About Us

Dutchess United Educators is the union representing approximately 170 full-time educators (teaching and non-teaching) and approximately 300 part-time faculty and non-teaching educators at Dutchess Community College. On behalf of the constituencies it represents, DUE secures wages, benefits and working conditions negotiated through collective bargaining with the Dutchess Community College Board of Trustees. The Dutchess County Legislature approves the final contracts. DUE monitors working conditions and wages at DCC to assure the contractual agreements are followed, and works with the DCC administration to resolve any contractual issues that arise.

While DUE promotes and defends the interests of its members, it also organizes a community of professional educators, who are sensitive to students’ needs and committed to a sound educational environment for the College. DUE is committed to creating the best possible academic outcomes for DCC's students and recognizes that the working conditions of faculty and non-teaching educators, both full-time and part-time create the learning conditions for our students.

DUE, as a strong, effective union, also works in Dutchess County to build greater understanding of the role of the organization by offering accurate and positive perceptions about members’ contributions to the College and to the greater Hudson Valley region. A strong Dutchess United Educators is one of the best assurances of a healthy Dutchess Community College.

As of May 16, 2024, DUE is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and its affiliates, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), and the New York State Conference of the AAUP (NYSAAUP).

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A Brief History of the Founding of DUE

In the following 2007 article “Unionization at Dutchess Community College,” the late DCC Professor Emeritus of English Howard Winn provides a brief history of the founding of DUE. Professor Winn was instrumental to the union’s founding and a key player in the events described below in his article. Professor Winn was a President of the Dutchess Community College AAUP Chapter, a President of the Dutchess Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, and the third President of Dutchess United Educators, serving from 1976-1979. He was also a founding DCC faculty member of and served as Chair of the Department of English and Humanities from 1958 to 2004.

“Unionization at Dutchess Community College”

by Howard Winn

originally published in Dutchess Community College: The 50th Anniversary, a special issue of the Dutchess County Historical Society Year Book, Volume 86, 2007

The organizing of a labor union at Dutchess Community College for faculty and professional staff came about when it did primarily because of the existence of three conditions that spurred activists to begin making plans for unionization and ultimately to the creation of what became the Dutchess United Educators.

One event was the passage in 1967 of the Public Employees Fair Employment Act, known as the Taylor Law, which defined the rights and limitations of unions for public employees in New York State. The parts of the law that defined the rights of public employees to organize and to bargain collectively were essential to support the growing militant mood on campus.

The Taylor Law, named for labor researcher George W. Taylor, also authorized a governor-appointed State Public Employment Relations Board to resolve contract disputes for public employees. Mediation and binding arbitration was intended to give voice to unions, although work stoppages were made punishable with fines and jail time. It was the legal governmental support for union activity that was most important at that moment in the history of Dutchess Community College.

In spite of the strike limitations placed upon the unions and their members, it was a significant event—giving the faculty and professional staff of Dutchess Community College the right to organize and to give voice to their working and professional rights through contract negotiations with administrative management and the Board of Trustees. Defining these rights

was vital in the face of the founding college Administration's stated position that there would never be such benefits for faculty as tenure, due process for non-renewal of employment contracts, or a faculty senate organized under an academic governance.

The second factor that contributed to the support of unionization was the membership of some instructors in the American Association of University Professors, primarily because of previous employment or graduate study in higher education.

These faculty members saw that this membership gave them the ability to create an AAUP chapter on the Dutchess Community College campus. Such a chapter could provide a ready-made parent organization, though the AAUP had historically not been involved in labor negotiations. The AAUP concerned itself with maintaining professional standards and preserving academic freedom on college campuses, of which an acceptable tenure policy and effective faculty governance were keystone items.

The third reason was an occurrence in 1969 that was referred to by some in the college administration as "the non-retention" of a faculty member, an Assistant Professor who had served without official criticism for over seven years, a period which AAUP defined as sufficient to require granting tenured status whether the college had such a policy in place or not. A significant number of faculty members saw this act as an implicit attack upon academic freedom for teaching staff—as did the AAUP—and an unwarranted administrative move that undermined the rights and obligations of professional teachers, as well as denying "due process" to the faculty member involved. Furthermore, this arbitrary act could establish a precedent for future administration/faculty relations.

The members of the newborn AAUP chapter took the matter to the national organization, which was willing to take up an investigation and issue a ruling by its standing committee on Academic Freedom. An investigator from the national office, Jordan E. Kurland (who went on to become a major leader of the AAUP and to be its Executive Secretary), came to the campus for preliminary investigations and recommended a faculty committee, made up of outside teaching professionals, be authorized to make full investigation, interview all relevant faculty and administrators, request pertinent documentation, and issue a report to the full membership of the national AAUP.

The investigation and the subsequent decision by the AAUP national membership later in 1969 to censure the college, its administration, and its Board, informed the professional staff and teaching faculty as to the power and authority the support of such a prestigious group gave to that staff and faculty, if they would organize to use it. Such democratic rule would support not only acceptable working conditions, but insure democratic professional input in such matters as curriculum development and revision, and the creation of a college governance which would meet AAUP standards.

Since at that time the AAUP was not set up to be a bargaining agent (as it has now become), the members of the DCC AAUP chapter decided that it was incumbent upon them to explore affiliation with organizations that would represent faculty and professional staff in bargaining, as mandated under the recently passed Taylor Law.

The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association both seemed possible vehicles to various faculty members, and membership in these two organizations was explored. Approximately three quarters of the faculty preferred the AFT as a parent body for a Dutchess Chapter. Approximately one quarter chose to create an independent "company" union for bargaining, which could be loosely affiliated with the NEA. This latter group preferred what they saw as a "professional" organization. The former, a majority of faculty, preferred the strength of a national labor union and its resources as well as its experience in tough collective bargaining. They saw the NEA as an association comprised of a large proportion of public school principals and district superintendents who did not share the economic or professional concerns of class room faculty and in some instances would work in opposition to them.

Turning for advice and aid to Dr. Israel Kugler, a union organizer of college faculty, teacher of social sciences at New York City Community College, and President of the United Federation of College Teachers at that time, best known for leading the faculty strike against St. John's University, and to Albert Shanker who was head of the American Federation of Teachers as well as a president of the UFT, the majority of Dutchess Faculty joined the UFT/AFT. The much smaller group of faculty became a chapter of the NEA.

A question was raised as to exactly which group would take the lead in the collective bargaining. The administration appeared to some faculty to encourage the sense of conflict between the two groups as a bargaining ploy—a divide and conquer technique that would clearly disadvantage the faculty. As a creative move, the President of the UFT/AFT chapter suggested that for this first collective bargaining with the Administration and the Board, the two groups join as a confederation to be known as Dutchess United Educators and that a negotiating team be selected that would represent both faculty groups. This amalgamation was effected and DUE was born. Incidentally, at a much later date the NEA of New York State elected to merge with the UFT/AFT of New York State to become NEA-NY and the initial conflict over representation became a moot issue as far as Dutchess Community College faculty and professional staff were concerned.

Embarrassed by the AAUP censure and the adverse publicity that it engendered about this relatively new community college which had been proudly proclaiming the high quality of its education, the college administration made a reasonable money offer to the ill-treated instructor who was by this time on the faculty of a local four-year college, created a college governance with a Professional Staff Organization, created elective committees to consider curriculum, promotion and tenure issues as well as other professional matters such as sabbatical policy, and salary schedules tied to professional ranks that had been dealt with before this time by administrative fiat. Censure was lifted by the AAUP in 1972, three years after the investigation was initiated.

If we could identify one important motivation behind the desire to bring genuine academic standards and concerns to Dutchess Community College it would be the realization that we cannot teach democratic values to students in an autocratic institution. The hypocrisy would be blatant and contrary to the mission of the College. In addition, it would make suspect the educational legitimacy of the instruction and the instructor.

The Dutchess Community College motto, emblazoned in the College seal, Education for a Democracy of Excellence, had taken on the depth of meaning it implied when first selected in 1958—emphasizing both Excellence and Democracy.

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Today DUE represents 175 full-time educators (faculty and non-teaching educators) and approximately 375 part-time educators (adjunct faculty and part-time non-teaching educators).

DUE Presidents

2023- Laura Murphy

2020-2022 Werner Steger

2017-2020 Mark Condon

2014-2017 Johanna Halsey

1997-2014 Joseph Norton

1995-1997 Richard MacNamee

1993-1995 George Stevens

1988-1993 Richard Malboeuf

1986-1988 Richard Reitano

1984-1986 Mario Triola

1981-1984 Richard Reitano

1979-1981 Francis Monahan

1976-1979 O. Howard Winn

1974-1976 Arduino Menegat

1973-1974 I. Jack Lippman