This part of Capital & Main’s examination of union busting reviews the targeting of academics who study labor by corporate critics. It was written by Jo Constantz.
Many scholars who study the history and economics of organized labor are sympathetic to the union cause. These academics often encounter threats, harassment, and defunding of their research.
It begins:
Throttled by both strong-arm tactics from anti-union interests and a chronic lack of support from universities, the field of labor studies has dwindled in the U.S. in recent years.
Researchers in the field have been the target of legal threats and lawsuits, onerous public records requests and misinformation campaigns from union avoidance consultants, business executives, corporate lawyers and conservative think tanks. It’s one aspect of the business lobby’s relentless war against unions in recent decades, which has seen companies spend more than $340 million a year on consultants to defeat organizing efforts by their employees and helped sink union membership.
Labor studies, an interdisciplinary field in academia that examines workplace issues and worker organizations, reveals working conditions that motivate people to want to join a union. Much of the scholarship has illuminated the central role that labor’s decline has played in exacerbating income inequality. In doing so, the field has aroused the ire of anti-union companies and their allies. The field has never been a major force in academia and many centers have been gradually shuttered due to lack of funding or merged with other departments. Only a handful of universities currently offer a major or minor in labor studies. Faculty are often untenured, vulnerable to layoffs and budget cuts, and they are often not replaced when they retire.
Open the link and read on.
Capitalism is a virus exploiting all the freedoms democracy affords to undermine it from within. It was that way at the Founding of the Nation and it will be that way till one or the other is Dead.
In some cases, the very universities who should be protecting the rights of people to organize unions break the laws in order to discourage them from doing so.
“Cornell Violated Federal Labor Law in Grad Assistant Union Election”
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/05/18/cornell-violated-federal-labor-law-grad-assistant-union-election
The irony is that Cornell has a famous College of industrial and Labor Relations, which should be well versed in the relevant law, and yet, right under their nose, the University administration broke the law.
And was the Cornell official responsible for the lawbreaking ever held accountable?
In a word: No.
I was pleased to see the faculty join the students in the strike against Columbia University that is going on right now. The fact is that universities have become big businesses — thanks a stinking heap, Nike and CBS — and are just as unfriendly to their communities as big box distribution warehouses. It’s enough to make you tear your hair and sit in ashes wearing sackcloth.
I suppose Colombia could always increase tuition to cover the higher costs (minimum salary of $49,000 with 3% increase over the next two years, hourly wage of $26 dollars an hour, and, of course, free tuition). Alternatively it could shut down some graduate programs that have relatively poor placement records.
I suppose the students and professors could keep going on strike until their demands are met. Yes, indeed! Heck, I suppose the entire country could go on strike until Elon Musk pays taxes. It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility these days. People are struggling. We could even take a page from Gandhi and call them days of prayer and fasting. We could shut down the entire country. When the land is dry because Reed Hastings is using all the water to keep the swimming pools in his mansions and on his yachts filled, all it takes to start a fire is a single, solitary, little spark.
Leftcoastteacher,
That does not explain how Columbia will pay for the extra $79 to $100 million over three years that the graduate students demand. My guess will be that it will be paid by future students, faculty, and staff. They are not there to defend themselves.
Columbia may be close, but it’s not yet on the poor farm.
It had an operating surplus of $150 million for 2021 and its endowment was up 32.3% in just one year to $14.35 billion.
I thought $150 million over one year was bigger than $79 to $100 million over three, but I’m not an economist so maybe I’m wrong about that.
Besides, I thought Columbia U President Lee Bollinger was supposed to be a fundraising stud. Isn’t that why they pay him close to $5 million a year? (4th highest of all University presidents).
A studmuffin like him should be able to easily come up with the money needed to pay grad students a decent wage — with just a few phone calls to his billionaire buddies on his Rollodex.
If he can’t, maybe he should find a job that is more suitable to his capabilities. President of Kansas State perhaps? Of course, he’d have to take a very large (order of magnitude) pay cut to work for a Podunk U, but hell, if he can’t deliver, why should Columbia pay him the big bucks?
Incidentally, overall, Columbia pays their administrators significantly more than the national average. But that undoubtedly has nothing to do with anything.
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That was downright entertaining, Poet.
I wonder if WordPress is messing with unions by putting comments in moderation.
“Business is business and business must grow
regardless of crummies in tummies you know.”