The Rather Innocuous Introduction of a Bad Bill

Here is the “right to work” legislation introduced in the Ohio House this morning: HB 377 UNION DUES (Brinkman, T.) To prohibit any requirement that employees of private employers join or pay dues to any employee organization and to establish civil and criminal penalties against employers who violate that prohibition. En. 4119.01, 4119.02, 4119.04, 4119.05, 4119.06,…

Is the Exploitation of Education Coming to an End?

In The New York Times today is an article, “For-Profit Colleges Accused of Fraud Still Receive U.S. Funds.” Exploitation of the failed student loan programs (failed, that is, in terms of protection against fraud by for-profits) continues, the Times says, even in the face of an Education Department crackdown on “bad actors.” The article claims:…

Putting the Compensation of the Leaders of National Unions in a Meaningful Context

  The Taxable Compensation of the Presidents of the Largest Unions in the U.S.:   In February 2014, the National Review published an article by Jim Geraghty titled “America’s Richest 2%: Union Presidents.” That article included the following paragraphs, heavily slanted to make the salaries sound outrageously disproportionate to what anyone in such leadership positions…

A Democratic Scott Walker?

Last week I posted an item reporting on the bargaining efforts of two AAUP/AAUP-CBC affiliated faculty unions, the California Faculty Association (CFA) in the California State University system and the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) in the City University of New York.  Now comes word that the AAUP’s own collective bargaining chapter at the Connecticut State…

Union Membership Boosts Children's Advancement

The following was reported last month in The New York Times: It is well established that unions provide benefits to workers — that they raise wages for their members (and even for nonmembers). They can help reduce inequality. A new study suggests that unions may also help children move up the economic ladder. Researchers at…

CFA and PSC Fighting for Faculty

Two AAUP/AAUP-CBC affiliates — the California Faculty Association (CFA), which represents over 23,000 faculty members in the 23-campus California State University (CSU), and the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the CUNY Research Foundation — are engaged in protracted contract…

Professionalism and Unionism: Academic Freedom, Collective Bargaining, and the American Association of University Professors

Not too long ago I was on a panel about academic freedom at the University of California, Davis, with Robert Post, Dean of Yale Law School, former AAUP General Counsel and Committee A Chair, and co-author (with Matthew Finkin) of For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom.  At a dinner afterwards with campus…