This is an excellent way to envision the activity you can engage with on furlough days. Service is more than just what you can do as an academic for your university, department, or professional associations.

Another local resource -
http://www.cuvolunteer.org/

The United Way of Champaign County and the Office of Volunteer Programs at the University of Illinois host this site that lists local agencies and volunteer opportunities for those interested. The agency info is for mostly up to date, but sadly the site calendar and volunteer opportunities hasn't been used as much as it could be since its launch several years ago.

I think Bruce has done great detective work in tracking down the relevant provisions in the FSLA. I'm also all for using the opportunity to do work in the community--even with many more furlough days most of us would remain quite privileged residents of Champaign-Urbana.

That said, I think that if we don't do two other things with our furloughs we'll be doing a disservice to ourselves, to the university, and to the people of Illinois. First, we need to use this as an opportunity to make visible the kind of work that we do in teaching, service, and research--work that literally cannot simply stop because the administration tells us we must. (Stop thinking? Stop reading? Stop worrying about our students, our next article, our next class?) Second, we need to use this as an opportunity to organize collectively. If we don't come together in a union--and soon--the outlook for public education is bleak indeed.

So, besides volunteering, how about a "work-in" on the Quad and an organizing drive for the Campus Faculty Association?

I'm obviously totally in favor of this, but I wanted to point out that Doug Kibbee, our fearless leader in FLB (sorry, I mean SLCL), forwarded this to everyone in the building before it could even appear over here on Kritik. Doug is quite right when he called it a "constructive and positive reaction to a negative development" (it's also humorous and has a cogent analysis of how we are being turned into wage laborers, at least temporarily), but this, of course, is also precisely its limit. At some point—perhaps not yet, but at some point—the proper response to the destructive and negative developments we have seen would be some additional negativity. But it would be our negativity. Negativity I can believe in.

Faculty who have the time to take a real furlough can send a strong positive message through the plan Bruce Rosenstock suggests. And their good work might help some people in our community which would be a nice thing to do. It's a great idea and if I could do it I would. The thing is I can't. Realistically, I might be able to take one furlough day in a semester. But we're being called on to take four. I can barely keep up with my workload as it is. And what would be the point of not working until 5:00? Is that what we're supposed to do: not work (or claim not to work) until after 5pm and then make up for it by working the swing shift? Moonlight on our own "furlough" days? Doesn't that defeat the purpose even of adherence to the federal guidelines? In either case, though I like the public-spiritedness of Rosenstock's suggestion, I also agree with Rothberg. It's important to do whatever takes to make the many kinds of work we do visible. This is also positive (though I understand what Rushing is saying as well).

My piece was intended, first of all, to explain as clearly as I could the legal situation that we find ourselves in. (By the way, for an explicit reference to this law as governing furlough policy, see the University of Arizona's furlough FAQ at http://www.hr.arizona.edu/furlough_faq.) We are wage laborers for the week of our furlough day. I thought that to embrace and push to its limit this legal condition might offer opportunities for revealing the contradictions inherent in the commodification of higher education. I do sincerely regret my lack of volunteerism and I do not want to instrumentalize whatever volunteer activities I and others may do on our furlough days, but I am not unaware that my suggestion has a potential for enacting a form of resistance precisely by obeying the letter of the law in a visible and public way.

I wanted to share two questions and their answers from the Oregan State University FAQ on their furlough (from Oct 1, 2009). We are all FLSA-exempt empoyees (exempt from overtime requirements because of our salaried status) so, at least on the interpretation of the law by the Oregon State lawyers, here are the consequences of the furlough:

O. I am a FLSA-exempt employee. How will mandatory unpaid time off affect me?
Deductions from the pay of an FLSA-exempt employee, for absences due to mandatory unpaid time off,
shall not disqualify the employee from being paid on a salary basis except in work weeks in which the
mandatory unpaid time off occurs and for which the employee’s pay is accordingly reduced.
P. Do FLSA-exempt employees take rest and meal periods during a furlough week and record hours
worked on their timesheet?
Yes. Because an otherwise exempt employee becomes non-exempt during a furlough week, they are
subject to the same wage and hour laws that apply to non-exempt employees. These employees must
take at least one 30-minute meal period and, at a minimum, two 10-minute rest periods during a normal
eight-hour workday. Employees are expected to report hours worked during the week that an unpaid
leave day is taken on their timesheet.
Employees will not be scheduled for overtime during weeks when she/he is scheduled for mandatory
unpaid leave time. If operating requirements require the employee to work overtime in the same week,
the authorization for overtime will be given to the employee in writing. The employee may also request
in writing to reschedule the mandatory unpaid leave day.

I cannot resist one more selection, this time from the Cal Poly Pomona FAQ on furloughs that are being taken throughout the California State University system this year.

16. Can a normally exempt employee still work more than 32 hours during a furlough week?

No. Exempt employees may not work more than 32 hours during a furlough week unless explicitly approved by the appropriate Vice President. The intent of the legislation is to reduce budget liability due to salaries. Overtime will increase the State's liability due to salaries. Employees can be disciplined for exceeding 32 hours without authorization.

17. Are exempt employees compensated for overtime during a furlough week?

Employees must be compensated for work in excess of 32 hours per week. Any hours worked up to 40 hours will be paid at straight time. Hours worked in excess of 40 hours will be paid at the overtime rate of 1.5 times the employee's regular rate of pay. All overtime hours worked must be reported on the Overtime and Excess Hours Paid Form. However, all overtime must be explicitly approved by the appropriate Vice President. The intent of the legislation is to reduce budget liability due to salaries. Overtime will increase the State's liability due to salaries. Again, employees can be disciplined for exceeding 32 hours without authorization.
18. I normally work outside the traditional office hours, often working more than 8 hours per day from home. Will this change for during the furlough weeks?

During a furlough week, exempt employees may be subject to a fixed work schedule (fixed start time and fixed end time).

During off hours, you should not be checking your voicemail, checking your email, or responding to telephone calls unless explicitly instructed to do so by the appropriate administrator. Your response to a phone call or email during your hours off will be considered unauthorized overtime.

Bruce,

Another great find about furloughs. We have indeed entered a Kafkaesque world.

Volunteerism is great, furlough or no furlough, and it may well also provide good publicity for our cause, but I'm not sure I understand how it is a form of resistance. To the contrary, it seems to suggest that the furlough really does leave us with time on our hands, when that is patently false.

Bruce, I appreciate your ongoing efforts to research the modes of furloughisme which have developed on various campuses. In the interests of clarity I want to point out that, so far as I know, there is no plan afoot to monitor or otherwise regulate the week in which faculty furloughs take place--as distinct from the faculty member's furlough day itself which must be reported. The situation is different for academic professionals--who, as I understand it, do need to certify no overtime in the furlough week. Here, btw, is a link to UI's own furlough FAQ page which, so far, is less detailed than those Bruce has discovered on the web.
https://hr.uillinois.edu/PolicyCompliance/PolicyLibrary/HRPolicy/FurloughFAQ_General.cfm
Bruce, I am sure that Charles Dickens, among others, would have a blast satirizing the fine details of furloughism that Oregon State and Cal Poly Pomona have felt compelled to address. With all the legal advice they have probably needed to seek out and the legal challenges they may well need to face, one wonders if they will end up saving money with their furlough programs!
One thing I'd like to add is that I agree with the Anonymous comment on the matter of work after 5pm on a furlough day. My guess is that it violates the spirit as well as the letter of the mandatory furlough. Doubtless any one of us can work after 5pm--as before it--on the sly. But I'm guessing that if you reported having worked in the evening hours you'd have un-furloughed yourself for that day. So that if you actually did fire up your computer after dinner (say to answer all those emails piling up) at the end of a furlough day in which you did volunteer work, you'd still be undoing your effort to observe the FLSA--or so I think. I can imagine the public responding well to faculty member's giving their time to the community--on furlough days or any other. I also like Michael's notion of a work to educate the public about the many things we do. Lauren

Chancellor Easter joked at the university-wide meeting for EOs about how, if the law were to be strictly enforced, he might have to remove people's Blackberries on the furlough day. I quote below from the University of Wisconsin implementation rules for their furlough so you can see why this is not a joke. The fact that we faculty are not being monitored on our furlough days and that we are not being required to keep a record of our work during the rest of the week (as Academic Professionals must) is actually, in my opinion, a way of keeping us mollified and dividing us from other equally affected workers. In other words, it is precisely designed to weaken our sense of solidarity as wage laborers. I intend to invite Chancellor Easter to make a statement about his seriousness about the furlough and, on at least a few of his ten furlough days, join (or even lead) a group of faculty in doing volunteer service. He certainly can't say that he's too busy.

Here is the relevant implementation rule from the University of Wisconsin:

"Employees must be specifically directed not to work any time
during which they are scheduled to be on furlough, without the
specific authorization of their supervisor or manager. Such work
includes being physically present in the work place, work at home,
work online, work on the telephone, “working lunches,” work on a
Blackberry or work on a cell phone. All such unscheduled,
unapproved work in furlough weeks is prohibited. Violation of this
prohibition may result in discipline."
(http://www.uwsa.edu/furloughs/docs/plan.htm)

N.B.: The rule speaks about IN FURLOUGH WEEKS not ON THE
FURLOUGH DAY. In other words, all non-
prohibited work must fall within the 32 hours remaining in the work
week of the furlough.

Is there another, better way to implement the furlough? No way is wonderful, but the University of Arizona allows for taking the 8 hours of the furlough in one hour increments throughout the pay period. In addition, it imposes a "progressive" scale, as do many other universities, that adjusts days to salary levels. This is both more rational and fairer than our policy.

I just came across this article on furloughs by Christian Matheis - he raises an interesting distinction between solidarity and loyalty in terms of power and the specific context of faculty senates voting to support furlough policies.

http://tiny.cc/hXOj2