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LIU president locks out faculty & Senate. GC will scab, teach Yoga classes.

Bob Berdahl and Randy Geller were working on a scheme to shut down the UO Senate in response to unionization. I wonder what sort of lock-out plans the administration had prepared for the faculty? Here’s what’s happening at Long Island University:

From the Chronicle:

Faculty members at Long Island University were locked out of the institution’s Brooklyn campus at 12:01 a.m. today, according to the American Federation of Teachers and the LIU Faculty Federation, which represent full-time and adjunct professors at the university. The dispute, over a contract that expired on August 31, hinges on  a disparity in pay between the faculty at LIU’s Brooklyn campus and its Post campus, in Brookville, Long Island. The union says the administration is also trying to avoid a vote of no confidence in President Kimberly L. Cline, which was scheduled for Saturday.

“We’ve been bargaining in good faith and we continue to bargain,” said LIUFF president Jessica Rosenberg. “We had planned to bring their last best final offer to the membership for a ratifying vote on the 31st and they preempted that by informing us we were going to be locked out, and immediately after they locked us out they cut healthcare, salary, and access to e-mail and students.”

Here’s The Nation:

… In addition to hiring replacement workers, Cline has also lassoed administrators—some of them almost satirically unqualified—into teaching. Provost Gale Haynes, LIU’s chief legal counsel, will be teaching Hatha yoga. “It’s kind of hilarious,” says Rosenberg. “I’m not being disrespectful, but she’s an older woman—she’s not a yoga teacher, let’s just put it like that.” Rumor has it that Dean David Cohen, a man in his 70s, will be taking over ballet classes scheduled to be taught by Dana Hash-Campbell, a longtime teacher who was previously a principal dancer and company teacher with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. “It’s absurd,” says Rosenberg. This is my speculation, but I think they’re doing this as an act of protest. I don’t see any other explanation.”

The humor seems to be lost on the students.

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