary increases and left the determination of the exact allocation of the disparity funds to a joint state/UUP committee. The primary intent of the disparity project was to identify specific categories of employees whose salaries were below national standards, not to address individual salary disparities. This did not prevent many bargaining unit members, however, from writing to UUP to make a case as to why their individual salary was unfair and should be corrected. For the most part, particularly for the latter disparity funds, materials submitted by individual applicants were not retained.

In the late 1980s, UUP created an "Archives Committee", responsible for creating a plan for the long-term management and preservation of UUP's records. The records of the Archives Committee are included in Series 4 of Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary. It is unknown if the committee specifically solicited historical documents or if an awareness of the committee and its charge prompted members to send to UUP materials they thought were historically important. Regardless, this series is an eclectic mix of materials relating to the Senate Professional Association, the State University Federation of Teachers, the State University Professional Association, and UUP. It reflects activities both statewide and on individual campuses and includes correspondence, meeting minutes, newsletters, negotiations proposals, handwritten notes, and workshop handouts. The records document some of the activities of the American Association of University Professors on SUNY campuses; mailings received by members of SPA welcoming them to that organization and informing them of the issues of the day; meetings of SUFT and SUPA; SPA's negotiations in the early 1970s and UUP's negotiations in the late 1970s; and some of the materials distributed to its leadership at the many workshops UUP has held over the years. One folder in the series documents student strikes on the SUNY Albany campus in 1970 and the response of faculty to those activities. Some of the materials in this series duplicate those found in Subgroup II, UUP Predecessors and Early UUP Years, and in the negotiations records in Subgroup VI for the applicable contract years. However, some of the campus-specific materials and the correspondence sent by SPA to its members are unique to this series, as are the set of workshop booklets.

UUP's Research Department conducts research on a variety of topics to assist UUP's leadership, committees, negotiators, and other UUP constituencies. One method of research is surveys sent to all or portions of UUP's membership. The completed survey forms (for the most part anonymous) often contain handwritten comments from members, documenting not only their thoughts and concerns regarding the subject of the survey, but occasionally broadly sweeping criticism of or praise for UUP in general. The surveys distributed to gather member input on negotiations are included in Series 3 of Subgroup VI, Labor Relations-Negotiations. Included in this series are the completed forms from other surveys conducted by the Research Department.

Contains Executive Board meeting minutes (both draft and final), materials distributed at Delegate Assemblies, financial records including budget reports; finance committee meeting records, and other materials relating to UUP negotiations, committees, and projects, maintained by Joseph Drew who was treasurer of UUP from 1973-1974 and October 1975-July 1981. Drew was also active in both the statewide Senate Professional Association and the SPA's Buffalo chapter prior to the creation of UUP. These records deal frequently with UUP's predecessors, particularly the Senate Professional Association. See Subgroup II, UUP Predecessors and Early UUP Years, for additional records for that and other predecessor organizations.

There was no discernable order to negotiations materials through the 1988-1991 contract and during processing they were grouped by the individual contract to which they relate. "Collected Materials" was used to describe materials that were grouped together either by date or subject matter prior to processing, or for materials that were not originally in any order but for which a date or topical order could be readily assigned. At some point, possibly during preliminary processing activities, some of the files now designated as "Collected Materials" were reviewed by someone apparently involved in negotiations and approximate dates assigned to some of the materials. These dates have been written in pencil on the documents. Undated materials were left where they were originally found. During processing, indications were found that many of the files in the 1970s were those of Edward J. Alfonsin (UUP's Secretary from June 1975-June 1981 and member of several negotiations teams), and that many of the materials from the 1980s were from Fred Day (one of the field representatives provided to UUP by NYSUT). However, such materials were only designated by creator when that distinction could be confirmed and it was deemed important to understanding the context of the files.