When I read what Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald emailed his team recently, all I could think of was my father: “Understand that by voting to have a union, you would be transferring your trust from those you know — me, your coaches and the administrators here — to what you don’t know — a…
What follows is taken from the United Mine Workers website. _________________________ The Ludlow Massacre The date April 20, 1914 will forever be a day of infamy for American workers. On that day, 19 innocent men, women and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. The coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been…
On April 25, Northwestern football players will vote on whether to form a union. But we may never know the results of the vote, because Northwestern University is fighting to have any union banned after the NLRB Regional Director ruled it could exist. In a legal brief appealing the ruling (pdf), Northwestern made a number…
News from the University of Illinois at Chicago faculty union (an AAUP/AFT joint union): “STRIKE AVERTED- University of Illinois at Chicago United Faculty (Local 6456) has successfully negotiated a tentative agreement on labor contracts for tenure-track and non-tenure track faculty!” We posted several articles during the earlier February 18 & 19 strike, including from Howard…
The Tacoma News Tribune very recently published a very thoughtful editorial by Bill Virgin titled “It’s Not So Far-Fetched to See the Future of Collegiate Sports as a Business Entity” [http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/04/13/3147199/its-not-so-far-fetched-to-see.html?sp=/99/261/]. Virgin considers the following contrasts: the erosion of the concept of the amateur athlete and the rise of professional sports as a major entertainment…
By a 94%-6% margin, the AAUP chapter at Portland State University has voted to strike on April 16 if substantive progress has not been made in their contract negotiations with their administration. They ask that you show your support for that vote by signing this petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/i-stand-with-the-educators-academic-professionals-at-psu They were initially hoping to get at least…
This guest post was written by Michael DeCesare, Chair of the Department of Sociology at Merrimack College and President of the AAUP Chapter there. At a special meeting of the University of Southern Maine (USM) faculty senate on March 14th, USM President Theodora Kalikow announced her plan to eliminate four academic programs and lay off…
This is a post by John McNay, President of the Ohio Conference of AAUP and the author of Collective Bargaining and The Battle of Ohio: The Defeat of Senate Bill 5 and the Struggle to Defend the Middle Class (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) [http://www.amazon.com/Collective-Bargaining-Battle-Ohio-Struggle/dp/1137339179/ref=la_B001KI3NOG_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396230324&sr=1-1]. _________________________ Three years ago, on March 31, 2011, the Republican-dominated Ohio legislature passed…
U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez today issued the following statement in observance of César Chávez Day, which is Monday, March 31: “Today, we celebrate one of the greatest Americans of the 20th century. César Chávez’s passion for social justice and his devotion to improving the lives of working people remain an inspiration 87…
In the Michigan Senate, the Appropriations Higher Education Subcommittee included in its budget proposal a penalty against any public college or university that teaches a labor-related course or offers a labor-studies program. Michigan State University has been considering an agreement to adopt a portion of programming from the National Labor College. A spokesperson for the…