Labor Leaders Call For New Trustees At Ewu Say Administrators Cutting Critical Services While Preserving Administrative Jobs

Labor unrest gripped Eastern Washington University again Wednesday as union leaders called for all trustees to resign and released new evidence that administrators were preserving their departments while cutting critical services to students.

“It’s time for the entire board of trustees of this university to resign because they are just as incompetent as (president) Mark Drummond and (provost) James Hoffman,” Duwane Huffaker, president of the Washington Federation of State Employees, told a rally of 100 union and non-union employees at the Cheney campus mall.

The federation’s Local 931, which represents half of the 416 so-called classified employees on campus, recommended five new trustees, including Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates.

The rally was the second on campus since university officials proposed cutting 46 positions to make up for falling enrollment and tuition revenue.

Drummond and Hoffman, who have submitted their resignations effective in 1998, were unavailable for comment.

Joe Jackson, chairman of the seven-person board of trustees, said he knows of no members who plan to step down.

“I do not accept that the university is without leadership,” said Jackson, a retired Hanford manager and EWU graduate. “We are not a rubber-stamp board. We are accessible to any group or any individual.”

Administrators are proposing to cut $2 million from the 1997-98 budget by eliminating 46 positions, many of which are already vacant. The plan would cut 27 faculty positions, 17 classified workers, and add two administrative positions.

Randy Parr, director of research for the employees federation in Olympia, said EWU is boosting administration jobs while sacrificing campus services to students.

Administration employees financed from the state general fund grew from 120 in 1994-95 to 147 projected for the coming year, Parr said. At the same time, the number of maintenance workers has shrunk to 56 positions, compared with 89 at Western Washington University in Bellingham, which is only slightly larger.

George Durrie, university director of government relations, said the rise in administration employees occurred when the state converted about 50 positions under other classifications to administrative jobs. He did not dispute the maintenance figures.

“We all want to have a great university, but as happens with family, there’s a disagreement over how to do it,” said EWU spokeswoman Stefanie Pettit.

, DataTimes