New Brunswick: Talks to resume today between St. Thomas University and its faculty

Posted on January 9, 2008 by | Comments Off on New Brunswick: Talks to resume today between St. Thomas University and its faculty

Daily Gleaner: Talks to resume today

Negotiations between St. Thomas University and its faculty are scheduled to resume this morning.

The two sides are back at the table after an 11-hour bargaining session Sunday failed to reach an agreement.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

New Book: How the University Works

Posted on January 8, 2008 by | Comments Off on New Book: How the University Works

bousquet.jpg

New York University Press has just published a new book by Marc Bousquet, How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation .

Bousquet is a founding editor of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor. Check out his blog, here.

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Posted in Academics

Battle Between Big Labor Unions Hits Puerto Rico

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New America Media: Battle Between Big Labor Unions Hits Puerto Rico

The competition between the two most powerful labor federations in the United States has moved to Puerto Rico, where “Change to Win”, whose leadership includes New York-based Puerto Rican union leader Dennis Rivera, is trying to compete with the teacher’s union, the island’s largest. By the middle of January, Change to Win expects to hold a meeting on the island in which the union will lay out instructions on how it will try to displace the Teacher’s Federation of Puerto Rico from its position as exclusive representative of the tens of thousands of teachers working in the public school system.

This labor drama is much more than just a challenge to represent workers, but may well be the battle that marks a major step backward for the AFL-CIO in this Caribbean nation. The battle takes place in anticipation of a major teacher’s strike that threatens to paralyze the public school system and in which Change to Win (United for Change) is positioned as a strategic ally of the island’s autonomous government, which wants to push the Teacher’s Federation out.

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Posted in K-12 issues, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions

Pittsburgh: City, teachers continue contract talks

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Post Gazette: City, teachers continue contract talks

Negotiators for the Pittsburgh Public Schools and the teachers union met for about three hours yesterday and will meet again Wednesday.

After yesterday’s session, district Chief of Staff Lisa Fischetti said “no conclusions” had been reached. Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers President John Tarka said he wasn’t able to give details.

The union represents about 3,500 teachers and other employees in three bargaining units. The workers have been without contracts since June 30 and have authorized a strike, if necessary.

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Posted in K-12 issues, Strikes & Labor Disputes

University of Montana: Potential hire under scrutiny

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The Missoulian: University of Montana: Potential hire under scrutiny

An American professor who teaches Islamic law and the Quran is at the center of a brewing tempest at the University of Montana, which is considering hiring him for an unexpected, unadvertised, unplanned-for job.

Several issues are at play, but they all spring from a single, thorny topic for universities called “spousal accommodation.”

The awkward phrase essentially means this: To get the best person for a job, a university will often help find suitable campus employment for the candidate’s spouse or partner.

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Posted in Faculty

Israel: Adler: Let arbitrator evaluate lecturers’ wages

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Jerusalem Post: Adler: Let arbitrator evaluate lecturers’ wages


After 78 days of the senior lecturers’ strike, National Labor Court President Steve Adler on Sunday night issued a compromise proposal to solve the crisis that is likely to lead to the cancellation of the Fall 2007 university semester.

According to the proposal, made at a meeting with Treasury officials, lecturers and university presidents, the lecturers will immediately receive partial compensation for salary erosion that has accumulated over the last seven years and an arbitrator will be appointed to determine the rest.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

Canadian university locks out faculty

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World Socialist Website: Canadian university locks out faculty

St. Thomas University, a liberal arts college in Fredericton, New Brunswick, has locked out its 160 unionized full- and part-time faculty and announced its intention to make use of the province’s reactionary labor laws to force a vote on its “final” contract offer.

The vote, which is to be organized by the New Brunswick Labour Relations Board, will likely be held Friday, January 11.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

New Brunswick: New bargaining talks scheduled in lockout at New Brunswick university

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Canadian Press: New bargaining talks scheduled in lockout at New Brunswick university

3 hours ago

FREDERICTON – Administrators and locked-out professors at St. Thomas University will be back at the bargaining table on Thursday in an effort to end labour strife at the Fredericton school.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

New Brunswick: Negotiations resume to end NB university lockout

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The Globe & Mail: Negotiations resume to end NB university lockout

Canadian Press

January 6, 2008 at 2:26 PM EST

FREDERICTON — Talks have resumed between both sides involved in a lockout at St. Thomas University in Fredericton.

The school locked out faculty on Dec. 27 after 10 months of negotiations, with wages and workload remaining the major issues.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

New Brunswick: Talks on hold, classes delayed as labour dispute deepens at N.B. university

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Canadian Press: Talks on hold, classes delayed as labour dispute deepens at N.B. university

Students attending St. Thomas University will have an extended Christmas break thanks to a bitter labour dispute at the liberal arts institution.

University president Michael Higgins has announced that classes will not resume as planned on Thursday, but are now pushed back until next Monday. There’s no guarantee the university will reopen on that date as administrators and the faculty union remain locked in a contract standoff over wages and working conditions.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

New Brunswick: Talks break off in lockout at Fredericton university

Posted on January 8, 2008 by | Comments Off on New Brunswick: Talks break off in lockout at Fredericton university

The Globe & Mail: Talks break off in lockout at Fredericton university

The administration at St. Thomas University in Fredericton wants staff to vote on its final offer after talks between the school and its locked-out faculty broke off.

The faculty association, which recently announced $1-million in funding from the Canadian Association of University Teachers to help finance its lockout fund, walked away from the table on Friday.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

As Tenured Professors Become Less Common, Some Question How Students Are Affected

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The Daily Campus: As Tenured Professors Become Less Common, Some Question How Students Are Affected

Stephen L. Ross, an economics professor at UConn, received tenure just over eight years ago, joining increasingly exclusive company.

According to statistics from the Federal Education Department, about 70 percent of teaching faculty at colleges and universities nationwide are either untenured or on a non-tenure track. The American Association of University Professors has said that 30 years ago, that figure was closer to 40 percent.

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Posted in Faculty

Israel: University faculty strike becomes longest in Israel university history

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Haaretz: University faculty strike becomes longest in Israel university history

An extraordinary meeting of senior Bar-Ilan University faculty members on Wednesday denounced BIU President Prof. Moshe Kaveh. The move came in response to the decision by the country’s university presidents to appeal to the National Labor Court to force an end to the senior lecturers strike.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

Academic intimidation

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The Washington Times: Academic intimidation

By Thomas Sowell

There is an article in the current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education — the trade publication of the academic world — about professors being physically intimidated by their students.

“Most of us dread physical confrontation,” the author says. “And so these aggressive, and even dangerous, students get passed along, learning that intimidation and implied threats will get them what they want in life.”

This professor has been advised, at more than one college, not to let students know where he lives, not to give out his home phone number and to keep his home phone number from being listed.

This is a very different academic world from the one in which I began teaching in 1962. Over the years, I saw it change before my eyes.

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Posted in Commentary

Got the job, now need a Ph.D.

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The Houston Chronicle: Got the job, now need a Ph.D.

San Jacinto College’s new chancellor must earn a doctorate before starting post

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Posted in Administration

Universities fight unjust Cuba travel ban

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St. Petersburg Times: Universities fight unjust travel ban
A Times Editorial

Named as a defendant in a lawsuit over academic freedom, the Florida university Board of Governors has now drawn a careful line of demarcation. It will defend the Legislature’s right to dictate where professors travel on the taxpayers’ dime, but it won’t put up with the disingenuous political crusade to stop even privately financed travel to places such as Cuba.

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Posted in Commentary

Colleges outsource email

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The Chronicle: Colleges Get Out of E-Mail Business

Frantic troubleshooting by an overworked staff versus someone else fixing problems smoothly. A sliver of server space per person versus a five-gigabyte chunk. Half a million dollars versus free.

That’s what colleges are faced with as they decide whether to continue running their own e-mail services or outsource them to a professional service like Go

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Posted in Administration

Campaign to Limit Affirmative Action in Missouri Wins a Legal Victory

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The Chronicle: Campaign to Limit Affirmative Action in Missouri Wins a Legal Victory

A state court judge handed a major victory on Monday to advocates of a proposed referendum to amend the Missouri Constitution to ban public colleges and other state agencies from using affirmative-action preferences.

In a case focused on the wording of the proposed referendum, Judge Richard G. Callahan of the State Circuit Court for Cole County rejected as “insufficient and unfair” the summary language that Missouri’s secretary of state had placed on the measure over the objections of its backers. As required under state law, Judge Callahan drafted and certified new summary language for the measure, which is proposed for this November’s ballot, and the language that he used was welcomed by the measure’s proponents.

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Posted in Diversity

Scholars Mount Large-Scale Effort to Study Affirmative Action’s Effects—Bad and Good

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The Chronicle: Scholars Mount Large-Scale Effort to Study Affirmative Action’s Effects—Bad and Good

Campaign to Limit Affirmative Action in Missouri Wins a Legal Victory

A national consortium of about 30 professors and graduate students has been quietly gathering student data from colleges and law schools to examine the effect of affirmative-action policies on their intended beneficiaries.

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Posted in Diversity

UK: Secret Home Office memo orders officials to STOP deporting bogus foreign students

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Daily Mail: Secret Home Office memo orders officials to STOP deporting bogus foreign students

mmigration officers have been ordered to stop deporting foreign students who overstay their visas.

A leaked memo obtained by the Daily Mail suggests they are not regarded as a high enough priority.

The secret edict makes a mockery of Government claims to be running a “robust” immigration system.

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Posted in Students