Emergency Chicago COCAL Update: EWU

Here's more about trouble on the Loop and an impassioned but spot on admonition not to let this one slide. Joe Berry writes, 

Please find below the message just sent to the Chicago COCAL list. Send your protests to the administrators listed and pass this message on, especially to anyone you know in the Chicago area who might come to the picket, but also to people who can send protests or statements of support. Also forward to organizations for statements of support. More information will be forthcoming.

more about the neighborhood

Friends, Colleagues and Fellow-workers, (please forward this message to all relevant lists ASAP)

Emergency Picket TOMORROW, Monday, June 21

Adjunct faculty at East-West University in downtown Chicago are planning a picket line to protest the non-rehiring of several (including the leader of the United Adjunct Faculty Association, IEA/NEA) faculty for both summer and fall terms. All but one of these are people who recently signed union authorization cards calling for a Labor Board election. 

As the press release (to be posted separately) and the Inside Higher Ed story make clear, the administration is trying to forestall unionization by essentially firing the entire faculty then hiring them back selectively after personal one-on-one interviews with the Chancellor. This is happening at a school with a mostly African-American and other minorities faculty and student body and where the vast majority of students are on Federal financial aid.

Please come out to the picket TOMORROW morning if at all possible and support our brave adjunct colleagues in this private college. Take a sick day if you have to, but come and bring others. If this tactic of firing a whole faculty to avoid unionization is allowed to stand, it could threaten all future organizing and even existing unions. If you ever wanted to do something concrete for the contingent faculty movement, this is the time!

JOIN THE PICKET LINE IN SUPPORT OF BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS

THE UNITED ADJUNCT FACULTY ASSOCIATION AT EAST-WEST UNIVERSITY (EWU) AND FORMER ADJUNCT FACULTY WHO HAVE BEEN FIRED

PICKET PROTEST AGAINST UNFAIR TREATMENT OF ADJUNCT FACULTY AT EWU

DATE: MONDAY, JUNE 21, 2010

LOCATION: 816 SOUTH MICHIGAN AVENUE

TIME: 8-9:45AM

Email or fax protests to: (please copy all protests and and send statements of support to ewuadjuncts@gmail.com)

• Chancellor Dr. Mohammad Wasiullah Khan, chancellor@eastwest.edu
• Provost Dr. Madhu Jain, madhu@eastwest.edu
• Surface mail address: 816 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60605. Telephone, 312-939-0111. Fax: 312-939-0083