This post is an elaboration on a message that was sent to the members of our chapter at Wright State University, which itself was collaboratively drafted and developed from a message distributed by the chapter leadership at the University of Cincinnati. (In these kinds of things, it is “collaboration” and “sharing,” not “plagiarism.”) We have…
The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that a worker using profanity on Facebook that criticised an employer cannot be used to fire the worker. The N.L.R.B. has jurisdiction over labour and union issues at private post-secondary institutions. It is possible that this ruling could have major academic freedom implications when civility is claimed as…
Testimony of John McNay, Ph.D., President Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors Before the House Finance Committee Representative Ryan Smith, Chair April 16, 2015 Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Driehaus, and distinguished members of the Finance Committee: my name is John McNay and I am President of the Ohio Conference of the…
Earlier today, Tuesday, April 14, House Republicans unveiled Substitute House Bill 64, which contained their revisions to the governor’s budget. Most alarming about the substitute bill were new provisions that would reclassify faculty as managers if they participate in any sort of decision-making at their institutions. If faculty are managers, then they are not employees,…
This is a carefully prepared, persuasive, and at times eloquent speech. It would have been nice if such speeches had been given more consistently at the beginning of the Obama presidency, instead of at the tail end of it, and if they had reflected a broader and louder political focus on protecting and promoting labor rights.…
The following letter was published in the Toledo Blade this past week. It was written in response to a seemingly well intentioned and fairly thoughtful op-ed on the increasing tuition and fees being paid students and their families, which unfortunately suggested that faculty compensation and the leverage provided by unionization were among the main culprits:…
We received this request by e-mail. I don’t know any of the specifics of this labor impasse, but it does not seem as if the graduate-student union is asking for anything extraordinary. _________________________ The CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) 3903 strike at York University in Toronto is in its third week. York University is…
Remarks U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez, Induction of Senator Edward M. Kennedy Into the Department of Labor Hall of Honor, Washington, D.C., March 12, 2015 [as prepared for delivery] Thank you, Chris. Mrs. Kennedy, Teddy, Patrick, Secretary Brock, Secretary Herman, friends, colleagues, thank you so much for joining us today. I looked…
John McNay’s testimony was listed first in University Business’s daily overview of the most notable higher-ed news stories of the previous day The UB Daily item links to an article by Karen Farkus in the C leveland Plain Dealer. Here are the opening paragraphs in that article: “COLUMBUS, Ohio – College professors are taking a…
The recently inaugurated Republican governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, has signed an executive order banning public-employee unions from collecting fair-share contributions from those employees who choose not to belong to the unions that represent them. I very recently did a post on the very skewed logic behind “right to work” legislation—see https://academeblog.org/2015/02/07/right-to-work-provides-workers-with-many-rights/ Rauner, previously the…