academic labor

• 
• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  7/4/2023
  

  University of California is Cracking Down on Workers and Dissent

  by Rafael Jaime

  The arrest of three UC labor activists on vandalism charges related to chalking a sidewalk with pro-labor slogans show that the university will throw its commitment to free speech out the window when it comes to playing hardball with graduate workers, says one grad union leader. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  6/14/2023
  

  Turning Universities Red

  by Steve Fraser

  American colleges were built to serve the children of elites and maintain the social order they dominated. Despite fears of liberal indoctrination on campus, growing labor movements including all workers are the only way that colleges will really make a more egalitarian society. 

• 
• SOURCE: Ohio Capital Journal
  5/31/2023
  

  Ohio Unions Link Academic Freedom and the Freedom to Strike

  Ohio public sector unions say that a bill limiting faculty's power to strike is reminiscent of previous efforts to disempower public workers in the state, and are closing ranks around academic workers. 

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  5/15/2023
  

  How Media Discussions of Tenure Distort its Meaning and Undermine Academics

  by Deepa Das Acevedo

  Tenure absolutely does not provide "a job for life" for anyone, but the belief that it does is used to justify political attacks on academics. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  5/5/2023
  

  The Labor of Teaching and Administrative Hysteria

  by Elise Archias and Blake Stimson

  Although diversity and cultural sensitivity administrators often embrace (and arguably encourage) student complaints about ideas presented in the classroom, students are more harmed when administrators use those complaints to undercut the expertise and autonomy of faculty who have effective ways of teaching difficult material.

• 
• SOURCE: Academe
  5/8/2023
  

  Faculty and Librarians Must be Allies in the Fight to Save Higher Ed

  by Emily Drabinski

  "A robust defense of free expression requires an equally vociferous defense of the institutions where that speech is most widely celebrated. The fight for higher education must be a fight for the library as well."

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  4/27/2023
  

  DeSantis's Real Campus Attack is on Labor

  by Dan Royles

  "I’m exhausted because I teach U.S. history, including African American and LGBTQ+ history, at a public university in Florida." This places the author at the intersection of DeSantis's public attacks on verboten ideas and his quieter steps to gut tenure protections for the state's faculty and union representation for all educators in Florida.  

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  4/25/2023
  

  U. of Michigan Faculty Shouldn't Flatter New President while the Administration Busts Unions and Politicians Trash Higher Ed

  by Silke-Maria Weineck

  Top administrators increasingly share with conservative politicians a "desire to refashion universities in the image of the American workplace, where at-will employees do what they’re told by feudal overlords who have poems commissioned in their praise."

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  4/19/2023
  

  Rutgers Strikers Ran the Table; Is This the Way out of Higher Ed's Crisis?

  by Jonathan David

  Three Rutgers unions, representing instructors in different professional positions, won by modeling the kind of solidarity that university workers need to fight back against the privatization and corporatization of public higher education. 

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  4/17/2023
  

  Rutgers Unions Suspend Strike after Big Gains

  Although unions representing graduate workers, lecturers, and full-time faculty must approve them, a framework for agreement has been reached that would deliver significant gains in wages and other demands. 

• 
• 4/9/2023
  

  If Universities are a Culture War Battleground, it's Time for University Workers to Fight Together

  by Jeff Kolnick

  "If higher education loses out in the culture wars, so too will American democracy. Our only hope is to enter the fray with our own culture in mind, and to insist on respect. If we stay on the sideline, we will lose."

• 
• SOURCE: Public Seminar
  3/29/2023
  

  A Faculty Union Can Fight for More than Money

  by J. Faith Almiron

  "What exactly does the university offer to students who take on enormous, as-yet unforgivable debts—without reliable teachers?"

• 
• SOURCE: TeenVogue
  3/22/2023
  

  Graduate Student Strikes Fight Back Against Decades of Austerity, Seek to Revive Opportunity

  Participants in these actions explain that the goal isn't only pay and benefits for graduate student workers, but returning public higher education to a state of accessibility for millions of students and opportunity for millions of workers after decades of budget cuts and privatization. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  3/17/2023
  

  Why are Universities so Disrespectful of their Organized Workers?

  by Maximillian Alvarez

  From teaching assistants to cafeteria workers, labor exploitation and union busting are the shady underside of the modern university, according to three scholars active in the academic labor movement. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  3/14/2023
  

  Is the Loss of Collegiality about Manners or Workloads?

  by Paula Marantz Cohen

  If the campus conversation is a lost art for both professors and students, a big part of the solution must be restoring the time – and security – to talk. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  3/10/2023
  

  Rearranging Deck Chairs at AHA?

  by Jacob Bruggeman

  "If professional history is history, it isn’t due to academic politics — it’s because of the sharp contraction and possible collapse of the job market." What are the profession's ostensible leaders going to do about it? 

• 
• 3/9/2023
  

  North Dakota Prof: Tenure Reform Bill is About Silencing Whistleblowers

  by Eric Grabowsky

  A professor says that, aside from academic freedom implications, a bill proposed to reduce tenure protections is aimed at intimidating critics of the university system's management. 

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  3/1/2023
  

  Academic Workers Looking to History for Organizing Strategies in Antiunion States

  The United Public Workers of America were pioneers in organizing academic workers across professional and occupational lines, until being red-baited. 

• 
• 3/5/2023
  

  Another Casualty of the Academic Job Market? The Relatable Professor

  by Elizabeth Stice

  As the academic job market demands a degree of excellence and achievement in young scholars that was unknown for earlier generations of faculty, are the shrinking ranks of the faculty being filled with professors who struggle to relate to their students? 

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  2/16/2023
  

  Temple Revives Old-Time Union Busting against Grad Students

  by Heather Ann Thompson

  Temple's decision to revoke the tuition remission of striking grad students (and threaten their ability to complete degrees) is the kind of hardball tactic that bodes ill for workers in every workplace in America, and a reminder of the need to understand the country's labor history.