Uniting for the Future
First: Nine layoffs in University of Illinois Facilities. I thought we were suffering through furloughs in order to avoid layoffs?
And second: Central Michigan University NTTs form union. This is great news for contingent faculty across the country. Nice work CMU!
The Campus Faculty Association (CFA) is an advocacy organization for faculty and other campus workers committed to shared governance, academic freedom, and a strong faculty voice on campus. View more posts
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Campus Faculty Association
You guys don't want furlough days? Let's try a few firings.
Francofou, did you read the comment or the article itself? The university developed rhetoric earlier this year that furloughs were necessary so that we could avoid having to fire people. Now it looks like despite furloughs, the university is quietly firing people. Seems to me like the justification for furloughs is falling through.
Of course, KBHC. But the unions resisted the idea of furloughs. Result: firings. And not so quietly, it seems to me.
I'm afraid Francofou is missing the point here. Let me clarify: for example, SEIU represents 800 building service workers and 200 dining services workers at UIUC. UIUC went to the State and tried to get the law changed so they could furlough union employees without bargaining. That failed. How many SEIU employees have been fired as a result? Exactly zero.How many lower-paid employees have been fired as a result? Certainly not those F&S craftsman, because they are much better paid.The lesson is not that furloughs lead inevitably to layoffs. The lesson is that the University is currently furloughing and laying off anyone it can. A union is not a 100 pct guarantee of anything, but it is one line of defense that non-union workers just don't have.Blaming unionized workers who resist the University's misguided spending priorities is like blaming a pedestrian who leaps out of the way of a runaway bus for the deaths of the people further down the sidewalk that the bus did eventually hit. It's avoiding the obvious.