Need Advice from Wise DUers About Labor Issue

I'm feeling mighty blue-- in every way right now. I just got a job at a major private university. I'm in my 30s, but my job description is as a 'teaching assistant' (even though I have taught as a lecturer elsewhere and I don't 'assist' anyone-- I teach my own classes).

My school had a union. Bush appointed republicans to the labor board and they overturned our legal right to unionize. The president of the university is being a real condescending asshole and refusing to negotiate our right to even negotiate our rights. He's saying that we should 'trust him'. Well, before the union, from what I understand TAs were making unliveable wages (as in $5000 a year) with no benefits. Now we make enough to get by. But if we don't have a way to bargain, they can do as they please.

I've been at my job for about a month. I love my job, I love my students. I need my job. But I won't scab. I won't do it. This strike could go on for months.

I'm also really disgusted at my co-workers, many of whom are more irritated at the union for trying to protect them then they are the management (these are liberals, mind you...every last one of them). They think the strike is a joke. They say they pretty much trust the university to keep giving them their benefits and that we're all doing okay. Well, the only reason why we're doing okay is because of the benefits that the union won for us!!! I actually got into an argument with a friend because she started yelling at me "Well, I can't lose my job!" As if I can.

I'm disgusted and depressed. I'm disgusted at the cowardice of everyone around me. People even laugh at me when I say I don't want to scab. I don't understand how people can plan on walking through a picket line of people fighting for THEIR rights.

How can they call themselves liberal.
How can they call themselves 'working class'
And not even blink.

Number 6,901st way that Bush is fucking up my happiness.

ever needed - and are still needed.

Some people actually believe the government, all on it's own, enacted laws protecting workers.

Some people actually believe an industry will "self-regulate" itself, so as to not cause harm (bad policy,low wages, no benefits, polluting, price gouging, etc) - to the people or the environment.

We call those people idiots.

Check out the book, "Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism" by Elizabeth Phones-Wolf for a blow-by-blow longitudinal study of how Big Business purposefully, systematically, and ruthlessly destroyed what you value.

It took them over 40 years (starting with their resentment at the New Deal), but with the rise to power of Ronald Ray-gun, the era of "Mourning in America" was inaugurated. Reagan was the one who was really able to reach the 'working class', using his acting abilities combined with a TV great production staff.

Also highly recommended are the works of Michael Parenti. He really understands class, labor, and the subtle (and gross) discrimination against the left in academia. His best books (IMHO) are Dirty Truths (short essays), Democracy for the Few (his masterpiece), Blackshirts and Reds, and Against Empire.

over every crappy low paying job so that in the end, they could control us and destroy the middle class. It isn't fighting for your rights anymore, it's fighting for your life. 11000 people showed up for 400 jobs at a new Wal-Mart in California, no lie look it up. Do you think that anyone has the luxury to fight for their individual rights or for the betterment of man when the difference is feeding yourself and family or standing on principle?

There is no trust, and if you think for one second that trust is involved anywhere especially job security, as a formerly employed middle aged middle manager who couldn't even get a job sweeping floors because I was too old before I struck out on my own, loyalty and trust was simply bullshit. They locked the door, and 2 months later reopened as a new company and hired very young very hungry and very cheap workers, damn the experience.

If you don't need the money or think at this time you can go elsewhere do so and stand up to your own principles, but don't blame others for not believing as strongly as you do.

None of them have kids. Some of them won't even fight with the union to get benefits for their unemployed partners. AND, our boss has said that he will remain neutral and not retaliate.

They just don't want to be bothered.

These are the Bush(Reagan) everyone-for-themselves times. Stay true to your beliefs and keep speaking out. (Maybe they'll all get raptured.)

For the past year, we've been going out and drinking together, complained about our inability to make it in NY (honestly, who the fuck can)and cried about the election and how we all need to take to the streets.

Now, when it comes down to the brass tacks, they won't even take to the streets for themselves. They don't trust the union. Frankly, I don't know if I 'trust' the union, either. But I don't trust management, that's for damn sure.

I think that I'm going to be quieter and calmer about it now and just do what I need to do. I'm not going to try to argue with anyone about it. I'm just going to do my job and nod. I'll strike if there's a strike. I'll deal with my superiors on my own.

The truth is, there's little risk that we'll actually get fired. I'm just shocked that my progressive colleagues-- with whom I've talked about radical politics for quite some time-- are so quick to blame a union. My closest teacher friend said that she didn't think we needed to unionize, that we weren't in danger of losing our fingers or anything. I don't even know how to react to these people anymore.

I'd really like advice from experienced strikers. Have any of you ever been on strike?

I wrote this in another thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1864465&mesg_id=1868804

I'm too tired to re-write it for this thread, but I hope the relevance is clear.

Everyone wears a tweed jacket and hopes to be the next great humanities professor (the irony of the thing is that most of the people I know are Master's degree students who will quickly learn that it is hard to get a professorship without a Ph.D.-- best of luck to them). But they do *align* themselves with the upper classes, the *educated* classes.

I don't. I can't. I'm an ex-stripper and ex-dominatrix (that's how I paid for my 1st Ph.D.) and I can't forget how working class I am. I KNOW what it means to have money. I had customers who were of the leisure class-- and they weren't living in Manhattan thinking they were getting a good deal because they made $18K a year.

There's no chance of overidentifying with the people who are exploiting your labor when your background is in sex trade. The screwed up thing is that average american working and middle class people experience those same exact dynamics in office parks across the country and it's too bad that they don't understand what is happening to them.

Ehrenreich describes walking into an office for one of the rare jobs she was offered -- selling insurance on a commission which was basically a pyramid scheme. On a wall was a large mural of the post-9/11 Manhattan skyline.

The inculcation of conservative ideology is so deep (and so subliminal), it's going to take a lot of effort to get people to see reality. But once that log is out of their eyes...

Maybe the way to do that is to get them to realize that they're being played like two-dollar banjos by both the university president and the pretender-in-chief.

First mean old Shrub comes in and, in the worst economy, destroys their negotiation options.

But then the university president swoops in, pats them on the head and tells them that everything will be fine as long as they do as he says.

Next thing you know, they're trusting the soothing words of the university president and voila, are actually GRATEFUL to have the "opportunity" to perform a skilled job for Walmart pay.

They fell for the oldest con known to TV shows: "Good cop, bad cop".

Point this out to them. See how thrilled they are to realize that they've been taken for suckers. They may not step up to the plate this time, but it'll at least get them thinking.

I know why they're mad. They're mad because they don't want to strike. They're mad because they don't want to be in this position-- and it's impossible to lash out at the university president, so they are lashing out at the union for giving them an OPTION of better working conditions.

Honestly, our pay isn't so great at the moment. But I have health insurance (no partners get insurance, gay or traditional marriage) and I don't have to work two jobs. And I really, really love my job.

That's the extra thing that makes it hard: if we go on strike we abandon our student's education. None of us want to abandon our students. I've even thought about striking all day and tutoring my students privately in the evenings off campus. It's scabbing, but I can think of it more as 'donating my services to students'. And the university management will think that class is not being held.

On the down side, if every teacher did this it would undermine the strike if it got back to the president.

... AAUP? Some chapters aren't worth much, but you might get some ideas from an old hand in that organization.

The fundamental problem is that people in a university setting think of themselves as academics and professionals, even though, at bottom, they're also employees of a large chartered organization. They think they're above that, and yet, they aren't. Getting them past that notion is essential for the success of any strike. Someone who knows both academics and job action may be able to help.

Good luck with it.

That's the fucked up part of all this. 50% of all classes are taught by teaching assistants at my private, top tier university. The Bush Administration Labor Board has just reversed a decision and ruled that we are not workers, we are students with no right to organize. The president of the university actually told 400 TAs that 'grading papers isn't work, it's fun.' (dead fucking serious)

So, I don't know if AAUP can help us because we aren't professors. We just look, act, and work like professors.

I'm so depressed about this.

WORSE OF ALL, I have friends in administration who want to tell me what is going on so that I can make decisions, but they are legally obligated to not say a single word. So no one in the know can even help us.

I think I'm most upset because this is bursting my bubble about how fucked up America is right now. I thought it was as bad as it could get-- but at least I live in NYC and we'll stay strong and blue and proud here.

What bullshit. It's a sanitized playground for cowardly hipsters. (I don't mean everyone, don't take offense, but NY used to be much different). Nothing real is going on here anymore.

Is it too much to want to be around blue collar people who love the arts and literature and museums, who vote and live progressive, who accept and fight for the rights of GLBT people, who fight racism, who give a flying shit and are doing something about it. Is there a town like this in America?

How do I move there? That's desperately where I want to live and work.

... and which schools are on strike. To me, it's quite simple. You do comparable work, and receive compensation for it--that makes you and all the others employees, not just students. Period.

But, I suggest only that someone in the AAUP may have prior experience with organizing academics (which is what you need right now). You aren't organizing textile workers or steelworkers or hotel/restaurant workers, so you have to approach the matter differently; even if the organizing issues are pretty much the same, the language and style have to be different.

If you haven't done so already, get the facts. The school's total endowment, the revenues from the endowment, the state of New York's official poverty level in NYC, the real costs to the university of what you're demanding. Get as many of the students on your side--they're paying for an education and they're not getting it because of administration intransigence, etc.

The very least that the old guard of the AAUP can do is give you a better idea of what you're up against, even if they can't personally intervene, and offer suggestions about how to get your fellow TAs turned around.

In that vein, my first suggestion is that if they presume that tenure is just around the corner for them, what happens when there's no tenure and they become employees at will, and that what has happened with the NLRB recently is just the thin edge of the wedge? What will their academic dreams look like then?

Cheers.

I'm glad you know what I'm talking about. I'm afraid the union has mishandled the situation as well. Most of my colleagues have not been approached by them or had the realities of the situation explained in a language they can understand. Hell, I'M from a working class background with no illusions about who I am and I don't completely trust what the union is telling me.

Sad thing is, I don't have the proper demeanor to speak to them either. I'm female, I dress funny (tattoos and all that blue collar stuff). I'm very political and basically an ex-sex-worker dyke.

The other sad thing is that the vote to strike is going down this week. It looks like the strike is going to happen within the next few weeks. From what I gather, it's going to be some serious unrest.
There's no time to organize even. Hopefully, they will proceed slowly with this.

If this strike goes down *poorly*. If there is a low turnout and it fizzles--then I'm even more afraid. If it fails it is going to set a terrifying precedent in my mind. Like there might be a weird chilling effect for labor in academia. And how frozen are we already? And-- because we have it good, because of the rights the union won for us-- people are now complacent. So, I DO think it might fizzle. Also, I've seen what they think is a massive turnout and it doesn't seem so massive to me. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe a couple hundred people is enough.

Well, I should take heart because at least I'm not alone in this situation. I just seem to be the only one I know who cares. I literally had one colleague say, "Aw, you're gonna strike. Good for you!"

(Hey, thanks for supporting me as I bust my ass to secure your rights.)

This is the hardest thing with academic liberals: they don't even know that crossing a picket line for people who are fighting for them is WRONG.

Thanks for your help.

... is that TAs only expect to be in that position for, at most, a couple of years or so. Then they expect to go to full-time teaching positions or arrange different terms as researchers, etc., on doctoral programs. They see this as a very temporary situation, so why damage one's career potential by striking?

That's why it's important to stress to them that this ruling--and the university's response to the ruling--has long-term ramifications for them--it does make them, in labor vernacular, employees at will. If that can be done to them now, it can be done to them later, when they are working full-time. Ask them what they might think about trying to live the rest of their lives on adjunct status. !!! (And, do I know about that.)

Appeal to their liberality, when you can--emphasize that what you're doing is not just economic, it's political, as well. Tell `em they've been steamrollered by the Bushies and they don't have a clue that they are already victims of Bush's policies. Did Lech Walesa let anything stop his Solidarity movement? Etc., etc., etc.

And, whenever you can, try to gain support from nearby unions, municipal unions, craft unions, etc. Your principal complaint right now is that the university has the right not to recognize your existing union. Ask those other union members what might happen to them if the NLRB did the same thing to them. Explain that you, in effect, work for a large corporation, just like some of them. What if you could get the local trucking and/or food service unions to stop delivering food to the dining halls?

Cheers.