New issue launch Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor #35 (2024-2025)
Articles in Workplace #35 address a variety of labour issues on campus and beyond, including the first in a series of articles by graduate student participants in the Global Labour Research Centre Symposium at York University.
Find the Workplace #35 here: https://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/index
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Posted in Academic freedom, Academic Labor, Contingent labor, Corporate University, Critical University Studies, Diversity, Employment rights, Equity, Ethics, Faculty, Publications, Research, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged global labor supply, Global Labour Research Centre Symposium, migration
Four faculty members at South Asian University (New Delhi, India) have been suspended pending investigation for asking the university not to call police inside the campus while student protests were going on and to resolve matters amicably.
Faculty also asked administration to withdraw punishment meted to students because due process of rules and regulations were not followed. Ravi Kumar, one of the suspended professors said, “This is unprecedented in the academic history where four faculty members have been suspended for suggesting measures in a constructive spirit.”
Brief chronology of incidents at South Asian University (SAU), New Delhi
Action requested
The suspension of the faculty members should be revoked as it is a violation of the university rules, regulations and byelaws. The faculty members have been only requesting that the university to resolve matters within university and amicably.
*****
Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Association
New Delhi-110067
JNUTA Statement on arbitrary suspension of four faculty at South Asian University
The JNUTA strongly condemns the arbitrary suspension of four faculty by the South Asian University administration. The JNUTA sees this act as unacceptable, unjust, and an attempt to intimidate and spread fear among the teaching community.
The suspension notice issued to the faculty by the SAU administration on 16.06.2023 came after a spate of humiliation of the four faculty members by the Fact Finding Committee that on May 19, 2023, asked them to provide handwritten answers to over a hundred questions sitting in front of the committee members. The faculty raised objections to this process and wrote to the FFC and the SAU administration, but they received no reply. On the contrary, they were served with suspension orders that justified it by accusing the faculty of ‘inciting and leading students and outsiders’, and ‘anti-social acts’, among other things; without following due process of investigation. This illegal and unacceptable suspension notice has directed them not to leave the station without permission, vacate their offices, return their office computers and identity cards, and register their attendance on all working days in the offices of their respective deans.
The JNUTA strongly condemns this unprecedented harassment, coercion, and intimidation of the SAU faculty by the administration. There are several news reports that the University served notices and expelled/suspended/rusticated several students protesting against the reduction of monthly stipends without following the due process. Several faculty in SAU have also raised their concerns regarding the arbitrary actions of the university administration against the students. These notices of expulsion and rustication have put the students under tremendous stress, both mentally and physically.
The suspension order served to four faculty members by the SAU administration is an attempt to intimidate and silence the faculty and the students who raise their voice against the arbitrary and authoritarian actions of the administration. The JNUTA stands in complete solidarity with the faculty of SAU in defending their rights to speak truth to power. It also stands in support of the students of the SAU who have been protesting against the gross act of injustice of the SAU administration. The JNUTA demands that the suspension orders of SAU faculty and rustication/expulsion order of SAU students be immediately revoked and the administration start a dialogue to discuss the demands for an agreeable resolution at the earliest.
Sd/-
D K Lobiyal Avinash Kumar
President, JNUTA Secretary, JNUTA
*****
Janhastakshep: a campaign against fascist designs
Press release
24 June, 2023
Contact: drvikasbajpai@gmail.com; (M): 9717820427
Subject: Suspension of four faculty members at South Asian University, an extension of the continuing attacks on institutions of higher learning.
Janhastakshep unequivocally condemns the suspension of four faculty members – Dr Snehashish Bhattacharya (Faculty of Economics), Dr Srinivas Burra (Faculty of Legal Studies), Dr Irfanullah Farooqi (Department of Sociology) and Dr Ravi Kumar, also of the department of Sociology, at New Delhi’s South Asian University by the university administration and demands unconditional revocation of the suspension orders of all suspended faculty members with immediate effect.
The events leading up to the suspension, the manner of suspension and the subsequent conduct of the ‘Fact Finding Committee’ constituted by the university to conduct a sort of inquiry against the suspended faculty members reek of utterly cavalier attitude calculated to please the powers that be in the political circumstances obtaining in the country as of date.
The present suspension of faculty members is rooted in the events related to the agitation by the university’s students in November last on their legitimate democratic demands impacting on their immediate wellbeing. That agitation was handled with a heavy hand by the university authorities resulting in rustication and expulsion of the students. It led to serious consequences to the health of one student Ammar Ahmad and later to another Phd scholar Apoorva in the Faculty of Legal Studies.
The suspended faculty members were first handed notices on 30 December 2022 on charges such as – writing letters to university community questioning certain administrative decisions in relation to the student protests; instigating students to protest and association with a “Marxist” study circle among other allegations. In levelling these charges against the faculty, those sitting in top administrative positions at the University have exhibited regrettable lack of comprehension of a university’s function, the nature of the learning / teaching process and the responsibilities of the students, teachers and administration at institutions of higher learning towards each other.
No education, let alone new knowledge generation can be transacted if the students are not supported by their teachers and the administration in availing of amenities, including financial support, that facilitate their endeavors in this direction. A teacher and more so the administration shall be failing in their duty if such support and understanding were to be substituted with a ‘coercive disciplinary’ approach which unfortunately has been the dominant trend forced upon all manner of publicly funded institutions of higher learning in the country in last 9 years. It is nothing but a poor parody that the suspended faculty members have been accused of associating / encouraging a ‘Marxist Study Circle’ in a university space that is supposed to lend itself to a free contestation of ideas. This certainly sits at odds with the eulogy of ‘Indian Democracy’ proffered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington D C.
Even as Janhastakshep calls upon the different bodies of academicians and intellectuals at large to support the faculty and students of SAU in this hour of need, we also appeal that this suspension of faculty members should be seen as part of the larger thrust by the Modi led government to further curb the space for ideas which militate for Democratization of society, challenge authoritarianism, uphold economic and social justice. These suspensions are part of the efforts to terrorize and stultify the intelligentsia into submission.
Apart from revoking the suspension of the faculty members and continuing rustication of the students, the bunch of ‘Actors’ (Acting President, Acting Vice-President and Acting Registrar) complicit in ‘over-acting’, who are presently ruling the roost at SAU should be replaced with academics of repute and integrity capable of steering the university towards achieving its cherished goals.
– sd –
(Dr Vikas Bajpai) (Anil Dubey)
Convener Co-convener
Prof JNU Senior journalist
*****
Anger over suspension of faculty following student protests
SAU: Teachers Suspended Allegdly for Demanding Resolution of Student-Admin Deadlock
Suspended SAU professors say order ‘illegal’; ponder moving court
4 SAARC university professors suspended for ‘misconduct’, accused of ‘inciting student protest’
South Asian University Suspends Four Faculty Members for ‘Supporting’ Students’ Agitation
Revoke action on SAU professors: Central Universities Teachers Association
South Asian University suspends four teachers for ‘inciting’ students’ stir
Four SAU faculty members suspended; interceded on students’ behalf, they say
Teacher associations urge South Asian University to revoke suspension of four teachers
4 South Asian University professors suspended, accused of ‘inciting student protest’
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Posted in Academic freedom, Academic Labor, Corporate University, Employment rights, Equity, Ethics, Governance, Protests, Shared governance, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Working conditions
Special Issue of Workplace
Edited by
Karen Lynn Gregory & Joss Winn
Articles in Workplace have repeatedly called for increased collective organisation in opposition to a disturbing trajectory in the contemporary university… we suggest that there is one response to the transformation of the university that has yet to be adequately explored: A thoroughgoing and reflexive critique of academic labor.
Table of Contents
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Posted in Academic freedom, Academic Labor, Accountability, Adjuncts & Sessionals, Administration, Contingent labor, Critical University Studies, Equity, Ethics, Governance, Institute for Critical Education Studies, Solidarity, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Technology, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Academic freedom, academic labor, Contingent labor, Governance, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions
We are thrilled to launch this Special Issue of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labour:
Special Issue of Workplace
Edited by
Mark Stern, Amy E. Brown & Khuram Hussain
Thanks for the continued interest in and support of our journals, Critical Education and Workplace, and our ICES and Workplace blogs. And please keep the manuscripts and ideas rolling in!
Sandra Mathison, Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross, co-Directors, Institute for Critical Education Studies
Comments Off on Special issue: Educate. Agitate. Organize: New and Not-So-New Teacher Movements #activism #k12 #education #edreform
Posted in Academic Labor, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Government, Institute for Critical Education Studies, K-12 issues, Media, Organizing, Solidarity, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions
Tagged Administration, Budgets & Funding, Government, K-12 issues, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions, Working conditions
From The Tyee:
Faculty Take Strike Vote at University of Northern British Columbia
Salaries a sticking point in pricey northern city.
By Katie Hyslop
The University of Northern British Columbia’s faculty association made history Jan. 15 when it became the first faculty union at a B.C. research university to take a strike vote. The vote passed with 84.8 per cent in favour of a strike, giving faculty members 90 days to take strike action.
The university, located in Prince George, has been bargaining with the faculty association for eight months, the last three with help from British Columbia Labour Board-appointed mediator Trevor Sones.
About 70 per cent of bargaining issues at UNBC have been settled, but faculty association president Jacqueline Holler says a major impasse is faculty salaries, which are as much as 24 per cent lower than salaries at similar-sized Canadian universities.
“What the employer has offered in terms of compensation does absolutely nothing to address the situation,” said Holler. Neither she nor UNBC would disclose specifics of offers on the bargaining table.
Holler said another reason faculty deserves higher pay is the university’s frequent ranking by Maclean’s magazine as one of the top three primarily undergraduate universities in Canada.
But UNBC says there are a number of factors affecting salary negotiations: Government requirements for wages to stay within fixed financial parametres; an overall decline in enrollment; an increase in the number of B.C. universities; and increased government support for trades training.
“I’m not citing those [factors] as the most important, only to suggest that there’s a number of factors that are all at play,” said Rob van Adrichem, UNBC’s vice president of external communications. “And it all affects this situation.”
Unionized last April
The vote comes after UNBC’s faculty association, representing close to 500 full and part-time instructors, became a union last April. The faculty associations at Simon Fraser University and University of Victoria unionized around the same time.
There are six research universities in British Columbia. They include UNBC, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria, Thompson Rivers University, Royal Roads University, and the University of British Columbia.
The faculty association at the University of British Columbia became the first B.C. research university to unionize in the 1980s. In exchange for the university’s support the union gave up their right to strike. Almost 20 years later Royal Roads University’s faculty association officially became a union. Faculty at Thompson Rivers University is also unionized.
With the exception of Alberta, where law prevents university faculty associations from becoming unions, there are only four non-unionized public university faculty associations in Canada. They are at McGill, Waterloo, University of Toronto, and McMaster.
Salary disputes were the common denominator between Simon Fraser, University of Victoria, and UNBC faculty associations’ decision to unionize, says Michael Conlon, executive director of the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia, an umbrella organization for research university faculty associations.
“I think it’s fair to say that salary increases at all the research universities in B.C. have not kept up” with the rest of Canada, Conlon said.
Attracting highly educated academics is a good reason to increase salaries, says Conlon, adding competition for “internationally renowned-faculty” is stiff both nationally and internationally.
“As B.C.’s pay scale falls farther and farther behind, I think it will be a challenge to recruit and retain the best researchers, the best teachers, and the best faculty,” he said. “I think that’s a challenge for the entire province in ensuring we’ve got a competitive and excellent system of post-secondary education.”
The faculty’s previous contract expired last June, four months after arbitrator Vince Ready released a final decision on a 2012-2014 contract, which included two retroactive pay raises of 2.5 per cent.
Ready agreed with the faculty association that salaries were low compared to other similar-sized universities, and said UNBC did have the money to raise the pay of faculty members.
Bargaining continues this weekend
But while the wage increase helped, Holler says it didn’t fix UNBC’s “broken” salary structure and was negated by similar wage increases at other B.C. universities.
Holler said living in the north is more expensive than southern B.C., a factor not taken into account when deciding faculty wages.
“In most fields if you work in the north you actually get paid a little more because they understand that it’s hard to attract people,” she said.
The faculty association still hopes to reach an agreement through bargaining, and has yet to meet to discuss strike options. UNBC undergraduate classes end April 17, two days after the strike deadline.
UNBC’s van Adrichem says the strike vote itself doesn’t have an impact on the bargaining process. “The university has been and is very keen to negotiate an agreement,” he said.
Both sides are scheduled to return to the bargaining table on Jan. 30 until Feb. 1. [Tyee]
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Posted in Budgets & Funding, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged British Columbia, Canada, compensations, Faculty salaries, faculty unions, post-secondary education, Salaries, Strikes, Unions, University of Northern British Columbia
Guest Editors:
Mark Stern, Colgate University
Amy Brown, University of Pennsylvania
Khuram Hussain, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
I can tell you with confidence, one year later [from the Measure of Progress test boycott in Seattle schools], I know where our actions will lead: to the formation of a truly mass civil rights movement composed of parents, teachers, educational support staff, students, administrators, and community members who want to end high-stakes standardized testing and reclaim public education from corporate reformers.—Jesse Hagopian, History Teacher and Black Student Union Adviser at Garfield High School, Seattle
As many of us have documented in our scholarly work, the past five years have witnessed a full-fledged attack on public school teachers and their unions. With backing from Wall Street and venture philanthropists, the public imaginary has been saturated with images and rhetoric decrying teachers as the impediments to ‘real’ change in K-12 education. Docu-dramas like Waiting For ‘Superman,’ news stories like Steve Brill’s, “The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand,” in The New York Times Magazineand high profile rhetoric like Michelle Rhee’s mantra that students, not adults, need to be “put first” in education reform, all point to this reality: teachers face an orchestrated, billion dollar assault on their professional status, their knowledge, and their abilities to facilitate dialogical spaces in classrooms. This assault has materialized and been compounded by an austerity environment that is characterized by waning federal support and a narrow corporate agenda. Tens of thousands of teachers have suffered job loss, while thousands more fear the same.
Far from being silent, teachers are putting up a fight. From the strike in Chicago, to grassroots mobilizing to wrest control of the United Federation of Teachers in New York, to public messaging campaigns in Philadelphia, from boycotts in Seattle to job action and strikes in British Columbia, teachers and their local allies are organizing, agitating and confronting school reform in the name of saving public education. In collaboration with parents, community activists, school staff, students, and administrators, teacher are naming various structures of oppression and working to reclaim the conversation and restore a sense of self-determination to their personal, professional, and civic lives.
This special issue of Workplace calls for proposals to document the resistance of teachers in the United States, Canada, and globally. Though much has been written about the plight of teachers under neoliberal draconianism, the reparative scholarship on teachers’ educating, organizing, and agitating is less abundant. This special issue is solely dedicated to mapping instances of resistance in hopes of serving as both resource and inspiration for the growing movement.
This issue will have three sections, with three different formats for scholarship/media. Examples might include:
I. Critical Research Papers (4000-6000 words)
II. Portraits of Resistance
III. Analysis and Synthesis of Various Media
400-word abstracts should be sent to Mark Stern (mstern@colgate.edu) by May 15, 2014. Please include name, affiliation, and a very brief (3-4 sentences) professional biography.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by June 15. Final drafts will be due October 1, 2014. Please note that having your proposal accepted does not guarantee publication. All final drafts will go through peer-review process. Authors will be notified of acceptance for publication by November 1.
Please direct all questions to Mark Stern (mstern@colgate.edu).
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Posted in Academic freedom, Advocacy, CFPs, Government, K-12 issues, Organizing, Publications, Solidarity, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Academic freedom, Budgets & Funding, CFPs, Equity, Government, Organizing, Protests, Working conditions
LETTER FROM US section of the Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education
Asking us to support Mexican teachers – send to Mexican officials
We stand in solidarity with the teachers of CNTE in Mexico who are calling upon the government for a genuine dialogue, that their demands be acknowledged and that violent repression not be used against the nationwide movement in defense of public education as it was today in Mexico City. The rights to assemble and express legitimate concerns are rights that are inalienable rights that are part of the civil and democratic freedoms for which humanity has fought and died for during the last two centuries. WHEREVER POSSIBLE, ORGANIZE DEMONSTRATIONS IN FRONT OF MEXICAN CONSULATES AND TAKE PHOTOS TO BE SENT TO THE SAME ADDRESSES AS THE COPIES OF PROTEST LETTERS. Even a photo of 5 people in front of a consulate is a tremendous morale booster for our brothers and sisters fighting against the destruction of teacher unions & public education!
Police end teachers protest in Mexico City
Police attack striking Mexico teachers
LETTERS TO THE GOVERNMENT CAN BE SENT TO:
LIC. ENRIQUE PEÑA NIETO
Presidente Constitucional de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
enrique.penanieto@presidencia.gob.mx
LIC. OSORIO CHONG MIGUEL ANGEL
Secretario de Estado
secretario@segob.mx
LIC. CHUAYFFET CHEMOR EMILIO
Secretaria de Educación Pública
emilio.chuayffet@sep.gob.mxrasagas@live.com
Prof. Eligio Hernández de Oaxaca XXII: eligiogonzalez@hotmail.com
Below is a copy of the letter that the US section of the Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education sent to the protesting teachers in Mexico. Use it as a template and send copies to:
seccionmexicana.coali@gmail.com
Maestra Graciela Rangel de Michoacán sección XVIII: rasagas@live.com
Prof. Eligio Hernández de Oaxaca XXII: eligiogonzalez@hotmail.com
MEXICO D.F., MEXICO September 13, 2013
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education-USA extends our support for your valiant and militant struggle to defend not just your rights as teachers and trade unionists, but the Mexican people’s right to a public education that is guaranteed in your federal constitution. We applaud your courageous resistance against implementation of the present changes in the constitution which would use standardized tests for teachers to be hired and to keep their jobs, standardized tests for students that will limit their future opportunities in life as well as reducing federal funding to state and local schools. These changes will have the worst impact on the poorest states and communities, especially those whose population mainly speak languages other than Spanish.
We face similar attacks in the United States of America under the guise of “reform”. Your struggle for educational and union justice is an inspiration to us about how teachers and communities can unite to defend public education. You have clarified for the world that the forces behind these so-called reforms are powerful corporate interest that intend to privatize public education.
YOUR STRUGGLE IS OUR STRUGGLE!
In solidarity,
Rosemary Lee, for Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education-section USA
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Posted in K-12 issues, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Violence
Tagged education reform, Mexico, police repression, Strikes
Brian Haman, Counterpunch, August 30, 2013 — It has become a truism in American higher education: seventy-five percent of undergraduate courses at U.S. colleges and universities are taught by contingent faculty1, most of whom lack health insurance,2carry onerous student debt,3 receive poverty-level compensation, and often rely on public assistance such as food stamps in order to make ends meet.4 This percentage translates into more than 1.3 million highly-educated, qualified, and competent, but poorly-paid, undervalued, and underappreciated American workers. Conversely, administrative costs at colleges have soared in recent years. The academic managerial class (provosts, vice and associate vice provosts, deans, presidents, vice presidents, etc.) routinely earn six-figure salaries, often with generous perks including vacation homes.5
According to U.S. Education Department data, “U.S. universities employed more than 230,000 administrators in 2009, up 60 percent from 1993, or 10 times the rate of growth of the tenured faculty, those with permanent positions and job security”.6 Most new hires on American campuses never even set foot in the classroom simply because they are not teachers but administrators.7 Furthermore, the cost of a college degree in the U.S. has increased by 1,120 percent since 1978.8 The overwhelming majority of the academic labor force (to say nothing of students, who voluntarily submit to indentured servitude in the form of student debt) suffers disproportionately due to enormous concentrations of wealth in the hands of a small and privileged elite.
We find a similar dynamic in other segments of the American labor force, especially in the fast-food industry. Fast-food workers endure low wages (and indeed wage stagnation), few if any benefits, and a scarcity of full-time contracts.9 The marginalized and contingent workforce at places such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and KFC share similar concerns and face similar challenges such as starvation wages, reliance on government assistance, and job insecurity that academic workers endure at some of our nation’s leading universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Michigan.10 However, unlike the academy, the difference between CEO compensation and fast-food workers’ pay is truly breathtaking. David C. Novak, CEO of Yum Brands, which includes chains such as KFC and Pizza Hut, received a total annual compensation of $29.67 million in 2012.11
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Last year, McDonald’s gave [Dan] Thompson a compensation package worth $13.8 million, or more than 558 times what McDonald’s expects employees to make — from two jobs”.12 The national minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25 per hour and the top five largest employers (McDonald’s is among them) pay its workers at or near the minimum wage. We may reiterate the conclusion of the previous paragraph with one minor revision: The overwhelming majority of the fast-food labor force suffers disproportionately due to enormous concentrations of wealth in the hands of a small and privileged elite.
When faced with such systemic and structural inequalities, how have fast-food workers responded? The answer is quite instructive. They have staged local protests and walkouts in cities across the country and are planning a national walkout in order to fight for a higher minimum wage. As Professor Anne Kalleberg has noted, however, the protests are not union-sponsored but socially organized.13 Fast-food workers, just like their academic counterparts, often struggle to unionize due, at times, to explicit efforts by their employers to prevent them from doing so. Nevertheless, despite such grim circumstances, fast-food workers have pushed their plight quite successfully into the national consciousness just as Occupy movements have done.
Their campaign, entitled “Fast Food Forward”, articulates their purpose with self-assured clarity: “Fast Food Forward joins the momentum of the Black Friday strikes and other low-wage worker struggles to build community engagement, hold corporations and their CEOs accountable, and to raise wages so that all Americans can prosper”.14 Despite its origins in New York City, the movement is gaining momentum; many are now calling for a nationwide strike to take place on 29 August and even President Obama has addressed the issue.
How is all of this relevant for the contingent academic workforce? Well, for one thing, there is strength in numbers. Collective action is an especially effective instrument both to challenge and redress structural inequalities. If, as the aforementioned statistics indicate, seventy-five percent of undergraduate courses at U.S. colleges and universities are taught by adjuncts, then a walkout would bring the academy to a grinding halt. If fast-food workers with fewer career opportunities, less educational attainment, more grueling working conditions (e.g. fast-paced environments, high-temperature workplaces, etc.), and far more to lose can risk their only source of income for themselves and their families for the sake of the collective good, then what is preventing adjuncts from doing the same? The short answer is simple: nothing.
Alas, many adjuncts enable and perpetuate the “system” through their deferential subservience simply by participating in it (recent unionization efforts at Georgetown and elsewhere duly noted). As universities and departments downsize and the numbers of Ph.D. graduates outpace available jobs, many adjuncts accept grossly underpaid positions with long working hours and virtually no benefits with the expectation that a foot in the door will somehow lead to the promised land of a tenure-track position. Supply and demand dictates otherwise and the vast battalions of well-paid academic administrators are more than happy to continue to exploit such naïve and misguided expectations in the name of efficiency.
Surely, too, graduate programs inculcate (and indeed indoctrinate) students in the ways of the academy: publish or perish and do not rock the proverbial boat. On the one hand, academics are expected to challenge scholarly orthodoxies in their respective fields through creative, innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship. And yet in other aspects of their lives, namely those that deal with the contractual conditions under which they labor, they must conform and remain obedient in order to secure employment. It becomes an insidious and corrosive form of selection in which independent thought is filtered out of a system that was designed to protect it. Contradictions become self-evident: the imposition of an authorial canon in the humanities is anathema, whereas wage slavery becomes institutionalized.
Read more: Counterpunch
Posted in Academics, Accountability, Adjuncts & Sessionals, Administration, Advocacy, Equity, Ethics, Faculty, Government, Job market, Organizing, Politics, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions
Tagged adjuncts, Equity, Faculty, Organizing, Protests, Students, Unions, Working conditions
The BC NDP may have ‘snatched defeat from the jaws of victory’, but education is one of the biggest losers in this week’s election of the fourth consecutive Liberal majority government in the province. In addition to education, the handful of biggest losers in the election includes labour, students, youth, and the increasing volume of people scraping to get by in general.
With more than a decade of labour disputes over the Liberals’ irresponsible and often careless bargaining practices, the BC Teachers’ Federation is now bracing once again to enter the fray of contract negotiations. The past dozen years of degraded labour relations included a range of arbitrations and trips to courts to stave off the Liberals’ intentions of stripping bargaining rights from teachers and alarming erosions of their academic freedom and civil liberties writ large.
Blind to the stunning turn of election fortunes this week, universities in the province were holding their breath for the NDP’s promises to invest millions in education. Flush in the face, now there is not much more for the Presidents to do but go begging for more or just morph into real estate, as UBC has, and build more, oh yes, and raise tuition. In the backyard of the provincial legislature, the University of Victoria is cutting staff and raising tuition once again.
Actually, most universities in the province, such as UBC, raise tuition 2% annually to build on the students’ backs. Smarting from the trend, students are realizing that they are “paying significantly more” and “getting less,” as Melissa Moroz of the Professional Employees Association observed. Students are also waking up to the hard facts of the fictitious economy presented to them in low res 3D: the job market for youth is actually the worst in decades and sinking to new lows. Indicators for the summer 2013 summer job market point to bleak months ahead while university graduates are left praying and hoping for mere job ads as jobs for University grads become the stuff of the past. Education PhDs, for example, anxiously open the CAUT Bulletin and University Affairs month after month only to find blank columns and a job ad section less than full enough to fold a single paper airplane.
Meanwhile back on the mainland, students at Capilano University are burning and destroying their artwork in protest of impending cuts of entire arts programs. This past year, strikes and other forms of labour action at SFU and UBC marked the sign of the times of universities, over-extended and under-funded, unable or unwilling to pay fair wage increases. Next month begins an arbitration between the Faculty Association of UBC and the University to settle a contract bargaining dispute now in its second year. There isn’t much to bargain for or with, as for the Liberals, the universities’ staff, students, and faculty remain net zero workers.
Politics in British Columbia: 14 May election results.
What happened? With all due respect NDP (and I voted NDP), please quit the laughable fiction suggesting that their negative campaign simply overshadowed our positive campaign–their power out-spun our truth. For sure, the NDP was out-campaigned and badly so. Out-witted and out-strategized would be other ways of describing this. What’s worse than a Liberal? A smug Liberal. But hey, at least we have the Vancouver-Point Grey and Vancouver Fairview ridings, two of the few flies on the windshield of that ostentatious red parade float!
Visibly fussed the day after the election, the best the NDP could muster up was the simplistic negative v positive excuse. Even some among the left press, such as The Georgia Straight, could find nothing to say but to parrot the NDP: “It’s sad, but negative politics rule” the Straight began its “NDP Grapples with Stunning Loss” story. NDP candidate George Chow, who went down in defeat in the Vancouver-Langara riding, decried that they lost because “negativity works.” George Heyman, who displaced the Liberal Minister of Health in the Vancouver-Fairview riding went as far as to mystifyingly say that the Liberals’ “negative campaign” “turns people off.” One does not have to be a strategy or policy wonk to know that the Liberals hardly ran a negative campaign and those who argue they did appear clueless, or more generously are understandably squeezing sour grapes from what’s left of the BC NDP’s election machinery. A federal NDP MP joined in nonetheless: the Liberals’ victory “shows the power of negative politics,” he said. C’mon now, who are we trying to kid? The ridings that went red and went to the Liberals– nay, all of us–deserve a believable and better explanation from the NDP for what happened on election day.
What happened? Is not BC a conservative province and the Liberals just as well neoliberals or neocons? Isn’t liberalism and neoliberalism basically the same at this point in time? The glove fits the hand that feeds business, if not business as usual. We know that Canada as a whole has become quite comfortably conservative. In BC, Gordon Campbell brought the Liberals to victory in 2001 and the province took a right turn that obviously sits right with a majority of the people. In this week’s election on 14 May, there were pockets of ‘vote the bums out’, such as in my riding where we did vote out the Liberals’ very astute strategist and standing Premier Christy Clark. But for the most part, if you lean left toward NDP, election night sadly trended from ‘vote the bums out’ to ‘vote the bums in’.
Now, as #IdleNoMore confronts #IdleForeverMore, it is going to be an interesting four more years in BC.
Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Advocacy, BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Government, Idle No More, Organizing, Politics, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Government, Job cuts, K-12 issues, Organizing, Protests, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions
Jim Sinclair, President, B.C. Federation of Labour, May 10, 2013 — It is perhaps one of the more twisted ironies of this election that Premier Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals are running on their record of job creation, a record they would probably be smarter to run away from.
Their much touted B.C. Jobs Plan has been discredited by the facts — more than 30,000 jobs have been lost since its inception. The latest figures show that B.C. lost 15,000 full-time jobs in March, setting off the largest rise in Canada. What to do when the facts don’t add up? Answer: buy ads.
While the last provincial budget cut money from programs that train workers, the Liberals could find $16 million of taxpayers’ money to try and sell us on the failed jobs plan.
But perhaps the most blatant example of the betrayal by this government on the critical issue of jobs has been its role in promoting the use of temporary foreign workers in British Columbia. Today, our province is breaking Canadian records for growth in the use of foreign workers — more than 74,000 — while at the same time more than 200,000 British Columbians are struggling to find a job and thousands cannot get the training they need.
The most high-profile case in this long, sorry story has been the HD Mining proposal to bring more than 200 miners from China to work in Northern B.C. During her trip to China, Clark announced that the B.C. Jobs Plan was working because the company was investing in the province. Nothing, it turns out, could be farther from the truth.
The facts are well known. The company claimed they could not find one single British Columbian to work at the mine. Not only that, the company claimed it would be four years before a single Canadian would be hired — and 14 years before Canadians would fully run the mine.
Yet more than 70 of the temporary work permits were granted for “low skill” workers. More than 300 Canadians applied, some with years of experience, and not one was hired. In China, HD Mining has a three-month training program for miners.
The more the facts came out, the more the people of B.C. knew something was rotten.
But the smell did not reach Victoria. Did the Liberal government stand up for jobs in our province? Absolutely not. Court documents — available thanks to construction unions spending hundreds of thousands of dollars standing up for us — show clearly that the government secretly supported the plan to bring in the workers. They even went so far as to pressure federal government officials “on a daily basis” to open doors as soon as possible.
They were successful. Within weeks, the company got the permits and British Columbians lost the jobs.
Was this an isolated event? Not in the least. According to briefing notes obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, for three years the government held information sessions “for mining companies, concerning labour-market opinion and work-permit processes.”
The truth is that rather than training British Columbians to take the jobs and support their families, the government was training employers to bring in foreign workers to take those jobs.
In their glossy election platform document the Liberals proclaim that “creating jobs is the best thing we can do to protect a brighter future for B.C. families.” British Columbians would be right to ask — jobs for whom? Which families?
We are at the crossroads in British Columbia. The road to prosperity is not allowing companies to bring in temporary foreign workers in record numbers while we starve training programs for British Columbians.
Completion rates for apprenticeships have dropped to 37 per cent, the lowest in decades. Apprenticeship offices were boarded up around the province at a time when need was the greatest.
We need a government that will put British Columbians first, that will work with business and labour together to ensure the benefits of our economic development finds its way into the pockets of British Columbians who spend the money supporting local businesses and communities.
The choice is clear. On May 14, vote for change to ensure that our kids have a chance to proper training, decent jobs and to live in a province were the needs of all British Columbians come first.
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Posted in Accountability, Advocacy, BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Economics, Government, Organizing, Politics, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Government, Organizing, Protests, Unions
Premier Christy Clark’s proposed plan for a 10-year deal with public school teachers ignores court rulings, contradicts government’s own legislation, and risks scuttling a positive bargaining framework on the eve of its expected ratification by the BC Teachers’ Federation and the BC Public School Employers’ Association.
“The premier’s plan is flawed in a number of significant ways,” said BCTF President Susan Lambert.
“The key problem is that it ignores the ruling of the BC Supreme Court that teachers have the right to bargain working conditions, such as class size and class composition. The Liberals’ own Bill 22 also allows for these issues to be negotiated in this round but her new plan requires teachers to give up this hard-won right. Over the past decade, when Liberal policy regulated learning conditions, class sizes grew and support for students with special needs suffered,” Lambert said.
As a consequence, BC has the worst student-educator ratio in the country, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. In order to bring BC’s teacher staffing levels just up to the national average, the province would have to hire an astounding 6,800 more teachers.
Another major problem is the indexing of teachers’ salaries to average increases of other government employees. “This is fundamentally unfair because it effectively prohibits teachers from negotiating for their own salaries,” Lambert said. “Under such a scheme government has all the cards. The average of net zero is zero.” BC teachers’ salaries are lagging far behind those of other teachers in Canada, and the gap will only widen under this plan, she added.
Lambert questioned the government’s timing on today’s announcement, given that it comes one day before the beginning of the BCTF’s Representative Assembly and the BCPSEA’s annual general meeting. Representatives of both organizations are slated to vote on a new Framework Agreement which offers a positive process for the upcoming round of bargaining.
“In recent months we’ve quietly had productive conversations with the employer about how to achieve a smoother more effective round, and it’s most unfortunate that government chose to intervene at this time,” Lambert said. “The BCTF will continue to recommend ratification of the Framework Agreement and we hope this abrupt announcement from government will not prevent BCPSEA from doing the same.”
On the surface the premier’s rhetoric sounds conciliatory after more than a decade of conflict between the BCTF and the BC Liberals but, in reality, her plan is yet another effort to severely limit teachers’ constitutional right to bargain.
Read More: BCTF News Release
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Posted in Advocacy, BC Education, Campaigns & Contracts, Employment rights, Government, K-12 issues, Legal issues, Politics, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Government, K-12 issues, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions
Feeling pressures of government intervention and the net zero worker mandate of the Liberal Government’s Public Sector Employer’s Council (PSEC), CUPE 2278 Teaching Assistants curtailed job action and the University of British Columbia ratified an Agreement yesterday. The 0%, 0%, 2%, 2% wage increases for the 2010-2014 contract is in line with the average annual increases of just 0.3% for public employees in the province, the lowest in Canada.
With an upcoming election in the spring of 2013, at this point unions are better off deferring settlements and betting that the 99% have had it with the BC Liberals and will elect an NDP government on 14 May 2013. After years of the Liberals suppressing wages under PSEC’s net zero worker mandate, which made wage negotiations with employers a fiction, bargaining with the NDP will actually be bargaining.
NDP leader Adrian Dix has demonstrated the signs necessary to lead a pro-labour party to election victory and was quite candid about this in a recent interview with BCBusiness:
Public-sector unions have tolerated “net-zero” wage controls in recent years, but tolerance seems to be wearing thin. Would you be in favour of substantial “catch-up” wage hikes? You negotiate at the bargaining table and what we’ve had over the last period was real inconsistency from the current government in the way they’ve treated public-sector unions. You’ve had, contrary to specific promises, the tearing up of contracts. Can you imagine engaging in that practice on the business side and that being good for the economy? The [current] government’s bills 27, 28 and 29, which were singularly important in health and education bargaining, were found to be illegal in the courts. That’s their approach. We had to pay for those actions. So I think you need to be balanced in these things.
These are difficult fiscal times and I expect negotiations to be difficult and challenging. Remember, the government at the bargaining table right now is offering wage increases. Should they be offering wage increases? I think the Liberals have answered yes. In order to get agreements in these next two years they’re offering wage increases right now as we speak. So they’re no longer at net zero. You only have one government at a time and they’re negotiating right now. My recommendation to all parties is that they negotiate at the bargaining table.
Read more: BCBusiness November 2012
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Posted in Advocacy, BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Employment rights, Government, Organizing, Politics, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Government, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions, Working conditions
With a day of general strikes, Italy, Portugal, and Spain joined Greece in anti-austerity protests and blockades. For the last moth, the theme in Greece has been “enough is enough” as the worst capitalist crisis in Europe since the Great Depression fuels uncertainties and moves students and workers toward unity. In May, students launched mass protests across Spain while faculty members followed with their own strikes. The financial crisis is the tip of the iceberg. For example Spain, with an unemployment rate 25.8% and a youth jobless rate of 54.2%, faces the deepest budget cuts on record with cuts to spending on health, education and benefits, and increases in sales taxes and levies on income.
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Posted in Economics, Government, International, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Protests, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions
Following strike approval of its membership last week, the Faculty and Staff Association (FSA) at the British Columbia Institute of Technology have withdrawn services this afternoon. Seen as a wake-up call, job action will escalate until the Union reaches an agreement. Like a number of other locals in the province, the Union’s contract expired 30 June 2010. “Better salaries and working conditions are needed to attract career-seasoned professionals from industries where wages have kept pace with inflation,” FSA executive director and chief negotiator Paul Reniers said in a press release. “Fair wages will ensure that BCIT can hire and hold on to the kinds of professionals who built this important institution.” The FSA represents over 1,400 BCIT employees including technology and part-time studies faculty, assistant instructors, technical staff, researchers, curriculum development professionals, librarians, program advisors and counselors.
Reniers noted that “low wages are already impacting BCIT’s programs. Our rates for night school are among the lowest in the region, yet 60% of BCIT registrations are in Part-Time Studies. We are losing instructors to other colleges and universities.”
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Posted in Advocacy, Employment rights, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Technology, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions
The CUPE 2278 bargaining team for Teaching Assistants at the University of British Columbia has recommended a tentative agreement for ratification tomorrow. Comments on the 2278 Facebook nearly unanimously describe the tentative agreement as “disappointing.” One week into job action and rolling picket lines the Union bargaining team signed on to mediation with Vincent Ready. Now with a tentative agreement to accept 0%-0%-2%-2% for 2010-2014, it would appear that mediation failed the students, which is to say, UBC missed an opportunity to finally recognize and validate, in wage increases, the work of its TAs. Granted, the 2278 tentative agreement is perfectly in line with the agreements of other CUPE locals but there should have been an exception made for the TAs for any number of reasons.
Managerial salaries excepted, the University stands solid with the Government’s depiction of public employees as net zero workers. The BC Liberals’ promise to make net zero=0% at the end of this month made it easy for the University and put tremendous pressure on the 2278 bargaining team. The TAs will average this out at just 1% per year. At a national level over the past 3 years, BC employees have received the lowest average increases in the country, averaging just a bit over 0.3% per year.
Ok. There have been questions raised concerning a post on administrative salaries and increases over the past 6-7 years at the University of British Columbia. The UBC President’s Office had the Faculty Association retracting a component of a CUPE 2278 letter forwarded to faculty members, which ended in a public apology by FAUBC President Nancy Langton for not fact-checking the Union’s summary of UBC President Toope’s salary increases. So here are some facts…
One question concerns a net increase in administrators or managers in the University and average 5% annual increases in their salaries while the BC Liberal government has designated most public employees as net zero workers. At a national level over the past 3 years, BC employees have received the lowest average increases in the country, averaging just a bit over 0.3% per year. Are administrators’ salaries at UBC increasing, or how can they be, at an average of 5% per year? And why are these same administrators intent on suppressing already excessively low wages, against inflation, raising tuition and costs, etc., of Teaching Assistants?
As GTA wages at UBC have been stagnant (i.e., 0%), administrative salaries have skyrocketed. UBC President Toope’s salary was for 2010-11 depending on which UBC report is used, $528,504 (UBC’s Financial Information Act Report for Year Ended March 31, 2011) or $378,000 + $50,000 Incentive Plan + $58,408 Housing perks + others = $580,978 (UBC’s Public Sector Executive Compensation Report, 2011/12) (For comparative information across Canada, see How Much Does Your University President Make?). Using UBC’s Financial Information Act Report, from 2005, the year UBC began to basically roll over CUPE 2278 contracts, to 2011, the last year of accessible data, the President’s salary rose from $434,567 to $528,504 (22% increase). The Provost’s salary increased from $230,887 to $321,023, a whopping 39% increase! These two are comparison’s between 2005 and 2011 in the differential of salaries for the positions (e.g., President Piper’s outgoing salary and President Toope’s ongoing salary, which is a fair comparison and similar to the way initial appointment salaries are handled). The new Concordia University President’s salary ($357,000) raised eyebrows recently in Quebec on the heels of the largest and most sustained student strike in Canadian history.
Comparatively, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s salary was for 2011, $317,574 (inc. car perk) + benefits + house perk 24 Sussex Drive, Ottawa). US President Barack Obama’s salary was for 2011, $400,000 + $50,000 expense account + $100,000 travel account + $19,000 entertainment account = $569,000). Of course, these salaries pale next to private sector University President and corporate Chief salaries. The four top Executives of UBC Properties Trust enjoy a combined $1.3m in salaries, including perks for cars.
The salary of VP Human Resources, who manages bargaining for the University, jumped between 2005 and 2011 from $191,793 to $230,704 (20% increase). The Director of Faculty Relations’ salary rocketed from $119,615 to $198,209 (41% increase). And so on. Deans have made certain that there is similar progress with their salaries. For example, the Business Dean’s salary bounced from $334,196 to $422,304 (26% increase) while the Education Dean’s salary leaped from $216,519 to $261,732 (21% increase). Through 2010, the Arts Dean’s salary quickly grew from $191,408 to $249,816 (30% in 6 years). It is no mystery why the ranks of managers at UBC have swelled in numbers over the past few years. The transition of Associate Deans and others to management via the 2010-12 Collective Agreement merely instrumented trends and ambitions.
Another question raised is why are these same administrators intent on exploiting Sessional faculty members at UBC and suppressing their already pitifully low wages? For example, the Masters of Education Technology revenue generating program at UBC, which has basically bailed the Faculty of Education out of a dire financial crisis (e.g., 130% or $1,893,015 over budget for its 270 Sessional faculty appointments in 2008-09), uses Sessionals to teach about 85% of its courses and pays them a piecemeal $242.28 per student wage. Denied office space, the Sessionals often work below the minimum wage ($10.25 / hour) after gross hours in and net wages out are calculated.
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Posted in Accountability, Administration, Budgets & Funding, Corporate University, Employment rights, Faculty, Salary/Economic Benefits, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Administration, Budgets & Funding, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions, University presidents, Working conditions
Open Letter on the SFU labour dispute:
We, the undersigned SFU faculty members, are in solidarity with the TSSU and CUPE in their struggle for better working conditions.
The workers represented by TSSU and CUPE deserve a better deal — they deserve better working conditions, they deserve a better wage, and they deserve more respect from their employer for the work they do.
And they deserve a real contract, having been without one for two years now.The campus unions’ struggle, however, goes beyond their immediate bargaining demands. The primary mission of this public university — to teach its students well — is not accomplished only in the classroom. It is also accomplished by the example the university sets.
The university should be an engaging and engaged intellectual environment, and a good and fair and decent place to work. But working conditions at SFU have been worsening for years. Wages have been frozen while workloads have risen.
The educational system is under increasing stress, from reduced faculty numbers to larger classes, from rapidly rising fees to streamlined academic programs.
Students are paying more for reduced programs, and graduate student workers are being paid less for doing more work. Everyone is told to “do more with less.” But that is another word for austerity at SFU and in the university sector in BC at large.
The university administration is passing on the burden of austerity to its workers. While administrators raise their salaries at a rate faster than faculty and staff salaries, while resources are diverted to areas of the university that are not of direct benefit to its education mission, SFU’s most vulnerable employees — TAs, sessionals, contingent faculty and staff — are being hit the hardest.
The TSSU and CUPE struggle is a struggle against this austerity. It is more than a demand for better wages for the unions’ members; its aim is more than better working conditions.
Its aim is for a better university, a university worthy of being called a place of higher education. It is a demand for a university that is truly engaged in the world and that is a truly engaging place to work and teach and learn.
In other words, TSSU and CUPE’s struggle is a struggle that concerns every member of the SFU community and we should all, wholeheartedly, support and engage in this struggle.
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Posted in Advocacy, Employment rights, Faculty, Organizing, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Faculty, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions, Working conditions
CUPE 2278 President Trish Everett advises pickets at the Physics Building
CUPE 2278 Teaching Assistants at the University of British Columbia are continuing with rolling pickets across campus and the picket lines continue to grow. Pickets at the IK Barber Centre / Library on Friday and the Physics Building on Monday drew large numbers of 2278 members, supporters, and students refusing to cross the picket lines. The Union’s Bargaining Team heads into mediation with Vince Ready today. “In the mean time,” the Union advises, “job action on campus will continue.”
One graduate student summed up the situation: “I strike for 2 hours and I TA for 2 hours.” She is joined by hundreds who have now moved on to the picket lines. Another decried: “I love being a student but my bank account does not.” CUPE 2278’s information leaflets indicate the basic issues for bargaining and striking: A fair wage increase; Tuition waiver to protect increases from immediate claw back; TA job security for the graduate students; and child-care assistance. Child-care fees on campus have risen by 20% while TA wage have remained stagnant or lost ground to inflation over the past seven years. Geography TA Alejandro Cervantes explained these challenges: “The yearly fee for daycare is more than I get as a TA.”
See Videos and Slides:
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Posted in Advocacy, Employment rights, Organizing, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions, Working conditions
For the current CUPE 2278 strike, the Teaching Assistants have adopted UBC “Mind Your Place” as an operative theme, playing on UBC’s Strategic Plan logo “Place of Mind.” Like another domino of logos and brands, this one has now fallen. UBC “Mind Your Place” is CUPE 2278’s not so subtle reminder of the TAs’ struggles for the fair working conditions that might allow them to be a part of what Hannah Arendt called in 1973 “the life of the mind.” It’s too easy for University managers to enjoy their perks and salary increases and raise flags to the great “Place of Mind” while passing the “Mind y/our Place” buck to scapegoats such as PSEC. The money is there and will be there, in house at the University, to settle with the students on 5% per year over at least four years.
Many of us recall the previous administration’s campaign brand and logo, “Think about It,” as it fell into some disrepute and was eventually abandoned around 2003-2004 and CUPE 2278’s last strike. The brand had toppled, as graduate student Kedrick James put it at the time, from “Think about It” to “Build on It.” Priorities and power shifted to UBC Properties Trust. Nowadays,the four top Executives of UBC Properties Trust enjoy a cumulative $1.3m in salaries, including perks for cars
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Posted in Advocacy, Budgets & Funding, Employment rights, Organizing, Salary/Economic Benefits, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Administration, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Prime Time at SFU (Behind CUPE 3338 Picket Line)
Should one wonder what it looks like behind a picket line, look at the web cam photo at SFU at prime time. For the administrators, here, two meeting in the mall, it’s lonely and a time to reflect on how to run a University with no staff, students, or faculty. Or here at SFU, how to give the employees, such as the CUPE 3338 workers on the picket line, the hard earned wages they deserve. Or what else could these managers be wondering?
…and the employees’ and supporter side of the picket line looks like…
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