Hi Reed
Thanks very much for this informative reply.
Closed shops are prohibited in the UK too.
That is regarded as quite different from organising. Does the ban on closed shops prevent you organising at all? Are you saying that a K-12 teacher - that's elementary school and high school, isn't it - would be sacked if they even tried to organise a union?
For example, in my own university we have a union membership density of about 50%. (That's UCU (www.ucu.org.uk). Technicians, clerical and manual staff are in another union, UNISON.) UCU and UNISON are recognised trade unions in this university and I believe all universities in England and Wales, so we formally meet the university managers (you would say, administrators), several times a year to negotiate contracts and terms of employment. If we weren't able to do that, I honestly believe that working conditions would be absolutely unbearable. We also represent people individually, say if they were being bullied, or racially harassed, or if reasonable adjustments are not made for their disability. But we still have a fair proportion of free-riders. If they are very new staff who haven't had the benefits of membership explained properly, then that might be excusable. I really don't find it excusable though when established academics who may claim to be radicals, just can't be bothered to join.
One thing about the AFL-CIO, however moribund it is, it is also part of the international labour movement. The IWW on the other hand has a valiant history and wasn't implicated in racism (or the cold war). Can it be grown very quickly into something that can rescue higher education from rampant casualisation and removal of academic freedom?
Regards
Judith
________________________________________
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Reed Underwood [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 01 December 2016 15:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Our post-truth world or the first step to McCarthyism?
I can tell you that many states in the U.S. have general right-to-work laws prohibiting closed shops. That's true here in Texas. For K-12 teachers, labor organizing carries the risk of decertification. The trade associations and unions in education, with a few exceptions in larger school districts where locals have a little sway, are pretty toothless. You send in dues and get a newsletter, maybe a voting guide now and then. I believe this is true for higher ed associations here, too.
For American education workers living in right-to-work states, I'd suggest joining the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.). It's a small group, but it has a history of organizing without the help or approval of the state.
-R.
On Thu, Dec 01, 2016 at 03:08:23PM +0000, Judith Watson wrote:
> Yes it is.
>
> I hope people won't mind me saying again that probably the most important ways in which we can defend our academic freedom is through our trade unions. I found http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/opinion/sunday/the-decline-of-unions-and-the-rise-of-trump.html this discussion of the Trump rise to be interesting but tending to see white working class men as research subjects rather than fellow citizens. I understand from American friends that at the moment there seems to be nothing that you can wholeheartedly join. AFL-CIO may not have got over its shameful past - couldn't that be rectified though? The Association of American University Professors is more of a professional organisation than a trade union, and its usefulness might be confined to tenured professors. But we have also heard of pop-up unions of casualised staff, showing that there is still a need for organised solidarity.
>
> I would be very interested in hearing from anyone on this list who isn't a member of any such organisation at all and would like to explain why.
>
> Regards
>
> Judith
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Andrew Kythreotis [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 01 December 2016 14:21
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Our post-truth world or the first step to McCarthyism?
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> Now this is something worth discussing…
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