Posted onJuly 17, 2012|Comments Off on CFP: Marxian Analysis of Society, School and Education SIG #157
Marxian Analysis of Society, School and Education SIG #157
CALL FOR PAPERS
American Educational Research Association 2013
The global financial crisis detonated in the West in 2007 has highlighted long-standing structural faults within capitalism, especially in its financialization of the economy – something that Marx and his predecessors already predicted. The current economic genocidal policies in nations such as Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Cyprus, along with the bailouts to specific US corporations, and the slow down of China’s ‘new economy’, present a credibility check in the recognition of the predatory policies and practices of capitalism’s third hegemonic momentum. In fact such financialization of the economy, with its the recurrent and increasingly devastating financial debacles assailing the world’s capitalist economies, has been incapable of producing sustainable growth in any sector while creating economic genocide, and has resulted in driving societies towards social foreclosures strong-armed through painful strangulation of austerity policies that are asphyxiating public institutions and transforming the very notion of public good and democracy itself!
The 2013 Marxian Analysis of Society, School and Education SIG program asks scholars, educators and graduate students around the globe who are profoundly committed to the struggle for social and cognitive justice to help us examine the transformative role of education and schools in addressing the contemporary crises, as well as, addressing the role of educators in helping to resolve the contradictions of the present and to contribute to a better future for schools, education and society.
Therefore, we ask scholars, educators and graduate students to contribute papers, posters or symposium that utilize a Marxist/Class analysis that will critically address the impact of the late capitalism’s financialization of the economy on questions of schools, education and society and how to move from pre-history to history proper to create a more and just democratic society and education.
Note: All submissions will be reviewed without author identification. Please submit them without author names on the abstracts or summaries. Proposals that bear the names of the authors and/or participants will not be considered for review and, consequently, will not be considered for the SIG #157 program for the 2013 AERA Annual Meeting.
Thank You, Dr. Sheila Macrine,
2013 Program Chair
Sheila L. Macrine, Ph.D.
Chair of the Teaching & Learning Department
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
285 Old Westport Road
North Dartmouth, Ma 02747
Phone: 508-999-8262
Fax: 508-910-6916
6. Federal firefighters are also contingent workers
see below
7. Western Assoc. of Schools and Colleges (WASC) the regional accreditor for the western states) gets tough with for-profit Ashford U, owned by Bridgepoint. Note this is not the Community College section of WASC, headed by Barbara Beno, which has been attacking City College of SF for being too good to its mostly pt faculty and having “too few” administrators) http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/07/10/profit-ashford-university-loses-accreditation-bid
and http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/07/11/nlrb-puts-duquesne-adjunct-election-results-hold
10. Precarious workers in Paris, France, organize and protest, from Sophie Banasiak
see below
11. A provocative idea for labor law reform – just cause dismissal rights for everyone (like now in Montana) which would also help protect organizers and activists. Also very good comments list. http://labornotes.org/2012/06/labor-law-reform-we-need
12. A very interesting website. Worth a look periodically. I occasionally send out stuff from them on COCAL Updates http://classwaru.org/
1. The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, AFT Local 3544, is seeking a full time internal organizer.
The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (GTFF) represents 1400 teaching and research assistants at the University of Oregon. We are seeking a permanent, full-time
organizer to begin by September 2012. The GTFF is a member-run union with a paid
professional staff that works under the direction of elected, volunteer
officers. The goal of staff is always to get more members participating in
our activist union culture. We are especially looking for people who can
work with graduate students/employees and are enthusiastic about the labor
movement in higher education. Review of applications will begin on Friday,
July 23, 2012.
*Job Duties:*
● build and activate membership through GTF orientations, office visits, departmental events, and membership drives
● recruit and train members into leadership positions
● help the GTFF leadership plan and implement union activities such as social
events, general membership meetings, rallies, volunteer nights, and
work-actions
● represent the GTFF to the UO administration, to other unions, and to
other campus and community groups
● help with contract negotiation and enforcement, including finding and
filing grievances, assisting the bargaining team, and research
● help maintain accurate records of union activities, members, and
membership dues by keeping our database of information updated
● help with communications, including writing/editing press releases,
designing flyers and brochures, and developing
other materials
● bookkeeping
*Minimum Qualifications:*
● at least one year of organizing experience (either volunteer or paid)
● ability to manage multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment
● excellent oral and written communication skills
● ability to use word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and social media
● strong one-on-one organizing skills
● flexible schedule; ability to work evenings and/or weekends as needed
● U.S. citizenship or other authorization to work in the U.S.
*Preferred Qualifications:*
● a Bachelor’s degree or higher, and experience as a graduate
student/employee– graduate employee experience preferred
● experience with QuickBooks, Filemaker Pro, Adobe CS, and MS Access (some
of this may be learned on the job)
● experience working as an organizer for a labor union or a volunteer-run
organization
● experience organizing membership drives and/or work-actions
The GTFF is an AA/EEO employer. Women and people of color are strongly
encouraged to apply.
Salary and benefits: minimum $45,000 (negotiable); health, dental, and vision
insurance; 401k
Attach in an email your cover letter, resume, and contact information
(name, address, phone number, email) for 3 people who can serve as
references.
Submit applications to: operations@gtff.net
_______________________________________________
cgeu-list mailing list
cgeu-list@cgeu.org
http://cgeu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cgeu-list
2.
FYI.
Cliff Liehe
CCSF/AFT 2121
— On Mon, 7/9/12, U&I wrote:
From: U&I
Subject: [ELN] Demand Quality Health Care For All! 8th in a Series of Key Issues in 2012
To:
Date: Monday, July 9, 2012, 7:40 AM
EMERGENCY LABOR NETWORK
Jobs * Social Security * Labor Rights
Medicare and Medicaid * Peace and Justice
emergencylabor@aol.com
www.laborfightback.org
———-
[Please excuse duplicate postings and please forward as widely as possible.]
The Question to be Decided: Shall Health Care Be Regarded as a Basic Human Right or as a For-Profit Multi-Billion Dollar Business?
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), having been upheld by the Supreme Court, contains a number of very positive features. But there are yawning gaps in its coverage of enormous proportions. When fully implemented, it will still leave 27 million uninsured, and that number could be much larger with the Court’s having made expanded Medicaid coverage optional for the states. This is undoubtedly the worst aspect of its decision. It puts at risk the main tool to expand insurance coverage to the very poor, mostly people of color. Moreover, untold numbers of the uninsured will inevitably decline to purchase insurance, despite the mandate.
Looking to the future, health care costs will continue to rise, more people will be underinsured, and those who cannot afford private insurance — or who simply refuse to buy it — will not only be deprived of health care coverage, they will have to pay a stiff fine.
At the heart of the problem is the fact that the insurance companies will remain at the core of the health care system. As long as this is the case and these companies are able to plunder hundreds of billions in profits from the system, the ACA will be severely crippled in carrying out its stated goal of providing health care coverage for all.
Background
Health care in the United States makes up 17.9% of the economy, incorporating some of the most profitable enterprises, as well as vital facilities and services which barely cling to life. While working people suffer and die waiting for care or through mishaps in the system, the most preposterous charges and claims reverberate in a torrent of election-year nonsense.
Underneath all the extreme rhetoric and exaggerated claims lies a free-for-all fight by competing corporate interests. Benefits to ordinary people are coincidental. The Supreme Court’s decision of June 28, 2012 on the ACA cemented health care profiteering, left union workers in an even more precarious position, and further undermined prospects of the very poor’s obtaining basic health care. Within hours of the verdict, the stock market reflected the true story.
Stocks of for-profit hospital chains shot up. With the confirmation of the individual mandate projected to guarantee a steady stream of paying customers, the value of Hospital Corporation of America stocks rose 15%, while Tenet gained 10%. The commercial health insurance corporations, buoyed by the retention of the individual mandate, can now focus on whittling away the concessions they made in 2009. Pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers held their own, already planning for the added expenses they would be incurring to help close the donut hole of Medicare Part D and insurance coverage expansion.
Drawing a Balance Sheet on the ACA
It was hoped that the ACA would dramatically expand Medicaid for most low-income folks, but the Supreme Court’s decision undermined that. The ACA pledged increased funding for community health centers — culturally competent care close to home — but this has been weakened by threats to Medicaid expansion and a variety of attacks on immigrants, with or without papers.
On the plus side, children can stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26. Some of the most outrageous insurance company practices are finally outlawed, like denying care for pre-existing conditions and annual and lifetime caps on benefits. Gender inequality is proscribed. The donut hole will be closed.
On the down side, there will be no real limits on what insurance companies, hospitals and drug companies charge. Those who do not have health insurance coverage one way or another will be forced to buy the insurance industry’s shoddy products or pay an additional penalty and remain without coverage. As in Massachusetts, where the ACA’s prototype was enacted in 2006, the new norm is unaffordable underinsurance.
Health care costs will continue to rise swiftly, strengthening employers’ resolve to shift costs onto workers through pushing high-deductible, low coverage plans, or by dropping health insurance altogether. Strikes and lockouts over health benefits could become more frequent and of longer duration. Workers in unions with joint union-management Taft-Hartley health and welfare plans will be confronted with more employers demanding renegotiation of terms by the end of 2013. And in 2018, the excise tax on so-called Cadillac health insurance plans will kick in, adding further burdens to those with stagnating wages.
Which Way for the Labor Movement?
Resolution 34 of the September 2009 AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh proclaimed the goal of a national social health insurance: a single payer program. This resolution was the result of seventy pro-single-payer resolutions submitted in the pre-convention period, more resolutions on one issue than ever before in the history of the AFL-CIO. The steady growth of labor’s commitment to fundamental health care change grew from the work of the All-Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care — HR 676.
By the time the national debate over health care took off early in 2009, nearly six hundred labor organizations in forty-nine states had already endorsed HR.676. Thirty-nine state labor federations, one hundred thirty-five central labor councils and twenty-two national and international unions stood up to be counted.
To deepen and mobilize this sentiment, the Labor Campaign for Single Payer was organized in St. Louis in January of 2009. This coalition set as its first priority the adoption of Medicare for All as a strategic goal for organized labor. That goal having largely been met with the passage of Resolution 34, the struggle now is to move from resolutions to action and to link the fight for a just health care system with labor’s overarching goal of driving back the threat of austerity and winning security for the working class and the entire population. This will require building labor/community coalitions across the country capable of mobilizing gigantic numbers in the streets demanding no cuts to the safety net and Medicare for All!
Following the 2010 enactment of the ACA, and in the wake of the 2010 elections, the pendulum has swung to the states. The Vermont Workers Center, an affiliate of Jobs with Justice, and many unions in Vermont provide the solid backbone of the movement for health care as a human right in the Green Mountain State. Built on several years of solid grassroots work, the single-payer movement in Vermont took advantage of federal funds allotted to the states under the ACA to fashion health insurance exchanges to entrench their goal of emerging in 2017 with a true single-payer system. Powerful forces are now pouring resources into the state to block this advance for health care justice or to subvert this movement into something palatable to the corporations and politics as usual.
Some unions representing those who work in health care, especially National Nurses United, are deeply involved in refashioning their industry, rejecting corporate partnerships and fighting for the highest possible standards of care. This militancy is reflected in strikes and other actions to block the erosion of access to care and threats to advances already won.
How Did Things Get This Way in the U.S.?
U.S. health care remains dominated by profiteers, and they exercise extraordinary influence in both the Republican and Democratic parties. This explains why U.S. taxpayers spend more on health care per capita than taxpayers in any other developed country, yet we still have fifty million uninsured people, only half of whom are promised eventual coverage by the ACA. The bottom line is this: Profit rules, with the working class, one way or another, paying through the nose as a result of enactment of the ACA.
The Bush-appointed chief justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote to maintain the overall structure of the ACA. But a challenge to that structure came from 26 state governments, many of whose governors threaten to reject the expansion of Medicaid — which would make it available to those making up to 133% of the federal poverty line — even though the federal government would pay 100% of the cost for the first three years and at least 90% for the succeeding years. Their main rationale: “We need the money for education.” But instead of pitting educational needs against health care needs, the states need to demand additional funding for both, which can easily be paid for by slashing the astronomical Pentagon budget.
How many of the 26 states that brought the suit against ACA to the Supreme Court will end up refusing to implement Medicaid expansion? In Massachusetts, politicians call Medicaid the “budget buster.” We need to step up the fight for all states to sign on to the expansion, even as we intensify the struggle for a single-payer, Medicare-for-All system. Everybody in, nobody out!
The individual mandate, thought up by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation in the 1980s, is the most regressive way to attempt to get to universal health insurance coverage. Whether constitutional or not, it is an integral part of the “shared responsibility – shared sacrifice” mantra of the neoliberals. It was used to block single-payer in Massachusetts and on the national scene. It’s argued that the individual mandate is necessary to rope in all those who don’t buy health insurance on their own and so place a burden on everyone else. In reality, most people who don’t have health insurance are that way because they can’t afford it.
As bad as the situation for health care in the U.S. is today — and will be even under the ACA — it will be predictably far worse if Democrats and Republicans join in a “grand bargain” to impose substantial cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other vital safety net programs. It is widely expected that an attempt will be made to ram through such a “bargain” along the lines of Bowles/Simpson during the Congressional lame duck session in December. What’s needed is for the labor movement and our community allies to join together to do everything in our power to prevent this from happening.
This entire experience underscores the need for reforming the health care system in a most fundamental way. Let’s not forget that the Tories and Liberals did not usher in the universal health care system in Canada or Great Britain. It was the labor movement that led the fight to win these historic breakthroughs. Independent political action by labor in the U.S. organized in trade unions and in the community must lead the fight for a just health care system if it is to become a reality in our country. Mass action on the ground and labor campaigns wherever possible can spearhead this drive. Labor will also need to build its own party with its own demands, including Medicare for All!
Our goals and slogans going forward should include:
* Resist attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and all other social benefits!
* Demand that Medicaid expansion be agreed to in all the states!
* Organize all health care workers into fighting unions!
* Mobilize for single-payer locally and nationally!
* Support Vermont’s grassroots efforts for single payer!
* Affiliate unions with Labor Campaign for Single Payer!
* Challenge all candidates on real health care reform!
* Run independent labor candidates!
* Prepare for a rebirth of the Labor Party!
Issued by the Emergency Labor Network (ELN)
For more information write emergencylabor@aol.com or P.O. Box 21004, Cleveland, OH 44121 or call 216-736-4715 or visit our website at www.laborfightback.org. Donations gratefully accepted. Please make checks payable to ELN and mail to above P.O. Box.
————
3. Hello everyone!
We are looking for Union Rep/Organizer in San Francisco; and we are also still hiring Organizers throughout California. Please let lots of people know. Thanks.
Phyllis
************************************
Phyllis Willett
National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW)
Director of Operations
5801 Christie Ave, Suite 525
Emeryville, CA 94608
Ofc: 510-834-2009
Cell: 510-219-4910
Fax: 510-834-2018
6. More than half of federal fire fighters also struggle with contingency:
The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, which coordinates firefighting efforts nationwide, says 15,000 wildland firefighters are on the federal payroll this year. Of that number, some 8,000 are classified as temporary seasonal employees, who work on a season-to-season basis with no guarantee of a job the following year and no access to federal benefits.
Some seasonal firefighters say they put in a year’s worth of hours in six months. . .
The fire crews are heroes to those in the path of the flames. Politicians praise their bravery. Grateful residents buy them pizzas and send thank-you cards.
“That’s what makes the job great,” Lauer said. “But sometimes I wonder to myself. I wonder if people know we’re uninsured.”
Associated Press – July 9th
_______________________________________________
adj-l mailing list
adj-l@adj-l.org
http://adj-l.org/mailman/listinfo/adj-l_adj-l.org
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10. Hello,
>
>
> The coordination of workers and precarious in struggle in Paris plans to organise, with other organisations, a demonstration against precarity, unemployment, lay off, and sufferance at work that we plan in december 1. We want to make this mobilisation international and we are looking for people in other countries to take part in this project. Thanks in advance for your help.
> About the coordination of workers and precarious people in struggle:
> We some indignés took the initiative to create a coordination with people from other networks, like association of workers in struggle against lay off, unionists, (associations of) unemployed people, etc. We did it with the help of an activist of the 15M Barcelona, inspired by the coordination of workers’ struggle in Barcelona. There were two meetings of this coordination in April and June, where we had concrete discussions about local and specific struggles to exchange and spread informations, petitions, invitations to gathering… We organised an assembly after the demonstration of May 1st, we now organise a gathering with pans at the social conference with the government and unions (July 9th) and we have this project of demonstration in december.
> About the project of demonstration:
> We work on a demonstration that would make converge three corteges of 1/ unemployed-precarious, 2/ wagers in struggle against lay off, and 3/ civil servants (against state reforms, precarity of some civil servants who have private work contracts). There will be an assembly at the end of the demonstrations on the place where they will converge.
> The organisations against unemployment who organise every year (in december) a demonstration against unemployment agree to be part of the project (they widen their usual demonstration), and they propose december 1. We are expecting answers of associations of workers in struggle for the cortege against lay off and we are discussion with unions for the cortege of civil servants.
> We would like to internationalise this mobilisation in december against precarity, unemployment, lay off, and state reforms, so would anyone be interested to take part in this project in your different countries and cities ? It would be interesting if there is a convergence at the international level as precarity, unemployment and sufferance at work (in private and public sectors) are connected also with european and international treaties that put people in competition. Please let me know if you are interested.
> To give you a more precise idea of our work i send you the translations of the meeting of our first meeting in April (French, English, Spanish, Italian, German). I will send you the translation of our second meeting (here in french : http://travailleursetprecaires-idf.net/) as soon as i get them.
> Please do not hesistate if you have any questions.
> Thanks in advance !
> Cheers
> Sophie
——————————————
Please use
510-527-5889 phone/fax
21 San Mateo Road,
Berkeley, CA 94707
The North Carolina Supreme Court won’t consider a petition of discretionary review by professor Terri Ginsberg, who was denied tenure several years ago after her outspoken criticism of Israeli policies.
Ginsberg, a film scholar, has said that following her public criticism of Israeli policies, she endured immediate retaliation from the administration of North Carolina State University, where she was a professor of film studies. As I reported in January 2010, she was “punished with partial removal from — and interference in — duty, non-renewal of contract and rejection from a tenure-track position” in 2008.
There hasn’t been a school strike in Chicago for 25 years. But the current contract between Chicago teachers and the Chicago Public Schools expires at the end of next week, and tensions between the teachers union, the school district and Mayor Rahm Emanuel are ratcheting higher.
Chicago Teachers Union members outmaneuvered the mayor, school officials and anti-union education groups by overwhelmingly approving a measure that allows teachers to strike if contract negotiations fall flat.
CARBONDALE — Southern Illinois University at Carbondale is putting some employees on notice layoffs could happen later this year.
A letter from the university administration to the Non-Tenure Track Faculty Association earlier this week indicated some nontenured faculty positions may have to be eliminated, citing decreases in state funding and a possible decline in enrollment this fall. Full-time nontenured faculty will be notified of a decision by July 6, all others by July 21, the letter states.
Board decision to reject the university’s request that it be allowed to withdraw on religious grounds from an agreement allowing part-time faculty to form a union, officials announced today.
The United Steelworkers petitioned the labor board on May 14 to supervise a union election to represent about 130 part-time faculty.
The NLRB issued a ruling Monday after Duquesne sought to withdraw from the vote because, as a religious institution, it qualifies for an exemption from NLRB jurisdiction, said Bridget Fare, a university spokeswoman.
The American Association of University Professors is poised to urge colleges to give much more say in their governance to contingent faculty members, including many part-time adjuncts, librarians, and graduate students who are paid to teach or conduct research.
In a draft report being released today, the association argues that colleges are ill-served by policies that exclude most instructors who are off the tenure track from governance activities, and offers a list of recommendations for giving contingent faculty members much more say in the affairs of the institutions that employ them.
3. A new [to me] website on economic inequality with much that applies to us and also on the need for more progressive taxation, as a start http://inequality.org/
4.The adjunct faculty at American University recently organized a union with SEIU Local 500. Student support was key to the success of our campaign, I believe. The students circulated a petition calling on the administration of the University not to use their tuition dollars for union-busting, they did flash mob and banner drop actions, wrote Op Eds in the student newspaper, and produced a really moving video. You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RMoYEUzMa0
The student support mitigated against fear and hesitation among the adjunct faculty, and helped minimize the employer’s anti-union tactics. I also believe the students’ activism was an important element in the decision of AU to come to the bargaining table immediately following the vote and to bargain in good faith (which we are engaged in right now).
Anne McLeer, SEIU Local 500
5. Not specifically contingent faculty but too important and hopeful to leave out. The Greek Syriza Left Coalition is polling at 30 right now and might well win the election if held today. Here is their program. Read it and dream or a better world, for us and them. (see below)
Please take a moment to sign the online petition in support of adjunct professor Sissy Bradford who was fired by the University of Texas San Antonio for criticizing the university’s handling of the threats against her life and safety that she received after she openly objected to the installation of religious symbols on the newly constructed structures at the entrance to the campus.
It’s very important that we support those adjuncts who are retaliated against. AAUP and FIRE have already weighed-in. Let’s make sure our voices are heard.
The AAUP is now accepting applications for a Regional Coordinator position in the Pacific Northwest. Please see the link below and forward to anyone who might be interested:
10. A famous labor historian calls for us to again define ourselves (the majority and especially the unionists) as “working class”
http://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/
11. News of mass Mexican march on their federal government against privatization. see below
The TAA gets huge credit for being those who hurried to the Capitol in Feb. 2011 and camped in protest of “the bomb” that Walkerdropped to end collective bargaining that had been part of the state fabric for decades. If those students had not been there so quickly, it is doubtful that the rest of the protests would have developed as they did. Now that the TAA is not a “certified” union, everyone is watching to see how the UW treats them.
One of several good books about the WI uprising is Cut From Plain Cloth by Scott Weidemann http://www.cutfromplaincloth.com/index.html It is available at Amazon.com & Barnes & Noble, but don’t give them the business. Use his own site and ask Scott for the same discount as Amazon gives –
16. Some very useful information on health insurance, since most of us do not get it paid by our employer, and if we do, it is not year round and/or secure
In 2011 74% of adults aged 19-64 had health insurance all year, but 26% lacked health insurance for part of the year.
Of those without insurance, 70% without coverage for more than a year, 12% for less than 3 months, 8% for 3-6 months, 10% for 6-12 months, 12% 1 year-2 years, 57% 2 years or longer.
Percentage of uninsured by percentage above federal poverty:
Less than 133% 133-249% 250-399% 400% or more
57% 36% 22% 12%
(Commonwealth Fund, quoted in Chicago Tribune 4/20/12)
Comment: for those who say we can’t afford universal medical insurance, let’s cancel it for everyone for one year and then discuss the matter again.
The tenth annual COCAL Conference will be held in Mexico City, on the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico from Thursday, August 9 through Sunday, August 12, 2010.
The host for COCAL X is the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (STUNAM). Contingent faculty activists and representatives from North America will participate in the conference. Presentations and plenaries will be translated into English, French, and Spanish.
UNAM
(Photo by David Milroy)
Mexico City is about a five hour flight from Washington, D.C.; four hours from Chicago, and three and a half hours from Los Angeles. The conference arrangements include a group hotel and bus transportation to and from sessions.
Below is information about registration and accommodations for planning purposes:
Conference registration fee includes:
All workshops, plenaries & materials
5 meals (lunches on Friday, Saturday and Sunday; dinner Friday and Saturday)
2 cultural shows during Friday and Saturday dinners.
Visit to two museums on Sunday (Anthropology Museum and Chapultepec Castle)
Transfers on buses.
Optional tour: Thursday, August 9th visit to Pyramids of Teotihuacan, $50
Scholarship Fund
A COCAL Scholarship can support attendees who may otherwise not be able to attend. Donations to the scholarship fund can be made on the registration form. Scholarship funds will be disbursed to recipients at the conference.
Scholarships will be awarded in two rounds; the first from a modest pool of existing funds, the second from any leftover funds or additional funds received. For the best chance of receiving a scholarship, apply by the first deadline. May 31: first round scholarship applications due
June 30: second round scholarship applications due
Plenary 1: Changes in academic work in the context of neoliberal globalization
1. Teaching, researching, and disseminating knowledge to the larger community, including academic management of e-learning
2. Gaining and maintaining health, unemployment, and retirement benefits
3. Supporting academic improvement, evaluation processes, and recognition
Plenary 2: Organization and new forms of struggle by academic workers; challenges and strategies for the 21st century
4. Forming and building unions, associations, federations, networks and coalitions
5. Expanding employment rights: hiring, retention, tenure, wages, health benefits, and safety
6. Strengthening union rights: institutional recognition, alliances and federations, collective bargaining rights, and labor laws and regulations
7. Supporting political rights, cultural rights, and academic freedom
8. Exploring forms of struggle and achievements: campaigns, negotiations, demonstrations, work stoppages, strikes, and use of new technologies and social media
Plenary 3: Culture and identity of the new academic citizens in North America and the world
9. Creating a sense of academic culture and university identity: freeway flyers and working with multiple assignments and institutions
10. New forms of academic citizenship, new work and the changing university community: finding spaces of resistance to the corporate model of higher education
11. Fighting discrimination and inequality: multicultural identity, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and different capabilities
12. Building connections between the contingent academic worker and the university community: tenure-track faculty, research faculty, students, staff, and administrators
Planned Social/Cultural Events
Teotihuacan Pyramids
(Photo by David Milroy)
Visit to the castle of Chapultepec and the National Museum of anthropology
Tour of Ciudad Universitaria facilities (UNESCO-World Heritage Site)
Friday and Saturday dinners organized by Mexican university unions with music and dance
Optional preconference excursion day ($50 extra):
Visit to the pyramids of Teotihuacan
Accommodations
Hotel Radisson Paraíso Perisur
Cuspide 53, Col. Parque del Pedregal, 14020 Mexico D.F.
$82 US, taxes included, each night for a single-bed or double-bed room. Additional persons in room are $10 per person, up to 4 persons total per room.
Services included with this rate: Single or double room with free high-speed wireless internet for COCAL attendees.
This hotel is the closest to the university.
In rooms: a work desk with lamp, cable TV, mini bar and iron/ironing board.
At hotel: wireless Internet access, a fitness center, cell phone rentals, an American Airlines ticket office, and on-site car rentals.
Breakfast is not included in the room rate. There is a hotel buffet from 7:00 AM to 12:00 noon which costs $15 US (taxes are included). There is also a big shopping center and a variety of inexpensive places to eat very near the hotel.
Suggested tips: bellboys $1.50 US and housekeepers $1 US.
To make reservations, call (011) + 52 55 59 27 59 59 extension 1286, and mention “COCAL UNAM” to get the special price. You can pay by credit card.
You may also pay by interbank transfer to BBVA Bancomer 0164753755 (Standardized Bank Code 012180001647537555). Be aware of extra fees for international bank transfers.
If you have questions, please contact the Sales Manager, Mrs. Rocio Guzmán
Telephone (011) +52 (55) 56 06 42 11, fax 55 28 16 33.
Hotel Royal Pedregal
Periférico Sur 4363, México, D. F.
$82 US, taxes included, each night for a single-bed or double-bed room.
In rooms: air-conditioning, satellite TV, telephone, mini-bar, tea/coffee and internet access
At hotel: arcade, children’s club, car rent, fitness center and full health spa offering a variety of beauty and massage treatments, sauna, steam room and spa tub.
Breakfast is not included in the room rate. There is a hotel buffet from 7:00 AM to 12:00 noon which costs $13 US (taxes are included). There is also a big shopping center and a variety of inexpensive places to eat very near the hotel.
To make reservations call 1-866-332-3590 and ask for either Reservation Manager, Erika Ruiz or Nancy Carrillo
They are available 9:00 AM-6:00 PM, Monday to Friday, and 9:00 AM-1:00 PM Saturday and Sunday
Mention “COCALV” to get the special price (make sure you say it exactly like this: C-O-C-A-L-V). You can pay by credit card.
Special price for COCAL attendees is good only through August 3rd, 2012.
5. Very good report on the Amazon shareholder meeting in Seattle and the protests and shareholder resolutions there, by Paul Haeder, “adjunct wage slave” activist at Amazon has twice fired whole groups of people for trying to unionize in the past. Use Powells (of Portland, OR) for your book purchases, through the union there, at http://www.ilwulocal5.com/support and the union gets a % of each sale.
7. Duquesne adjunct union (USW) to have NLRB representational election in June-July, by mail.
http://triblive.com/news/1857832-74/duquesne-university-bargaining-election-usw-adjuncts-board-mail-unit-adjunct
In recent decades, a wealth of information has been produced about academic labour: the financialisation of knowledge, diminution of professional autonomy and collegiality through managerialism and audit cultures; the subsumption of higher education into circulations of capital, proletarianisation of intellectual work, shift from dreams of enlightenment and emancipation to imperatives of ‘employability’, and experiences of alienation and anger amongst educators across the world.
This has also been a period of intensifying awareness about the significance of these processes, not only for teachers and students in universities, but for all labour and intellectual, social and political life as well. And now we watch the growth of a transnational movement that is inventing new ways of knowing and producing knowledge, new forms of education, and new possibilities for pedagogy to play a progressive role in struggles for alterantives within the academy and beyond.
Yet within the academy, the proliferation of critical work on these issues is not always accompanied by qualitative changes in everyday practice. The conditions of academic labour for many in the UK are indeed becoming more precarious and repressive – and in unequal measure across institutions and disciplines, and in patterns that retrench existing inequalities of gender, physical ability, class, race and sexuality. The critical analysis of academic labour promises much, but often remains disconnected from the ways we work in practice with others.
This conference brings together scholars and activists from a range of disciplines to discuss these problems, and to consider how critical knowledge about new forms of academic labour can be linked to struggles to humanise labour and knowledge production within and beyond the university.
Contributors
Mette Louise Berg – ‘Situated reflections: on gender and becoming an academic’
Anna Curcio – ‘Race and Gender in the Edu-Factory’
Richard Hall – ‘Educational technology and the war on public education’
Maria Do Mar Pereira – ‘(Im)Possible Labour? Critical Education in “Performative” Universities’
Dean Lockwood, Rob Coley and Adam O’Meara – ‘What a relief to have nothing to say…Academic labour and language in the rhizome’
Andrew McGettigan – ‘Value for money: degree awarding powers, standards and academic labour’
Justine Mercer and Howard Stevenson – ‘The frontier of control revisited: managerial authority and academic labour revisited’
Sara Motta – ‘The messiness of motherhood in the neoliberal university’
Gigi Roggero – ‘Occupy Knowledge’
Public / Free / Open
This conference is public, free and open to everyone; we warmly invite you to attend. Please register via the website so we know how many people will be attending. If you have any questions about the event, please contact Dr. Sarah Amsler at samsler@lincoln.ac.uk.
Getting here
Doing and Undoing Academic Labour will be held in Learning Landscapes, MB1019, the University of Lincoln. Click here for a map of the campus.
We hope to see you here!
Best wishes,
Dr. Sarah Amsler
Sr. Lecturer in Education
Centre for Educational Research and Development
University of Lincoln
Lincoln LN6 7TS
Labor unions that represent college instructors are gearing up for several major battles at the polls in the coming months, out of a conviction that they must flex more muscle politically if they are to prevent further assaults on their members’ pocketbooks and bargaining power.
Although labor-related issues have long been key points of contention in state and national elections, labor activists in academe are especially geared up for the current election cycle in response to the attacks that fiscally conservative Republican lawmakers mounted against them after the elections of 2010.
The National Labor Relations Board is soliciting legal briefs on the question of whether or not faculty members at private colleges should be considered managers, a distinction that determines whether they are eligible for union representation.
Since a 1980 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University, professors at private colleges have been typically classified as managers and, therefore, largely barred from forming unions. In asking for the briefs in its announcement this week, the NLRB said it was seeking help in responding to a case involving Point Park University, a private institution in Pittsburgh where faculty members petitioned for a union election and voted, in 2003, to be represented by a local chapter of the Communications Workers of America.
Posted onMay 14, 2012|Comments Off on CFP Journal of Research Practice: Special issue on research assistantships.
Proposals are now being accepted for a special issue about research assistantships for the international, transdisciplinary Journal of Research Practice (JRP).
Graduate students, academics, professionals, community members, and other research partners are invited to share their experiences, insights, and concerns around research assistantships. This special issue is intended to showcase the multilayered complexities of research assistantships from different perspectives and across different disciplines. We encourage themes related to research learning, mentoring, working dynamics, power issues, researcher identity, communication between research assistants and researchers (and other team members), as well as the varied legal, ethical, and moral issues associated with the employment and education of research assistants.
Proposals of about 500 words will be accepted until July 15, 2012. Authors of selected proposals will be requested to develop their proposals into manuscripts by February 1, 2013, to be considered for the special issue.
Posted onMay 8, 2012|Comments Off on COCAL Updates
Updates in brief and links
1. A good short discussion about strikes and general strikes, public and private. Appropriate for us and for Mayday. Go out and make some noise on May Day. See below.
3. A very good post on the issue of conflicts/commonalities of interest with FTTT faculty, joint unions, etc, by our wise friend in Vancouver, Frank Cosco. He posted this as after a notice of the new combined union forming at U of OR and subsequent disucssion on the ADJ list. See below
4. More report, on workshop on contingent faculty at Green River College, WA. http://youtu.be/JptEezAjvjQ.
and see below
15. The April 20 “The Solution to Faculty Apartheid” conference held at Green River Community College in Auburn, WA, which featured Keith Hoeller, Frank Cosco, Kathryn Re, and me, is described in a feature in that college’s student newspaper, The Current, at http://issuu.com/thecurrcentgrcc/docs/issue10volume46. Click on the issue and then advance to page 10. It has a nice picture of Frank and Keith.
To view the Youtube video of the conference, select http://youtu.be/JptEezAjvjQ.
Jack Longmate
“If you want a General Strike organize your co-workers”
An Interview with Joe Burns, author of Revivingthe Strike
at Lawrence, Mass.Bread and Roses Centennial April 28th, 2012
by Camilo Viveiros
Introduction: Many in the Occupy movement have called for a general strike on May 1stbut most Occupy activists aren’t involved in labor organizations or organizedin their workplaces. While General Assemblies may be somewhat effectiveinstitutions at reaching the agreement of assorted activists around future directactions, workplace stoppages require the large scale participation of workersin decision-making structures. The interview below gives some organizing advicefor those who have called the general strike. I hope that this interview willinspire Occupy activists to consider the difficult work ahead that is needed tobuild democracy in the workplace. We are the 99%!
Camilo: You’ve written this very important book Reviving the Strike that gives us a lot of insight about some ofthe challenges, but also the importance of strikes as a tactic. Thank youfor your work promotingthe increased use of the strike as a tool to use building working class power. In”Reviving the Strike” you argue that the labor movement must revive effectivestrikes based on the traditional tactics of labor– stopping production andworkplace-based solidarity. As someone who sees the strike as avital tactic to achieve economic justice I want to ask you a few questions.
Right now Occupyand other activists across the country have been agitating for a general strikeon May 1st. Resolutions have been passedat General Assemblies around the country.
There are alot of new activists that have joined the Occupy Movement, some never havinghad any organizing experience or labor organizing experience. Could you share some of the examples of creativeways that newer activists and established labor activists can think about thiscoming year, maybe toward next May 1st or toward the remote futureof how people can embrace new creative strategies to organize toward strikesinvolving larger numbers of folks.
Joe Burns: First of all, I think the fact that people are talking about this strikeand the general strike is a good thing because it starts raising people’sconsciousness about where our real source of power is in society, which isultimately working people have the power to stop production because workingpeople are the ones who produce things of value in society. On the other hand, if you look back throughhistory about how strikes happened, how in particular general strikes happened,what you’ll find is that they’re organized in the workplace by organizersorganizing their co-workers. And that’sreally the key aspect here. If you lookat how most general strikes in the United States have come about, it’s becausethere’s been strike activity in the local community, people have built bonds ofsolidarity. And then, let’s say oneLocal goes out on strike, they put out an appeal for other Locals to help them,and then eventually it breaks out beyond the bounds of the dispute between justthem and their employer and becomes a generalized dispute between all theworkers in the city and the employers in the city. So it really happens as part of a process ofsolidarity being built step by step.
“It hasn’treally happened where people have put out a general call saying let’s strike,let’s do a general strike on this day. “
It hasn’treally happened where people have put out a general call saying let’s strike,let’s do a general strike on this day.
One of thethings that I focus on in my book, is the need to refocus on the strike. And to do that, that really takes workplaceorganizing in both union and non-union shops, where people go in and do thehard work of talking to their co-workers, forming an organization, andultimately walking out together. I thinkit’s scary to do, to strike, to ask people in these isolated workplaces tostrike all by themselves makes it very difficult.
“…people goin and do the hard work of talking to their co-workers, forming anorganization, and ultimately walking out together”
Camilo: What do you think it would take to actually organize, to bring back thecapacity to have a general strike in the United States?
Joe Burns: In order to have a general strike I think we need to have a workers’movement that’s based in the workplace. If you look at, in the early 1970’s there’s a good book called Rebel Rank and File that a number of folks edited and it’s got articles. It’s really about how the generation of 60’s leftists,a lot of them went back into the workplaces and did organizing, and that in theearly 70’s there were tons of Wildcat strikes which aren’t authorized by theunion leadership. Some of them, like thePostal Strike of 1970 involved 200,000 postal workers striking against thefederal government, in an illegal strike. But that didn’t happen just by itself, it happened because people wentin to their workplaces and organized it. So, how are we going to get a general strike in this country? I think it’s going to be because we redevelopa labor movement or a broader workers’ movement that’s based on thestrike. I think the efforts of Occupyfor the class-based sort of thinking will help in that. Ultimately, though, I think we need at somepoint to devote our attention to the workplace, because the workplace is thesite of where the strike and struggle need to generate from.
Camilo: During the takeover of the capital building in Wisconsin somefolks speculated that what should have happened is that public sector workerswho were under attack should have gone on strike. But in some ways public sector workers areeven more restricted around strike guidelines than private sector workers andso they have less right to strike. Whatare your thoughts around public sector workers who are really bearing a largebrunt of the attack on labor over the last year, and what would the challengesbe to building the solidarity necessary to consider strikes of public sectorworkers?
Joe Burns: I think what you find studying labor history is that even though strikeswere illegal up until 1970, Hawaii became the first state to authorize a legalstrike, regardless of that workers struck by the hundreds of thousands, publicsector workers in the 1960’s. And infact the laws giving them the right to strike were done after the fact, andthey were only passed because workers were striking anyway and legislaturesdecided to set up an orderly procedure to govern strikes. So what you find is hundreds of thousands ofteachers striking throughout the 1960’s, and that’s really how public employeesbuilt their unions. And they did it inthe face of injunctions, so a judge may order them back to work and startjailing leaders, but like in Washington state in a rural community all theteachers showed up together, everyone who was on strike, and told the judge toarrest them all. And the judge backeddown because it didn’t look good.
So that’sreally how we won our unions to begin with in the public sector, in the 1960’s,so when you fast forward to today and look at strikes in the public sector, whenyou look at Wisconsin in particular, clearly the Wisconsin teachers is what reallykicked off the whole Wisconsin battle. They organized calling in sick, and two-thirds of Madison teachersdidn’t show up to work and that’s what really kind of fueled the beginning ofthe takeover of the capitol, along with the grad students and so forth. So it was based on a strike. Some people wanted that to expand into ageneral strike, but that really wasn’t going to happen unless the people mostinvolved which were the public employees, took the lead on that. And they chose, and made a strategic decisionafter four days to go back to work and fight by other means. I think that’s the strategy that they wantedto do and that made sense for them.
Camilo: With union density not at its peak what are the some of theopportunities for non-union organizations to use striking as a tactic? What aresome of the lessons we can learn from the Wildcat strikes of the 70’s, and howcan we have enough flexibility to try to go beyond the stranglehold that Laborlaw has on workers’ organizations right now?
Joe Burns: I think there’s been a lot of good movement in recent yearsto look at different forms of worker organization beyond the traditionalunions. So you’ve had workers’ centers,you’ve had various alternative unions, the IWW and so forth, all looking at howdo you organize particular groups of workers. The question that all of them eventually run into is, you can have youralternative form of organization but ultimately it’s a question of power, anddo you have the power to improve workers’ lives. And to do that traditionally, that’s been atthe workplace the ability to strike or otherwise financially harm anemployer. So I think part of what movingforward we’ll see with the revival of the workers’ movement in this country isa lot of coming together of these different forms of organizations, embracingtactics such as the strike. And reallysome of them are the best situated to do it, because they don’t have the hugetreasuries and buildings and conservative officials that you find in a lot ofunions.
“…ultimatelyit’s a question of power, and do you have the power to improve workers’ lives.”
Camilo: So, what would your advice be to a non-union Occupy activistwho maybe voted for a general strike during a general assembly, or who wants tosee a general strike come to fruition at some point, what would your suggestionsbe for those activists that are out there who are seeing the need for thistactic to be embraced.
Joe Burns: I think go into your workplace. The strike and strike activity needs to berooted in the workplaces, and if it’s based on people outside of the workplacecalling on people to engage in strike activity, that’s not going to work. Not saying you need to just bury your head insome local place, you need to have a broader perspective and broader activism,but if you really want to see a general strike, go out and organize workers,your co-workers or however you want to do it to build forms of organizationin the workplace.
Joe Burns is staff attorney and negotiator, withthe Association of Flight Attendants/ Communications Workers of America andauthor of Reviving the Strike.http://www.revivingthestrike.org
Camilo Viveiros has been a multi-racial economicjustice organizer for over 20 years. Hehas developed organizing trainings for the Occupy movementwww.popularassembly.org and does campaign and leadership development,popular education, strategy and direct action trainings for grassroots groups. 401-338-1665 camilo@activism2organizing.org
On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 7:52 PM, Michael wrote:
May Day has generated a lot of talk about “general strikes.” Here’s what the unions in Ontario said about what it took to organize a real general strike there years ago (attached).
General strikes are like heaven. Everyone who talks about it isn’t going there.
To be effective, movements need to be credible in the eyes of their constituents. When they start to speak in terms that are hyperbolic, bombastic, exaggerated, flatulent, or wishful thinking, they lose credibility.
The class struggle is not a ‘dream state’ in which one gets to conjure up fantastic plans and have them turned into reality. Unlike the little engine that could, repeating the words frequently does not make it possible to do what social reality says can’t be done(in that moment).
Magical thinking is not a good substitute for careful planning, painstaking organizing, and the demonstrated readiness of massive numbers of people to take responsibility for constructing a new social reality.
General strikes are always mass protests. All mass protests, however, are not general strikes. It pays to know the difference.
Michael
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3. Evening
It is good news when a new union gets going…it’s a really difficult process with lots of emotion, fears and doubts. Not nearly as tough as it was in the past but still tough.
In our post-sec world the fear of conflict of interest as this thread is called is real because single units composed of the “in” group and the “out” group too often haven’t measured up to the unity implicit in the word union. There are too many examples of the “out” group ending up even weaker. The result is that people sadly end up in the seemingly-bizarre but realistic position of arguing that two unions have to be better than one.
Any objective view cannot justify the inequities of privileging overtime for one group of members while denying pay equity for the other. The same goes for the privileging of one group with the right to continually evaluate the other (acting as the worst type of unprofessional manager) in ways that are hard to distinguish from bullying.
Doesn’t have to be that way. Hope the Oregon effort ends up on the better side of the history around these efforts. It won’t be at all easy for a single unit. They would have to tread new ground just to make life less contingent for their contingents. To create a really equitable situation will probably require new vision and concerted effort by the safer and more secure full-time leaders over a couple of decades.
The 20 or so federated post-sec unions in FPSE in BC, Canada, have worked hard at it for most of thirty years and still can’t point to wall to wall success although we have some significant examples of equitable situations. What started as a system of only community colleges has seen a half dozen of its institutions morphed into universities with mixed research, teaching and service workloads within “teaching” university contexts. Sad to report that the unions in a couple of the new universities have succumbed to the strange allure the privileged and stratified model but happily most of them have retained the equitable model that is in the genes of FPSE locals.
Last year, FPSE developed a set of bargaining policies and principles for universities. They can be viewed at the fpse.ca website (type university bargaining principles or something similar into the site’s search box). It is an attempt to provide useful guidelines for approaching the challenges of university bargaining. (Questions and comments welcome.)
In the Program for Change (check it out at the vccfa.ca website from May) Jack Longmate and I have set out a wide longterm agenda/menu for change that can really make life better for folks. There are successes in the States to point to. Many aspects of work life are under the control of faculty and can start to change in 2012 without any cost at all, with or without a union. We are not completely helpless.
In a unionist view, there’s nothing magical about the research or service part of one’s work. If it’s work that the boss paying for, it’s work. Those faculty leading unions need to think as unionists first and faculty second.
Frank Cosco
VCCFA & FPSE
Vancouver
Quoting Jack Longmate :
Hi Karen,
Pleased that we have concurrence about overloads. With course overloads, it
makes it very difficult for full-timers to argue that they are overworked
and underpaid, so the practice amounts to being self-inflicting wound apart
from contributing to the dysfunction of the system. To get those full-time
faculty invested in teaching course overloads to recognize that is easier
said than done. I don’t believe it’s ever happened voluntarily. (When the
limit on course overloads was imposed on my campus–no more than 167 percent
of full-time workload–one union officer complained about how this
restriction would cause an economic hardship for her family. That is, she
had customarily taught about 167 percent of a full-time load.)
In Washington community and technical colleges, part-time faculty are
restricted by a workload cap and cannot teach full-time at a given
institution period, so a simply status conversion, unfortunately, is a not a
realistic at present. In Vancouver, by contrast, conversion from
probationary “term” status to non-probationary “regular” status is a natural
progression. It’s helped by the fact that part-time and full-time faculty
are paid from the same salary scale and have the same set of expectations
(unlike here where part-timers are hired to “just teach”).
—–Original Message—–
From: adj-l-bounces@adj-l.org [mailto:adj-l-bounces@adj-l.org] On Behalf Of
Karen Thompson
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 5:40 PM
To: Contingent Academics Mailing List
Cc: Contingent Academics Mailing List
Subject: Re: [adj-l] Conflicts of Interest
Of course there should be no overloads for full-timers (except perhaps for
summer), but faculty need to negotiate a variety of ways to make sure their
salaries are deservingly high. Part-time faculty who teach a full-time load
must be converted to full-time. Limits on part-time teaching are necessary
to make sure those teaching s full-time load are considered full-time
faculty. These are simultaneous goals in negotiations. Again full-time and
part-time faculty can be on the se page here: limits AND conversion.
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 28, 2012, at 6:58 PM, “Jack Longmate”
wrote:
Hi Mayra,
Course overloads are certainly allowable through collective bargaining.
At
my college, Olympic, the current CBA imposes some limits on full-time
faculty overloads: no more than 167 percent of a full-time load. Since
its
ratification, at least one full-timer for one term taught at 297 percent,
that is, approximately three times a standard full-time workload. I wrote
about that in http://www.cpfa.org/journal/10fall/cpfa-fall10.pdf, pages 12
and 9. (Before that limitation was enacted, I had heard rumors of similar
percentages about some full-time faculty.) But while I’m pleased that my
college has imposed some limits, those limits only affect overloads in
excess of 167 percent–those between 100 and 166 percent, from the
standpoint of the CBA, are consider normal and routine and perfectly fine.
When full-time faculty are able to teach course overloads at will, there’s
very, very little chance for job security to be extended to part-time
faculty, because if part-time faculty jobs were actually protected, it
would
interfere with the ability to teach course overloads. This is sort of the
gist of the conflict of interests.
The other side of the coin are caps on the workload of part-time faculty.
You’re probably aware that in California, there’s been considerable debate
and legislative action regarding the cap on part-time workload–I believe
it’s no more than 67 percent that a part-time instructor can teach in a
given community college district. In Washington state, the cap is a bit
more liberal–I believe it’s 85 percent at my college–but I don’t think
our
pay is close to that of California’s.
In Washington, caps exist in order to avoid cases of backdoor tenure. In
Washington state, by teaching full-time for a period of time, one can
satisfy one of the statutory requirements of tenure. In order to ensure
that it never happens, colleges impose these caps.
In my forays into possible reform of the state tenure laws–to eliminate
the
caps in order to thereby enable those who want and need more work–one of
the obstacles offered by one union lobbyist has been an aversion to
opening
up the state’s tenure statutes for the fear being that tenure might run
the
risk of getting eliminated altogether, which closes the discussion.
The solution, which would avoid the in-fighting that Karen alludes to,
would
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————————-
4. The remarkable workshop entitled “Teach-in on Adjunct Faculty” that took
place at Green River Community College on April 20, 2012, moderated by Keith
Hoeller and Kathryn Re, is available for viewing at
One highlight is Keith’s reading of a statement of support from Cornel West.
It’s at about the 0:01:00 mark.
Frank Cosco, president of the Vancouver Community College Faculty
Association, speaks on “Abolishing the Two-track System”; his remarks begins
at about the 0:06:00 mark.
My portion, “The Overload Debate: Conflict of Interest between Full- and
Part-time Faculty” begins at 0:20:30 is synchronized with a set of
Powerpoint slides–should anyone wish a copy, please let me know.
The video was masterfully edited by Mr. Dave Prenovost.
Best wishes,
Jack Longmate
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———————
7.
A Poem for May Day
By “Mr. Toad” former Detroit autoworker, 1980
(with thanks to Shaping San Francisco)
The eight hour day is not enough;
We are thinking of more and better stuff.
So here is our prayer and here is our plan,
We want what we want and we’ll take what we can.
Down with wars both small and large,
Except for the ones where we’re in charge:
Those are the wars of class against class,
Where we get a chance to kick some ass..
For air to breathe and water to drink,
And no more poison from the kitchen sink.
For land that’s green and life that’s saved
And less and less of the earth that’s paved.
No more women who are less than free,
Or men who cannot learn to see
Their power steals their humanity
And makes us all less than we can be.
For teachers who learn and students who teach
And schools that are kept beyond the reach
Of provosts and deans and chancellors and such
And Xerox and Kodak and Shell, Royal Dutch.
An end to shops that are dark and dingy,
An end to bosses whether good or stingy,
An end to work that produces junk,
An end to junk that produces work,
And an end to all in charge – the jerks.
For all who dance and sing, loud cheers,
To the prophets of doom we send some jeers,
To our friends and lovers we give free beers,
And to all who are here, a day without fears.
So, on this first of May we all should say
That we will either make it or break it.
Or, to put this thought another way,
Let’s take it easy, but let’s take it.
Angry about tuition increases and cuts in courses and enrollment, a dozen students at California State University have taken their protest beyond marches — their usual tactic — and declared a hunger strike.
On Thursday, the second day of the fast, supporters were preparing a kale, apple and celery juice concoction for the protesters at the Northridge campus. The students have pledged to forgo solid food for at least a week, perhaps longer if the administration does not move to meet some of their demands, which include a five-year moratorium on student fee increases and a rollback of executive salaries to 1999 levels.
The union representing California State University faculty announced Wednesday that its members have voted to authorize a two-day strike should negotiations over salary, class sizes and other issues continue to stall.
The vote could result in two-day rolling strikes at the 23 campuses, most likely beginning in the fall, according to the California Faculty Assn.
University faculties have become more inclusive of women in recent decades, though their salaries still trail those of their male counterparts, new data shows.
Figures from Statistics Canada show the average salary of full-time faculty at Canadian universities was $115,513 in the 2010-11 school year. That was up 2.8 per cent from the previous year.
Among male teaching staff, the average pay was $120,378, and among females, $106,970 Ñ or 88.9 per cent of males’ pay.
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