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Transit workers and CUNY faculty are the only two New York municipal unions without a contract. It’s hard to determine which group is more incompetently led. TWU leaders encouraged their workers to strike illegally, only to prove too weak to push through the subsequent contract. Transit workers now almost certainly will get an even worse contract, imposed through arbitration, while having to pay the fines imposed for their lawbreaking activity. The CUNY union, the PSC, has spent much of the last four years asking such bold questions as, “Why shouldn’t unions have a foreign policy?” (One PSC activist recently used this line on a CUNY list-serv.) PSC leaders established a committee devoted to the subject, while conducting contract negotiations through such childish pranks as disrupting Board of Trustees meetings or protesting outside the residences of the Chancellor and Trustees’ chairman. PSC leaders seem unable to comprehend that at a public institution, the faculty and administration need to work together to persuade city and state lawmakers to fund the university, and so vilifying “management” is counterproductive.
A contract settlement seemed imminent last week, but the union refuses to budge on what PSC leader Barbara Bowen terms a “groundbreaking new proposal for 100 full-time positions reserved for eligible CUNY adjuncts.” (At CUNY, adjuncts and full-time faculty both belong to the union, and long-term adjuncts tend to be strong supporters of the current union leadership.)
In general, I’m skeptical about the value of academic unions, which seem to me inherently anti-meritocratic and incapable of dealing with threats to academic freedom emanating from inside the academy. But even with these views, I was amazed by the PSC demand. Defenders of academic unions generally contend that they represent a vehicle to uphold faculty self-governance. Yet though no aspect of academic life is more associated with self-governance than the personnel process, in this instance, the union seeks to restrict faculty self-governance by denying 100 (un)lucky departments around the system the opportunity to make new hires after a comprehensive national search. Moreover, the program would be open only to CUNY adjuncts with an extended period of service—those who have been on the market for several years, and have, for whatever reason, proven unable to get a full-time job. The strongest adjuncts, in other words, do not need this initiative.
There are many things that a faculty union could do to improve the job potential of its adjunct members. The PSC could shift allocations from its foreign policy programs to create an adjunct development fund that paid for adjuncts to make trips to professional conferences. The union could establish a clearinghouse that would pair CUNY adjuncts with faculty mentors, who could counsel them on the application process. There are many talented adjuncts throughout the CUNY system, and 100 searches open to all applicants would probably result in the hiring of 15 or 20 current adjuncts.
But tenure-track lines are not patronage positions. CUNY exists to educate the next generation of New Yorkers through the most talented faculty possible, not to provide jobs for supporters of the current PSC leadership. Having been hired under special criteria, will these ex-adjuncts need to be evaluated under different tenure criteria as well? If not, why does this class of adjuncts need special treatment in the hiring process? If so, will a two-track tenure process develop, or will standards simply be lowered across the board?
Hopefully the administration will stand firm, as it has repeatedly done over the last several years, and resist PSC efforts to diminish quality at CUNY.
Could I ask what any of this has to do with the topic of the original post, which concerns PSC-CUNY's proposal with respect to adjuncts? Is anyone going to offer a "peep" on that subject, or are we simply taking for granted for present purposes that off-topic (and ad hominem) posts are the order of the day?
Johnson's original post was about PSC-CUNY's inability to settle on a contract because it proposed to set aside 100 FT positions for adjuncts. Is it just obvious to everyone on this thread (KC Johnson aside) that this proposal makes sense, and that Bowen's insistence on it should hold up a contract for the entire CUNY system? Is it likewise obvious that opposition to it could only stem from a generalized animus to unions?
Does anyone have anything to say about PSC-CUNY, the CUNY contract, and its relation to adjunct hiring? Almost everything in this string is irrelevant to that topic, i.e., the actual topic.
Irfan Khawaja -
8/4/2006
Instead of asking loaded rhetorical questions, why not try formulating an objection? What information do you have that she lacks? And how does your information constitute a defense of the PSC?
Irfan Khawaja -
8/4/2006
I for one don't need to be apprised of the fact that there are lots of adjuncts out there, and neither I suspect, does Carrie-Ann. I was a long-term adjunct in New Jersey between 1997 and 2005, and after I finish my current one-year FT at John Jay College, I'll be going back to adjunct work. Carrie-Ann, whom I know, also spent several years adjuncting.
So your post merely tells us what we both know very well first-hand: there are lots of adjuncts out there, but not that many jobs; adjuncts are taking over 200 and 300 level courses. Etc. (To amend one point of KC's: I adjuncted until 2004 at Princeton, and there were lots of adjuncts there. Princeton has recently re-thought that policy, and last I checked had a hiring freeze on adjuncts, but it's not just the cash-starved institutions that rely on adjuncts.)
Fine. How do any of those facts--known to everyone in the business and denied by no party to this discussion--constitute an argument for the PSC's proposal? How do they contract anything that CA or KC have said--unless one assumes that the sheer fact of needing or wanting FT perks is all that one needs to get them? Or unless one assumes that sheer seniority at the adjunct level is an indication of pedagogical or scholarly merit?
As someone whose career so far has consisted mostly of adjunct assignments, I frankly do not see how patronage lines for adjuncts solve any legitimate problem. All that this propsal can be expected to do is to lower hiring standards. Why can those adjuncts who want FT positions not be expected to compete in a regular search alongside everyone else? What is it about a senior adjunct by itself that entitles you to a FT position?
In fact, as a long-time adjunct and a one-time full timer, I happen to know both adjuncts and full timers who think that the PSC's proposal is crazy. There are plenty of adjuncts who want to earn their way into a FT position, not be awarded one just for being a warm body in the right place. And there are full timers who would resent adjuncts getting FT positions without having to earn them.
Then there is the realization that this is the ridiculous item that is holding up a contract for all of CUNY? I wasn't aware of that before I read Johnson's post, but now that I am, I've gotten off the fence in my views of PSC-CUNY. (As a newcomer to CUNY, I was neutral about PSC-CUNY before, but as someone who'd had problematic experiences with the AFT in NJ, I was skeptical.) Sorry, this is not a union with my interests at heart. Having them is what gives a union its claim to my allegiance--as opposed to its claim on my compulsory dues payment.
Irfan Khawaja -
8/4/2006
Sorry, I meant to ask "How do these facts contradict what CA and KC have said...?"
Robert KC Johnson -
3/8/2006
It's true, I generally don't write about "corporate crimes." I also generally don't write about murder. This is a blog about history and academic affairs; if you want posts about corporate crime, you might want to look elsewhere.
I did a quick scan through my posts over the past two years, and less than 5% deal with academic unions--so I've met the hope that "you've got some posts in you about something else." I don't believe I've ever posted on non-academic unions. As for the allegation that "You hate unions, that's been made clear. With a deep and abiding passion, that's been made clear"--it's hard to reconcile that with the positive comments I have made about teachers' unions at the K-12 level. Expressing doubts about the usefulness of unions for the academy doesn't mean that someone "hates unions." It does mean that in a profession--and a profession that possesses a considerable amount of self-government--unions can be a force for upholding a dubious status quo and suppressing merit as much as they can a force for good.
As for the comparatively better situation of all those independent trade unionists in China and Cuba, I wonder how many trade unionists in Colombia (or, indeed, how many citizens of Colombia, period) would move to China or Cuba if they had the opportunity.
Leo Edward Casey -
3/7/2006
>> I'd suggest that "for trade unionists, Colombia is more dangerous than China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Georgia, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Syria, Iran," because there are no independent trade unionists in any of these other countries. The issue to me is one of priorities. To my knowledge, the PSC hasn't taken up the cause of the right of workers to unionize in China, or in Cuba, or in Syria, or in Iran. Could it be that the PSC doesn't care about the fate of workers in countries that are critical of US foreign policy? <<
Apparently, you know as little about China, Cuba, etc. as you do about Colombia. There are, in fact, independent trade unionists and trade union movements in all of those countries, and their leaders and members are regularly arrested, imprisoned, and worse for their efforts. In many of those countries, most prominently in Zimbabwe, the independent labor movement IS the political opposition. For Colombia to be more dangerous than all of those other nations -- and Freedom House is hardly the only human rights organization to reach that conclusion -- it has to be pretty damn dangerous.
The AFT and the AFL-CIO has a long and proud history of opposition to all state repression of trade unions, from dictatorships on the left as well on the right. Perhaps you might take some time to acquaint yourself with that rather public record before you comment on the subject again.
Barry DeCicco -
3/7/2006
Robert, I just downloaded their spreadsheet, and checked - during most of the Apartheid era covered, they give S. Africa a 'PF'. Should people in the US not have protested apartheid?
Also, "To my knowledge, the PSC hasn't taken up the cause of the right of workers to unionize in China, or in Cuba, or in Syria, or in Iran. Could it be that the PSC doesn't care about the fate of workers in countries that are critical of US foreign policy?"
Perhaps, just perhaps, this is because Columbia is open to US influence/control more than China, Cuba, Syria or in Iran.
Robert, if we wanted, we could count your posts criticizing unions, and compare that with the count of posts criticizing flat-out illegal behavior on the part of corporations. If we found that you spent more time criticizing unions than corporate crimes (not just bad actions, but actual crimes), could we conclude that you support corporate crime?
It'd be reasonable,IMHO - I've never seen any anti-union fanatic who actually cared about corporate actions.
Frankly, Robert, your anti-union crusade is a bit much. You hate unions, that's been made clear. With a deep and abiding passion, that's been made clear.
Take a break, please, and give us one.
Write about something else - hopefully, you've got some posts in you about something else. Let us see them.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/7/2006
I'd suggest that "for trade unionists, Colombia is more dangerous than China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Georgia, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Syria, Iran," because there are no independent trade unionists in any of these other countries. The issue to me is one of priorities. To my knowledge, the PSC hasn't taken up the cause of the right of workers to unionize in China, or in Cuba, or in Syria, or in Iran. Could it be that the PSC doesn't care about the fate of workers in countries that are critical of US foreign policy?
More to the point, as I noted above, I can see no evidence that the situation in Colombia is in any way comparable to South Africa under apartheid or to the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union.
Leo Edward Casey -
3/7/2006
Since the AFT's Shanker Institute and Freedom House are engaged in a joint project to produce a teacher's curriculum guide for teaching the politics of comparative democratization, and since I am sitting on the advisory group for that project, I am fully aware of the Freedom House's "map of freedom."
All one has to do is actually read the country summary of Colombia to find the following phrase:
"The murder of trade union activists has made Colombia the most dangerous country in the world for organized labor."
Just think of the implications of this statement: for trade unionists, Colombia is more dangerous than China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Georgia, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Syria, Iran...
It would be hard to imagine a more unequivocal statement of why unions have a moral obligation to address the situation in Colombia.
And yet, time and time again, K. C. Johnson goes to great lengths to say that there is no good reason for teacher unions to protest what is taking place in Colombia.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/6/2006
There's no doubt that the academy has many more adjuncts now than 30 years ago, especially at cash-starved universities. (There are virtually no adjuncts at Ivy League schools, for instance.)
But of the roughly 10,000 adjuncts currently at CUNY, only around 1000 of them would be eligible for the PSC's patronage proposal (according to the Part-Timers Committee). Those long-term adjuncts, it seems to me, are those who are likely in many instances to fit the passage from Carrie-Ann that was quoted.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/6/2006
I agree completely with Jim that faculty unions should come to the defense of those who experience corrupt tenure processes. And one of my best friends from the department was a retired longtime former grievance counselor for the PSC, and explained to me, essentially, how the union once had handled such matters: union activists avoided any overt involvement in personnel affairs, and therefore could be presumed to be on the candidate's side in a grievance.
I also agree that UUP has been a very effective union.
The problem becomes, though, of what to do with a deeply politicized (and political) union like the PSC. Given that nearly all personnel decisions are effectively made by the faculty, not by the administration, the union has to represent someone who's making allegations against other members of the union. There's the strong potential for a conflict of interest on such matters.
Barry DeCicco -
3/6/2006
Irfan, because that was less disruptive than the alternative.
The dominant fact of American academia since the early/mid 1970's has been that of a massive labor surplus. There have been many more Ph.D.'s granted each year than TT positions (for you and Carrie-Ann, please skim the archives of the Invisible Adjunct blog; if it's offline, go to: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://invisibleadjunct.com).
University administrations have eagerly taken advantage of this situation, moving more and more teaching work over to adjuncts. Not part of their training, and usually not because the adjuncts prefer it, but but because that's all that they can get. Senior faulty have taken eager advantage of this as well, both in turning over many 100-level courses over to adjuncts, but also in the massive use of post-docs, converting that system from one of a temporary stepping-stone to professorhood to a permanent condiction.
IMHO Carrie-Ann's comment, which did not mention the dominant force in adjuncthood and academia, was equivalent to a labor professor commenting on the USA 1930's labor market without mentioning the Great Depression.
Barry DeCicco -
3/6/2006
Carrie-Ann Biondi Khan: "Second, they are sometimes those who have been unsuccessful on the job market in securing full-time positions, which is a situation that could occur for a number of reasons, including not making normal progress toward the PhD, not having a sufficient research agenda, etc. Third, they occasionally intend to remain life-long adjuncts, perhaps because they like the flexibility of the schedule around other part-time employment they have, they do not want to teach every semester, they do not want the substantial administrative and service responsibilities that come with full-time employment, they are not interested in publishing, etc."
Wow. Carrie-Ann, are you actually *that* uninformed about the ratio of Ph.D.'s to tenure-track positions in most fields, for the past 30 years?
Jim Williams -
3/6/2006
Folks:
Back to my initial post. Unlike KC,I do think faculty unions have a major role in public higher education. They give faculty leverage with the campus administration and with the state government. SUNY's union, United University Professions, has done a responsible job in both areas, given that we are handicapped with a statewide ban on public employee strikes. During the years when NYS was hamstrung with budget deficits and, more recently, with a governor and some SUNY trustees who wanted to cut state support of SUNY to little or nothing, UUP has been a very effective advocate for the welfare of the system as a whole. By NYS law, SUNY cannot lobby for itself; UUP can. Its affiliation with NYSUT and AFT multiplies its political impact.
Faculty unions also should play a major role in protecting loudmouths/gadflys who may still be fine teachers and scholars. Sometimes, this doesn't work properly - as in KC's case. Other times, as has sometimes happened on my campus, the union must "defend the indefensible." However, there are cases in which the union here has successfully defended people who would have been otherwise dismissed for inappropriate reasons.
Unions also have the ability to raise issues to the administration's attention. As a chair, I have spoken frequently for an increase in adjuncts' salaries; our provost merely says, "Then we will have fewer fulltime lines." However, our union president raised the issue in a joint-labor management committee, the college's president recognized the problem, and something may be done (finally). The union, working at the statewide level, also gained SUNY adjuncts health, vision, and dental insurance if the adjuncts teach two courses, plus elibility for fellowship support.
The craziness of KC's case is that the PSC didn't come to the aid of a professor so obviously on the receiving end of unjust treatment. They failed in a key aspect of their responsibilities.
A set-aside of 100 fulltime jobs for current adjuncts does seem inappropriate. Such jobs should be filled after national searches with the best available candidates.
Colombia is listed as "partly free," while more than 40 countries are listed as "not free." I think most people consider Freedom House to be an objective source. To contend that the policies of the Colombian government--a regime that Freedom House doesn't consider among the world's 40 least free nations--to be comparable to those of apartheid South Africa or dictatorial Soviet Union strikes me as very hard to defend.
Carrie-Ann Biondi Khan -
3/5/2006
Yes, getting back to the primary issue at hand, it is highly problematic to set aside—in "patronage" fashion—tenure-track lines for which only certain CUNY adjuncts are eligible to apply.
Adjunct instructors hold adjunct positions for a variety of reasons. First, they are often graduate students who are teaching courses in order to make ends meet while they are in the process of working toward a PhD, which is the standard path for graduate students to take. Second, they are sometimes those who have been unsuccessful on the job market in securing full-time positions, which is a situation that could occur for a number of reasons, including not making normal progress toward the PhD, not having a sufficient research agenda, etc. Third, they occasionally intend to remain life-long adjuncts, perhaps because they like the flexibility of the schedule around other part-time employment they have, they do not want to teach every semester, they do not want the substantial administrative and service responsibilities that come with full-time employment, they are not interested in publishing, etc.
It is eminently unfair to protect even one (no less 100) job line(s) from open competition. Why insulate certain CUNY adjunct instructors (namely, those who largely fall into the second category above) from the usual job market rigors that the rest of us are supposed to go through? There is simply no good reason for doing this. It would be a slap in the face for those who have worked hard to maintain normal progress toward their graduate degrees, planned carefully for the job-seeking process, worked diligently with their graduate programs' placement committees, etc. to be excluded from applying for these tenure-track lines because . . . they did what they were supposed to do?!
KC Johnson suggests that rather than grant exclusive privilege to longstanding CUNY adjuncts in the job-seeking arena, the PSC "could shift allocations from its foreign policy programs to create an adjunct development fund that paid for adjuncts to make trips to professional conferences" and "could establish a clearinghouse that would pair CUNY adjuncts with faculty mentors, who could counsel them on the application process." I would suggest, though, that this is not the appropriate role for the PSC either. These functions should be provided either by the graduate programs that the adjuncts have studied with or—in the cases where the adjuncts are far-removed from their graduate programs, sometimes by decades—by the departments in which they are currently employed (or even at the adjuncts' own time, energy, and expense).
Robert KC Johnson -
3/5/2006
The origin of Bowen's 100-lines-for-adjuncts demand is unclear, making it even odder that the PSC would use the proposal as a reason for rejecting the administration's offer.
The 24-member Part-Timers Committee of the union recently issued a statement entitled, "Dear PSC Negotiating Team, Executive Council, and Delegate Assembly," which found "this particular 'benefit' divisive and regressive, playing into the hands of CUNY management, which prefers to reward a select few rather than to provide a fair salary and fair treatment to everyone."
Of course, CUNY "management" doesn't seem to want the proposal any more than the Part-Timers Committee does.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/5/2006
Agree completely with above. As I said in the original post, I'm generally skeptical about academic unions' value (I'm talking about college here, not K-12), but it seems to me there are considerable differences between the PSC and its strange proposal and the NYU situation.
The recent AAUP resolution contains no reference to Westheimer, but if the facts as presented by Leo Casey are true, it's a clearcut academic freedom violation, I agree.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/5/2006
I'm not aware of even the PSC comparing the Colombian government's policies to apartheid or to the Soviet Union's denial of Jewish emigration, so perhaps their viewpoint on this issue accurately reflects union sentiment or is even a moderate version thereof. The situation in Colombia is far from ideal. But at the very least it is a democracy (albeit an imperfect one), and I can think of 30 or 40 countries around the world where conditions for workers and for the average person are far worse. That the PSC--and, apparently, the union movement in general--has singled out Colombia is deeply troubling. Even so, I still don't believe the AFT did a picket of the Columbian consulate.
Regarding official union communiques, it seems to me that the explanation of the reasons for an event contained in the announcement of the event given to union members can be considered to reflect union policy.
Leo Edward Casey -
3/5/2006
>> Finally, as to the Westheimer case, not a peep was heard from me because this is the first I've heard about it. An article in "Workplace" doesn't exactly strike me as the most objective source. <<
But the conclusions of the NLRB, which you raise to the level of law when they suit your purpose, are something you can overlook in this instance, right, since they found that Westheimer was denied tenure specically because of his support for the graduate student union?
And it does strike me as, well, interesting that someone who has written on this very blog on the subject of how outlandish he finds the AAUP's condemnations of the NYU administration over the graduate student union strike could be unaware of the their criticisms on this Westheimer case -- especially as it is directly connected to the current graduate student controvesy.
Leo Edward Casey -
3/5/2006
A logical sleight of hand won't do here.
The issue is not whether there are individuals in the PSC given to extravagant, over-blown rhetoric, or to overwrought analogies, or to political excess. Yes, it is preposterous to the point of being offensive to suggest that, for all of the trials and tribulations we face here in the US, they come anywhere close to those of a nation where being publicly identified as a trade unionist means one must fear for one's life.
Unfortunately, this lack of perspective and proportion seems to be an all too common malady of American academia, from all sides of the political spectrum. For every inane comment from someone on the PSC left there is an equal and corresponding statement of stupidity from someone on the academic right.
But thankfully, organizations don't establish policy by e-mail. It is through resolution, passed in democratic assemblies, and there is nothing in any PSC resolution on Colombia that I am aware of, and certainly none that has been provided here, that is inconsistent with the AFT's position, or that is not an appropriate statement on the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist.
And yes, it is an entirely appropriate response to the situation in Colombia to picket the Colombian consulate, just as it was an appropriate response to apartheid to picket the South African consulate and an appropriate response to the persecution of Soviet Jewry to picket the Soviet Union's consulate.
The link is functional. Perhaps NYU was having a server problem earlier this morning.
As I said in response to Sherman's post above, the grievance outcome was correct, I believe, in this case. But NYU's administration is also correct in not wanting to see established an organization that would continue to press such claims.
On the issue of the "rather extraordinary limits on who a department can hire are imposed every day by the administration of NYU and other universities, where departmental recommendations are not infrequently ignored." I don't know that such figures exist--but it's my guess that administrations around the country probably approve a very high percentage (95%? higher?) of personnel recommendations that come from the faculty. Even assuming that each of these 5%(?) actions was improper--which is a huge, and almost certainly incorrect assumption--I'd be hard pressed to argue that the major threat to academic freedom in personnel matters comes from administrators.
Finally, as to the Westheimer case, not a peep was heard from me because this is the first I've heard about it. An article in "Workplace" doesn't exactly strike me as the most objective source.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/5/2006
Perhaps I'm in error here--and if so, let me know--but I don't recall the AFT demanding a picket on the Colombian UN consulate, nor announcing that through its position on Colombia, as one email sent to all PSC members stated, "we join forces against a common enemy, those who would destroy public education. Here as in Colombia, we see more privatization, tuition hikes, budget cuts, over-use of standardized tests [in Colombia?!], and the infiltration of corporations and the military into education. The situation in Colombia is more extreme, but attacks on teachers' unions there are really designed to crush teachers' resistance to the same conservative agenda against public education we are fighting in New York."
I'm sure that if the AFT has taken this position, there would be lots of legislators in Albany who would be interesting in hearing this.
Leo Edward Casey -
3/5/2006
The hyperlink to the NYU administration web page which purportedly demonstrates how graduate student unions violate academic freedom is not functional, so I guess we are supposed to take on faith the claim that this provides support for the argument that a grievance where the arbitrator ruled against the union violates academic freedom. Note that even if one agreed with the argument that any limits on the ability of a department to hire whom they want are a violation of academic freedom, the outsome was such that one could only conclude that the grievance procedure worked correctly. Note also that rather extraordinary limits on who a department can hire are imposed every day by the administration of NYU and other universities, where departmental recommendations are not infrequently ignored. If this is a weighty issue of great academic freedom, the primary threat to it at NYU is the school administration.
But what is most revealing here is the selective way in which K. C. Johnson raises issues of academic freedom at NYU -- not a word on the case of Joel Westheimer, the professor in the school of education who had sterling ratings and reviews and a departmental recommendation for tenure, only to suddenly find it turning into denial by the NYU administration, after he was the only untenured professor to testify on behalf of the graduate student union before the NLRB. Investigating the denial of tenure, "we concluded that the real reason for his denial of tenure was because of his union activities," said Ms. Celeste Mattina, head of the New York region NLRB.
[See the statement by the AAUP chapter at NYU on the Westheimer case: http://www.eisnerassociates.com/westheimer/NYUfaculty.htm and an interview with Westheimer on his dismissal: http://www.louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue5p2/bousquetwestheimer.html.]
Now that is a real, serious case of academic freedom at NYU. And not a peep from K. C. Johnson on it...
Leo Edward Casey -
3/5/2006
There are issues on which the PSC position differs from the position of the AFT, and Afghanistan would be one of them. But there are also instances where the PSC position is the same as the AFT position, and Colombia is most certainly one of them.
I speak from first hand knowledge here, having been one of the main speakers arguing for the AFT position in support of intervention in Afghanistan following 9/11, and against the PSC position opposing it, on the floor of the 2002 AFT Convention. I also spoke on behalf of the resolutions condemning the violent state of siege teacher unions and other unions face in Colombia, and in favor of a boycott of Coca-Cola for its complicity in that violence, at both the NYSUT [NY State AFT affiliate] and AFT conventions. [I am a delegate from the local representing New York City public school educators, the UFT.]There is no meaningful difference between the PSC position and the AFT position on the Colombia question.
Indeed, I would be most interested in hearing an intellectually honest argument on why an American trade unions should NOT be condemning a situation such as exists in Colombia, where trade unionists are regularly assassinated simply for being trade unionists. I am not talking about having a fully articulated "foreign policy," with worked out positions on every international question of note that term implies. I am talking about simply taking a stand on burning international issues, especially as they directly involve brother and sister trade unionists around the world. The AFT and the AFL-CIO have consistently opposed the repression of trade unions around the globe, whether it be undertaken by authoritarian regimes of the left [Maoist China, Castro's Cuba] or of the right [apartheid South Africa, Pinochet's Chile]. Colombia should be no exception.
What I have found is that in discussions of academic unions, K. C. Johnson offers positions which are a mish-mash of fact and fiction, with the one guiding principle being opposition to unionism, in each and every situation.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/5/2006
Indeed--I completely agree with the arbitrator's ruling. The issue, though, is the GSOC/UAW's intent. The NLRB ruling stated that graduate student unions at private universities are not entitled to legal recognition. The GSOC has maintained that it should have authority over personnel matters, and refused an NYU offer this past fall of recognition in exchange for an agreement to confine bargaining to questions of compensation.
Arbitrators' rulings are precedential in New York as well. But, of course, no two cases are exactly alike. If NYU fully recognizes that a recognized GOSC is going to continue to press this issue, why risk an unfavorable arbitrator's decision somewhere down the road?
Robert KC Johnson -
3/5/2006
It's worth noting, moreover, that PSC "foreign policy" on issues such as the war in Afghanistan and sanctions against Colombia is at odds with the stated positions of its parent union, the AFT (which in turn is part of AFL-CIO).
Sherman Jay Dorn -
3/5/2006
The fact that GSOC brought this dispute to an arbitrator isn't evidence of anything other than a lack of wisdom on the part of its grievance committee. Arbitrator's rulings comprise one of the key reasons for collective bargaining - to enfoce a contract and resolve disputes over its interpretation in an inexpensive and binding manner. It would be far more convincing to claim that GSOC had impinged on administrator's authority if the arbitrator had ruled in favor of the GSOC. But an arbitrator's ruling is precedential (at least in Florida, and I assume elsewhere), meaning that the ruling establishes the OPPOSITE of what you're claiming.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/5/2006
Mr. Segal, I'm not sure that union locals ought to have "a foreign policy", any more than states of the union ought to have a foreign policy. The AFL/CIO would be an entirely different matter.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/5/2006
An arbitrator disagreed that the GSOC's claims represented an academic freedom threat. One such case came when the NYU grad-student union asserted that a union member who focused on legal philosophy was as competent to TA a course in aesthetics as a non-union Ph.D. student who specialized in the topic, even though the department had exercised its academic freedom privileges and assigned the non-union member who was more qualified.
(http://www.nyu.edu/provost/ga/uaw-grievances.html)
As for the "Bush appointee" ruling of the NLRB, one could similarly say that "Clinton appointees" reversed 30 years of precedents by requiring NYU to negotiate with the GSOC in the first place. As far as I know, that "Clinton appointee" ruling was the sole NLRB finding requiring graduate student unions to be recognized at private institutions, so the 2004 case overruled one precedent, not multiple "precedents." Of course, it's true that there's nothing in the 2004 ruling that prevents NYU from recognizing the GSOC. NYU also isn't prevented from adopting a policy of giving all graduate students grades of "A"; or providing free housing to all its students, graduate and undergraduate alike. But universities retain the right to avoid adopting policies that would seriously weaken their financial or educational well-being.
Leo Edward Casey -
3/5/2006
The assertion that graduate student unions are a threat to the "academic freedom of faculty" is not a serious proposition, and is presented here without even the pretense of supporting argumentation in order to provide the thinnest of cover for anti-union animus, pure and simple.
That animus is also transparent in the claim that "federal law" is on the side of the NYU administration, an entirely misleading statement which depends upon ignorance of the actual situation. The facts are that the Bush appointees to the NLRB reversed the Board's own precedents requiring recognition of and good faith bargaining with the union. That is not a matter of law, any more than the prior ruling was, but of NLRB -- not even a judicial -- interpretation of what the law requires. Moreover, all that ruling did was remove the requirement of recognition and good faith bargaining -- it did not require or sanction union busting. There was absolutely nothing in even the Bush appointee ruling which would have prevented the NYU administration from continuing to voluntarily recognize and bargain with the union.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/5/2006
I have, as is pointed out, consistently opposed the creation of the NYU union--I consider graduate student unions in general as a threat to the academic freedom of the faculty. The UAW's refusal to agree to a deal to confine itself to economic matters in bargaining so it could continue to have the right to file grievances about issues such as qualifications for teaching assignments confirms the point. I'm not sure I'd describe the NYU administration's policy as "union busting," given that federal law is on the side of NYU, not the graduate student activists.
Leo Edward Casey -
3/4/2006
One might take K. C. Johnson's complaints against the PSC leadership more seriously if it were not the fact that he has an obsessive opposition to academic unions in general -- witness the attack on the NYU graduate student union as the school administration there is in the midst of an union busting campaign to destroy the union.
It is silly, if it is true, to compare the situation in Columbia to Bloomberg and Pataki. It is entirely appropriate for decent people to take up the issue of the situation in Columbia, as it is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/4/2006
From the standpoint of the union, given its decline, I'm not sure its foreign policy activism did a lot of good for the AFL-CIO. But at the very least the AFL-CIO's policy didn't work in contradiction to its economic goals; nor were foreign policy matters a prime area of activity for the AFL in the 1980s.
In the case of the PSC, the foreign policy activism has come at the expense of its economic goals. Barbara Bowen was the only member of the AFT-s 42-member board to cast a vote against a resolution of support of the war in Afghanistan, reinforcing the image of the PSC as out-of-touch radicals. And the union's bizarre campaign against Columbia included such embarrassments as a picket in front of the Colombian UN consulate, on grounds that profs in Colombia were confronting the "same right wing agenda" that Pataki and Bloomberg are offering in NY. Nothing like implying the governor and the mayor have ideologies comparable to Colombian paramilitary groups to get Albany on your side for increased funding.
Jacob paul segal -
3/4/2006
I suppse it follows from this that Johnson thought it a bad idea for the AFL-CIO to so strongly support the Solidarity movement in Poland?
Robert KC Johnson -
3/4/2006
Indeed. And the salary increase the UUP achieved for SUNY professors was considerably higher than even the draft increase for which CUNY and the PSC hoped to achieve in Dec. That increase was rejected by the city and state, in part because the PSC, as city and state negotiators were considering the package, engaged in high-profile support for the TWU's illegal strike. The offer now on the table is 4-5% lower than the SUNY pay hike.
Jim Williams -
3/4/2006
KC notes that "PSC leaders seem unable to comprehend that at a public institution, the faculty and administration need to work together to persuade city and state lawmakers to fund the university."
This is an area in which SUNY's faculty union, United University Professions, has been far wiser. Its dextrous use of New York State United Teachers' political clout and its reticence about burning bridges have certainly helped preserve SUNY from disaster. While I wish we had the right to strike (given lousy SUNY salaries), I do think our union has done a fine job with a weak hand.
