Victory for Free Speech in Iowa as Assault on Unions Intensifies
BY HANK REICHMAN Iowa State University has lost an appeal in a federal free speech lawsuit that affirms student rights regardless of political viewpoint, the Des Moines Register reports. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled February 13 that school administrators, including President Steven Leath, violated the First Amendment rights of two…
Iowa Republicans Threaten the Living Conditions of Graduate Student Workers
BY MICHAEL MERANZE The following post by UCLA history professor Michael Meranze is reposted by permission from the Remaking the University blog that he runs along with UC Santa Barbara professor Christopher Newfield. As you may recall, a bill to eliminate tenure was recently introduced into the Iowa State Senate. After a good deal of…
The Bizarro-World Cabinet—Secretary of Labor
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Here are excerpts from two articles for Huffington Post on Andy Puzder, President Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Labor. The first excerpt is from Ryan Grim’s nightly newsletter: When I was in high school and working in the Washington College dining hall kitchen, where I swear it was 120 degrees,…
New Academe is a Call to Action for the Fight Ahead
BY KELLY HAND With the inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump just two days away, and with legislators in several states targeting higher education—through efforts to eliminate tenure (Iowa and Missouri) and specific courses or programs (Wisconsin and Arizona)—there is an urgent need for faculty to take action to protect academic freedom and quality higher education. The…
UC Workers on Strike for Fair Wages, Pensions
BY HANK REICHMAN Today more than 12,000 University of California (UC) administrative, clerical and support workers, members of Teamsters Local 2010, walked off the job to protest numerous unfair labor practices and violations of state law committed by the UC administration. The walkout at all ten UC campuses, five medical centers and three national laboratories…
John McNay Appears on America’s Workforce Radio
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH On January 3, John McNay, the President of the Ohio Conference of AAUP, appeared with Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga on Ed Ferenc’s radio program “America’s Workforce Radio.” Among other topics related to the labor movement, they addressed “right to work” theats looming in Ohio and nationally. The audio of the…
Statistics of the Day: Labor-Related
UMass Labor Center Saved from Shutdown
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In a September post to this blog [https://academeblog.org/2016/09/05/saving-the-labor-center-at-umass-amherst/], I reported on the efforts to keep the UMass Labor Center from being closed. Earlier this month, the Amherst Bulletin included a story by Jack Suntrup titled “UMass Labor Center Saved from Shutdown and New Scholarships to Center Available”: “After months of upheaval…
Atlantic Documentary: The Carrier Myth
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH During the 2016 election, the Carrier factory’s decision to move jobs from Indiana to Mexico was a story that stuck. Donald Trump won a political victory when he convinced the CEO of Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies, to keep 800 jobs in Indiana. Trump’s efforts run counter to a broader global…