This blog is not associated with the UO Faculty Union. But obviously this union needs an elected leader and an executive committee. Unofficial nominations accepted in the comments. Please reserve this for leadership nomination related comments.
This blog is not associated with the UO Faculty Union. But obviously this union needs an elected leader and an executive committee. Unofficial nominations accepted in the comments. Please reserve this for leadership nomination related comments.
Scott Pratt, Philosophy
Not a good idea. See below.
I second Scott Pratt. He’s thoughtful about the pros and con’s of a union. Not naive about the cons. We don’t want a kumbaya type or someone with an obvious ideological commitment to the union movement. That will turn off a lot of people. We need someone who can build consensus with those TTF who hate the idea of having to be in a union. He’s got administrative experience, and is well respected.
Mike Kellman-Chemistry
If the purpose of the union is to in essence use a corrupt political structure (the union), to fight another polictical structure (the administration), why don’t we poach someone from the other corrupt side. We might have to pay for a beamer or two, but Jim Bean seems to be an expert at getting his way.
I second. I signed the card check because of Jim Bean, it’s only fair that he should be president.
I third Bean and Pernsteiner – very effective union advocates.
Wow…very thoughtful and mature.
How can a structure that is not even in place yet be corrupt? Are you saying it is inherently corrupt – unions are always corrupt?
Will this be the standard type of response from those that didn’t get their way? Geez…grow up people. We followed an open process (I know we could debate this all day – no process is perfect, but information was available to anyone who took 5 seconds to look), a majority in each classification voted for it and those opposed “lost”. Get over it and move on to how we can work together to make this work. We do have a hand in shaping the union.
Choosing a respected, effective leader is a first step in that.
A union is using one market distortion (the union) to fight another market distortion (market power on the part of the university acting as a monopsony).
This is sometimes good.
For instance, for preventing global warming, its actually good that the oil producing countries act as a cartel driving prices up and lowering the quantity of output.
In the case of unions, it depends on how much of the surplus they are able to negotiate back for us, vs. how much they keep for themselves. If they keep a lot of the surplus from negotiations (in dues for instance, or other ways), we actually might be worse off.
In the current environment, how would you consider “not as badly off as we’d otherwise be” to rate? How much weight in “surplus” is protection from caprice, a better faculty/student ratio, and so forth? “Market distortion” has always been a fraught concept because all markets are distorted, actively and passively–there’s no such thing as a truly free market exists, or can exist (sort of like true Scotsmen, or pure communism).
Leadership is helpful in setting priorities, but ultimately it’s up to us to steer this thing. I hope the contingent who have decided the union must fail simply because it’s a union don’t end up fulfilling their own prophecy to everyone’s detriment.
Nathan Tublitz: honest, experienced dealing with Johnson Hall corruption, and has a healthy skepticism about the union idea. He won’t be an AAUP pawn.
Peter Keyes, Architecture.
Awesome. Keyes is an effective leader. He could design a good, strong Union, and work with administration productively.
Great idea. He could unify people after a fierce battle.
It sounds like there was no “fierce battle”. Apparently, card check was smooth sailing with majorities in all subgroups collected well before the deadline (and I say that as someone who does not think unionization is a good idea).
This “majorities in all subgroups” is something that the union organizers have been unwilling to present any public evidence of.
They haven’t even announced numbers.
In the meantime, in less than 24 hours during what is essentially a break period, a third of the tenure track faculty have signed a petition _not_ to be part of the bargaining unit.
So yes. The union organizers tell you that it has been smooth sailing. But what has in fact happened is that the union organizers, with national organizational help and financing (the _President_ of the AAUP has come to campus himself to talk to people
and help organize) have managed to push a gerrymandered card-check down the throats of the tenure track faculty, many of whom are opposed to being part of this union.
I think Marie Vitulli from Math is now retired, but she should get recognition for fighting for a union back when it was not at all popular.
I second Marie Vitulli. She has profound integrity, and a deep understanding of what needs to be reformed at this institution–she pays attention and does her research. She would be an excellent leader. I hope she will choose to help.
I hope union positions aren’t given as “rewards” for efforts made during organization.
Should not be a retired person.
I’d like to see Mike Raymer as the union president. For all of his skepticism about the union I believe that he is honest, earnest, and thoughtful and that he would take the responsibility seriously.
Seconded
It should not be one of our unionization leaders. This would give other faculty the impression that personal power or control is one of their motivations. This would only increase the tensions that have arisen over the issue. The only way to garner widespread support of those who did not favor a union is to have it led by independents. And this is in everyone’s interest.
Peter Keyes, if he’ll do it. Experienced, honest straight shooter who sees all sides and gets along with everyone. A rational skeptic rather than a “solidarity forever” true believer. An architect — knows how to design stuff.
A sad day for the university. First we lose a president who understood the mission of a research university, then we (apparently voluntarily) take a big step toward mediocrity/corporatization. Whoever takes on the leadership will have to deal with the consequences: working toward agreements that specify how much advising a graduate student is worth (at Rutgers it is worth something like 38% of teaching a class during the term the student graduates), figuring out how many undergrad credit hours each professor should be teaching (even though we all know that credit hours are not alike–but one really can’t make much in the way of qualitative distinctions in a collective bargaining agreement), etc. The road ahead is not going to be pretty as we try to hammer the fluidity of a research university into a corporate factory mold.
We already do all those things, at least in my unit. In my unit, the credit hour is the only unit of measurement admins seem to understand – even though the effort and quality going into those credit hours is wildly different even for the same course. The trend toward mediocrity is already happening – it’s inevitable as we cram more and more students into classes with less and less resources to serve those students. That is happening because the corporate factory mold is here – absent state funding for a “public good” we either raise revenue or cut costs, or both. And because the “quality” of the product is so hard to measure, we resort to “butts in the seats” as what matters. That works fine when demand is high. But that will change in the next 5-10 years when “customers” figure out they don’t have to pay $30,000 a year to go sit in a 300 person classroom to have someone read them a textbook off of powerpoint (I know that isn’t all that happens here but it happens enough that students figure out pretty quickly which classes/faculty “add value” and which don’t).
When students, employers and society realizes we aren’t adding value anymore and they can get the same thing for less money from home, demand will shrink. We will then be left to figure out what to do with all of these fancy new, half-full buildings.
The University experience used to be special, and the public relied on Universities to be unique “certifiers” of higher education – that is fading and we’d better figure out how to play the game in new ways.
I don’t think a union causes that trend and I don’t think a union stops it either. Only a strong President with a bold vision can get us on the right path. In the meantime, maybe a union keeps faculty from being abused in a system that no longer cares about quality, only butts in the seats, because that’s what pays the bills.
If faculty members here don’t want university-wide quantitative measurements of teaching loads (and I agree that we don’t), we are under no obligation whatsoever to negotiate for such measures in collective bargaining. The corporatization of the university proceeds apace as we become more and more dependent on private dollars; a faculty union can be a barrier against further erosion of university autonomy.
Why would a faculty union lead to mediocrity? Do you really want to insult the proponents of unionization (over half your colleagues)this way? (Admittedly it’s less insulting–though no more convincing–than the comment on another UO Matters thread that labeled union advocates as “lying sacks of fecal matter.” Can we drop that kind of discourse?)
This thread is now just for nominations and related comments. Use https://uomatters.com/2012/03/what-i-want-dont-want-from-faculty.html for more general comments.
I think David Luebke would be an extraordinary president.
The only leader I could support would have to commit to secret ballot elections among all major categories of faculty in the bargaining unit, and then to a secret ballot election on a bargaining unit composes exclusively of groups with majority support. I asked union organizers for this kind of open honest approach and they chose a method subject to manipulsation and pressure, so attempts to lecture m those of us with this old fashioned view of open democracy fall on deaf ears now.any potential candidates willing to commit to elections of this sort?
What manipulation? What pressure? We asked people to sign. If they didn’t want to be contacted, we didn’t contact them. If they declined to sign, they suffered no negative consequences. We’re not thugs. We’re your colleagues–a majority of them.
I’ve heard first hand reports of people called at home being asked to sign after not signing in their office, also of the pro-union colleagues of hold-outs being told to ask their hold-out colleague “what’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you signing the card?”
I’ve also heard of NTTF and non-tenured TTF in departments where they felt they had to sign the card for fear of being later penalized in some indirect way by those who supervise them.
Why not have a secret ballot? If this is such smooth sailing and is really what the majority wants, then what is the downside?
an independently supervised secret ballot could have resoled this tis/tain’t dispute. advocates didn’t want a real election ,and we all know why, so don’t pretend otherwise.
mike kellman, yes. nobody’s fool/ not selfserving
nathan tublitz, yes on 3 counts. honest and he stood up for faculty when few other faculty were willing to do so. finally, who wouldn’t pay to watch nathan as union bureaucrat in suit and tie? go nathan
peter, no. opposite of mike and nathan.
scott maybe
david maybe
mike raymer the nixon to china choice, but raymer’s no crook!
what about a troika now that we’re the proletariat? bean, pernsteiner, dyke, the hat trick
if we’re in the union business now, I nominate our campus ‘pirate and a half’ UO Matters, which was the only consistently audible voice during the dismal days of dyke, brady frohnmayer,bean, and geller. may days such as those never come again.
That’d be cool! Then I could start a blog firing cheap shots at the pirate!
from dead duck: cheap shots at the pirate are open on UO matters any time. I’ve even taken my own shots. Plus, remember that epitome of logic and persuasion posting of ‘toxic slime?