2/3/2012: That’s the word from down at the union hall. He’s told Pernsteiner to appoint UO SEIU local President Gary Malone to the UO president’s search committee. Dr. Pernsteiner blamed his staff for the “mistake” and will jump right on it. N=22. 24 if you count P and F.
Two wood products executives (Guistina and Ford) on the search committee, but not one biotechnology, medical technology, nanotechnology, or any business relevant to UO science. If UO is going to prostitute itself to big business, at least make sure its the right business.
Where’s the Like button?
Soon UO will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the dying wood products industry + the dying public unions, including its own newly-proletarianized “faculy” union (where postdocs and the people who supervise/pay will bargain together with Management). There will be a residual interest of Mr. Phil Knight in the Athletic Department, with a couple of billion of his money redirected toward Stanford and OHSU. The biotech, nanotech, science business will flow steadily toward Corvallis/OSU, with OSU gradually but steadily displacing UO as the “research and science” campus. Eventually, the best Oregon students will start going to OSU, if this hasn’t happened already. (I keep hearing about valedictorians, reading here at UO Matters about SAT scores, etc. etc.)
Somebody please wake me up and tell me this is all a bad dream ….
yes, a nightmare. I’d rather not wake up. just slip one of those kit bags over my head.
Only fitting to have seiu union boss on search. Seiu contributed to RL’s firing by hanging him out to dry on pay raises, even though he stuck his neck out to protect classified on UO campus as much as he could, given lockstep statewide bargaining–the same kind we’ll eventually be in if enough naive folk sign union cards.
The last Anonymous gets it. Yes, SEIU is the ally of Kitzhaber/Pernsteiner in reining in UO. It doesn’t matter that Lariv tried to protect the union workers here. In fact, that is the whole point — it made the union bosses look bad or at least irrelevant. It undermined the control of themselves with their state co-actors.
The same will happen with a UO union. Forget all the talk about “re-engaging” the Administration. It will be Us vs. Management. And Management will be under the new state Superboard. Forget about an independent UO board. Whatever it is, it won’t be.
UO will not have any more leverage with the state. What good has the union done at PSU? Has it gotten them more money? Is the state of Oregon going to be more sympathetic to UO faculty because they have unionized? Gimme a break! Will donors?
And what will the union’s bargaining power be? To go on strike? Forget it, that would destroy — not damage, destroy — UO once and for alll. So it’s a threat with nothing to back it up.
Wow, once again the anti-union naivete shrouds complexity with simple dichotomy, preset assumptions with knee-jerk reaction. The monolithic and negative image of unions and employee collective bargaining may be helpful to reproduce one’s own naive and fixed worldview but does nothing to actually get engaged and wield some influence to set this ship on course. Trust in the benevolence and wisdom of your leaders is no way to operate in a world where other forces want to continue sapping this institution and its public mission. Wake up, you are in a bad dream, and you are making it from your own limited field of consciousness. Don’t mourn (or endlessly batter and condemn and whine), organize!
Dog says
“… to set this ship on course” – A course to where? Provide an example or two
of how a union will help us successfully navigate to some sensible destination – dogs do have limited consciousness …
Will a union obtain more (or less) funding for UO from the state? How will private donors react? Are they going to say “UO’s faculty has unionized, I should give more money to them”? Will the union succeed in reducing administrative (Management) overhead? Will threatening to go on strike help us recruit students? How about faculty? What AAU university has improved as a result of having a union? Do any of our “comparators” have unionized TT faculty? Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina ….. ?
Dog Like Anon@11:35
Additional questions:
Will a union
1) help me negotiate teaching release time for research?
2) give me greater freedom of choice on what classes to teach?
3) help build better classrooms?
4) help negotiate overhead charges on graduate students?
5) even accept dogs?
3)