The Audio Visual series includes DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, Beta tapes, DVDPros, and cassettes. The collection contains commercials, videos of guest speakers, such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, marches, speeches, conventions, and protests.
This series contains the compiled results of membership surveys conducted by UUP in 1988, 1990, and 1994, as part of its preparations for upcoming contract negotiations. It also includes those survey forms with additional handwritten comments from the member completing the survey. Although for the most part anonymous, these comments document the concerns of UUP members in their own words. Because the information from uncommented forms was already captured in the compiled results, they were not retained as part of this collection.
This series contains many press releases concerning new bills, Button's comments on current events and materials related to Button's speaking engagements. There are a number of teleprompt papers from televised events. The teleprompt paper remains connected together like an accordion and is delicate to handle. There are also a number of different drafts of Button's speeches, with handwritten revisions.
The Governor's Office of Employee Relations (GOER, also referred to as OER) ensures that all state agencies, including SUNY, observe all policies regarding state employees. It is with GOER that UUP negotiates its contracts and to whom UUP turns when it feels that SUNY is not following the contract or the state's employee rules. The correspondence in this series documents the wide variety of issues that UUP has brought to GOER's attention when it felt that SUNY was attempting to "unilaterally change the terms and conditions of employment" for members of the UUP bargaining unit. The primary correspondents are UUP's President, Executive Director (later Director of Staff), and Associate Director of Staff, and the various directors and assistant directors of GOER over the years. The specific topics covered vary widely, and have included over the years increased teaching workloads, changes in required office hours for faculty, the subcontracting of work by campuses, campus smoking policies, sabbatical leave, promotion guidelines, and clinical practice plans, to name just a few. The correspondence in this series also reflects UUP's concerns, as expressed to GOER, regarding activities of SUNY management seen as inappropriate such as the alleged harassment of grievants, alleged interference with attendance of members at union meetings, alleged disparaging remarks made by SUNY representatives regarding UUP or union activity in general, and in the late 1970s in allowing the presence of representatives of the American Association of University Professors on campus and providing them with meeting space and access to campus mail services in direct violation of UUP's recognition as sole bargaining agent.
Primarily outgoing correspondence from UUP's President, Executive Director (later Director of Staff) and Associate Director of Staff to representatives at SUNY Central Administration, including the Chancellor, Director of Employee Relations, Employee Relations Associates, and the Vice Chancellors of various areas including Academic Affairs, University Affairs, Employee Relations and Personnel, and Faculty and Staff Relations. The correspondence in this series requested SUNY to investigate practices on specific campuses that UUP objected to or requested clarification on. A wide gamut of issues were covered, such as the application of SUNY policies from one campus to another, vacancy announcements listing below minimum salaries, attendance reporting systems implemented on campuses, the ranking of professional positions, discretionary salary increases, concerns with building security on a campus, and SUNY's patent policy to name just a few.
A single page, two-sided newsletter for chapter leaders, chapter newsletter editors, delegates, Executive Board members, and committee members, printed approximately monthly on an academic year basis (i.e., September to June). As of the late 1990s, the circulation of The Connection was approximately one thousand, but chapter newsletter editors are permitted and explicitly encouraged to reprint any materials. Topics receiving regular attention include negotiations updates; member benefits information; SUNY system issues, including the SUNY budget; information on upcoming meetings and Delegate Assemblies; reports on campus specific issues of interest and/or concern to all; reports on political activism and lobbying activities; information on advertising campaigns; upcoming NYSUT and AFT conventions; and information on grant opportunities.
The Voice is the official publication of UUP distributed to all members of the bargaining unit. In addition, complimentary copies are distributed to top-level members of SUNY management, lawmakers, and news media organizations in the state. Published on an academic year basis (i.e., each volume runs roughly from August or September to May or June), The Voice regularly carries candidate statements, information on statewide and Delegate Assembly elections, the annual audit, attendance reports for affiliate conventions, and verbatim text of negotiations proposals made by both the State and UUP. Regularly featured topics include contract negotiations with the State of New York; Executive Board activities; chapter events and issues; the SUNY budget and legislative issues affecting SUNY and higher education; increases in membership; advertising campaigns; feature articles on particular campuses, and/or specific departments or individuals on campus; information on candidates UUP endorses for state and national offices; and messages from UUP's leadership, including columns by UUP's President and reports on the President's activities.
This series contains volumes of Summary of Legislation, the annual bound compilation of New York State legislation issued by the State Legislature. It also contains a handful of Summary of Legislation Update Books.
