Ever since the attacks on public sector unions, working families, and public education in Wisconsin that began just over two years ago, my own writing has changed. It’s become less…well, “academic.” I find myself more interested in plowing through company SEC filings on Lexis-Nexis than some of the newest scholarship in my field. Don’t get…
I am a member of APSCUF – the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties – the union that represents over 6,000 faculty and coaches in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). I am sure that many readers of this blog are aware that we have been in a two-year long contract…
In September, I posted to this blog an entry titled “Requiem for the Twinkie,” in which I observed that the venture-capital firms that hold a controlling interest in Hostess Bakeries were attempting to plunder worker pensions as a last step in their wringing all possible profit out of the company that they were purportedly trying…
In my original post under this title, I pointed out that the proponents of “right to work” never directly address questions about how “right to work” improves workers’ wages, benefits, or working conditions. I rhetorically asked who can possibly believe that a worker–in particular a worker receiving low to average compensation–can negotiate more effectively as…
In the very near future, I plan to post an extended comment on the passage of so-called “right to work” legislation in Michigan, as well as a series to be called “Right to Work, By the Numbers,” which will provide much detailed evidence that this sort of union-busting legislation can hardly be said to provide…
The 98% of scientists who have been warning of climate change that is perilously close to becoming irreversible have pointed repeatedly to the rapidly shrinking polar ice caps. Unfortunately, “global warming” predated “climate change” as the term for this crisis. So, despite considerable video evidence of the ice sheets sliding into the sea, if it…
McSweeney’s has published a wonderful parody of John Steinbeck’s most famous novel. Called The Grapes of Mitt, the parody imagines how things might have been different if Tom Joad had been born Mitt Romney. In the following passage, Tom Joad’s climactic speech about his commitment to the long fight for basic workers’ rights and human…
Wayne Lanter retired from Southwestern Illinois College and wrote a book about his 25 years of experience with union battles at one of the most important sites of faculty labor activism. Lanter’s book, Defending the Citadel, details the ups and downs of these labor fights. John K. Wilson interviewed Lanter via email for Academe Blog…
Just after the New Year, Hostess Brands, the largest producer of baked goods in the United States, filed for bankruptcy. Formerly called Interstate Bakeries Corporation, the company had previously filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004. It emerged from what became the most protracted bankruptcy process in history in 2009 and renamed itself Hostess Brands. The…