Point of order — public employee strikes are illegal

” .. The university also claims that a strike by public employees is illegal under Michigan law ..”

Excuse me, sir — that is the case. Government workers in Michigan (and many other states) sign contacts that do NOT allow them to strike. Government workers in Michigan who failed to live up to their no-strike promise have been fired and replaced.

Further — when any worker strikes — they can be fired and replaced. That is always made clear by union officials.

Illegal public employee strikes, like illegal immigration, is not civil disobedience. It is law-breaking, nothing more.

Don’t like your working conditions? Leave — plenty of replacements will apply for your job.

L.L., at 7:35 am EDT on September 5, 2006

Strike at Eastern Michigan

L.L. writes:Excuse me, sir — that is the case. Government workers in Michigan (and many other states) sign contacts that do NOT allow them to strike. Government workers in Michigan who failed to live up to their no-strike promise have been fired and replaced.

While correct, the contract at EMU has expired, which is usually the case when strikes occur. On the other hand, this country’s rich labor history is rife with strikes labelled “illegal” that were key in bring all workers the many protections and benefits they have now. And we all know that laws are not enforced consistently but have political elements. While L.L. is correct that public sector workers in Michigan have lost their jobs for striking, it is also correct that the majority of public sector workers in Michigan who have struck have not suffered any penalties.

Steve Finner, Senior Consultant at United Professions AFT Vermont, at 9:05 am EDT on September 5, 2006

Not Unique

Health care costs continue to rise and unfortunately, the cost is freely forwarded to the employees. I am amazed at how the health insurance at my institution has changed over the past dozen years. What was initially solid coverage now leaves me with much of the cost (as deductables rise up). Given the lack of ANY raises for a couple of years at my institution followed by less than cost of living for a couple of more...I believe faculty at my institution are in the same situation as at Eastern (lacking the union).

Midwest Prof, at 9:35 am EDT on September 5, 2006

Solidarity

I am here in Ypsilanti joining my AAUP colleagues on the picket lines. The EMU administration has made an insulting offer that amounts to a net loss of income for the faculty. A union request to give the faculty input so they can urge the repair of unsafe classrooms was refused by administration negotiators. The faculty voted overwhelmingly to strike. Now the administration threatens to walk out of negotiations, while the AAUP local offers to bargain all night if necessary. The EMU faculty is unified and courageous. This is a battle they have taken on for all of us.

Cary NelsonAAUP President.

Cary Nelson, AAUP President at Univ. of Illinois, at 1:30 pm EDT on September 5, 2006

EMU Strike

This whole thing is a mess. Both sides are deseminating bad information. The AAUP says that with a 3% raise they actually take a 1% pay cut. They said the same thing when only 2% per year was offered.

Ralph Pasola, at 3:10 pm EDT on September 6, 2006

Hopefully those English profs get back to the classroom soon. Poor Andy needs all the help he can get.

S, at 3:15 pm EDT on September 6, 2006

Higher Ed.

Michigan needs to diversify its economy by attracting smart, new companies to the area. And those companies are looking for good local universities to educate those employees. In this competetive country and world, education isn’t where you skimp, especially when you’re in trouble.

And we ARE skimping on education. Adjusted for inflation, median salaries for five professions show engineers and architects up 5%, lawyers up 17%, physicians up 34% !, and faculty up 1%.* That’s ONE percent. (Maybe we should all be on strike against the super-costly, inefficient medical system that’s killing Detroit cars AND universities. Europe pays half what we do per person, and everybody’s covered, and they’re medicl outcomes are better. Get it?)

EMU faculty members live in the second highest-cost area of Michigan, yet their compensation hovers near the bottom for faculty in Michigan, and for faculty at other similar colleges and universities. Who let EMU compensation get so out of line in the first place? We need to be attracting, not repelling, teaching talent and the companies that will hire our well-educated students.

You start with education, THEN you win.

*(Source for salary figures: “Medican Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers Who Usually Work Full Time, by Detailed occupation and Sex. 1983-2002″ and “Medican Usual Weekly Earnings of Employed Full-Time Wage and Salary Workers by Occupation, 2000-2004.” unpublished tables, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. January 2006.)

Connor, at 3:10 pm EDT on September 8, 2006

I am an English prof at Eastern Michigan University, currently on the picket lines despite my deepest desire to be in the classroom and to teach my students as usual. I strongly object to the condescending fashion in which the poster above replied to my former student.

The issues aside, what lesson does such a glib remark make for a student? Nothing less than that his opinion does not count and that he and other students like him should let others do their thinking for them. Is this really the lesson that you want to give to a college-educated adult? What kind of citizen would such an automaton make? Should knowledge be outsourced to our betters? How much can we really trust those who believe themselves to be superior to us anyway? Should we passively accord to group think? Fortunately, I know that Andy is much too smart and much too engaged to let such absurdity and such authoritarianism deter him from critical thinking and from constructive public debate. (Next time the drink is on me, Andy! Just remember to bring your ID!)

The facts are that the administration has refused to allow faculty input on new building construction, including the equipping of our outmoded classrooms with the proper and necessary technology. I have olive-green, 70s TV screens mounted in my classrooms, not to mention the rooms without anything but a broken overhead projector and barely functional splinters of chalk. These rooms can easily reach 85 to 90 degrees in the summertime. Can you expect students to learn in such an environment? My classes this summer were three hours long, and students literally wilt after a half an hour in such conditions. Is the President’s mansion, or cosmetically reengineered sidewalks, more important than rehabilitating those places in which students do the majority of their learning and spend the majority of their time? The priorities of this university have been entirely askew when left to the EMU administration, and we need strong faculty input to ensure that the needs of students come first.

The conditions of the buildings alone would put me on the picket line, but so too does the erosion of the number of faculty available to teach and advise our students. I ask those of you who are parents of EMU students paying tuition, or simply those people in Michigan or other states depending on generations of well-educated students to help educate the future citizens of both the state and the nation (EMU teaches more teachers across the country than does any other university), do you really want your children and fellow citizens taught by underpaid, overworked lecturers who lack expertise in their fields? Having been a lecturer myself, I can assure you that even with my best efforts, I could not give my students the same quality of an educational experience that I can now as a faculty member with at least some time to conduct research, to keep current in my field, and to have a manageable number of students to interact with on a one-on-one, first-name basis as individuals. The administration would not even talk of the issue of faculty erosion during the negotiations, nor that of building construction mentioned above — hopefully, the strike will make them do so.

As to pay (and honestly this concerns me much less than the two issues above), the administration has, in effect offered us a 1% raise after inflation. I live in an area that is extremely expensive in terms of housing costs, yet I get paid less than faculty living elsewhere or even less than high-school teachers living down the road. At the earliest, I will be able to afford a house in five years and I have been here five years already. Is this fair? Especially for a person who spent almost a decade getting a PhD, has over $88,000 in student-loan debts, and dedicates over 70 hours a week to students, teaching, and research? The issue of fairness aside, I would accept a contract that ensured more faculty input and less faculty erosion for the sake of my students. Since the administration has walked away from the talks, however, that is now nearly impossible.

Also, just a personal note to Cary Nelson — thanks so much for your inspiring talk the other day! Keep up the great work as the national AAUP President!

AbbyC, at 7:25 pm EDT on September 8, 2006

STRIKE NEGOTIATIONS

Both EMU Administration and AAUP say their primary concern is for the students. If this is true, get back to the classroom while continuing negotiations. You are hurting the students and the university reputation.

L A, EMU Parent, at 9:25 am EDT on September 11, 2006

EMU strike

I am a senior at EMU and although the strike is putting stress on me and other students (I have four classes cancelled until further notice!). I still support the faculty along with many other students. Even though my impending graduation and hopefully law school acceptance depends on the professors coming back to teach so that I graduate on time. I would rather have to stay over another semester and put off law school than go to a University where the professors that teach are over worked and under paid.

The professors at EMU are of an extremely high caliber and as such deserve to be paid well, or at least given an average salary. We are talking about people who have dedicated quite a large chunk of their lives and money to attaining a phd, so to argue that they should just suck it up and tighten their belts is ludicrous. Like Professor C. said above if they do not make a stand now the strength of their union will be compromised in the future. A strong union is incredibly important, especially with the current anti union climate in most of the U.S.

I wish the professor’s luck and also hope that the people who post things arguing that the professors should head back to class reconsider their viewpoints without perhaps the bias of either children or themselves as students overshadowing their ideas.

Respectfully,Rebecca

p.s. Any one remember the air traffic controllers strike? They are government workers but the supreme court ruled that they were allowed to strike. They ruled that really only government workers that place citizens in clear danger are breaking any laws by striking aka. policemen etc. So in my opinion, while ignorance is unpleasant it is rarely deadly. : )

Rebecca Szpara, EMU, at 9:35 pm EDT on September 11, 2006