Joe Berry's COCAL Updates, July 11 & 13

...news & links about #ContingentFaculty, #academiclabor & #organizing in #highered. To subscribe to regular Updates, email joeberry@igc.org.  More about Joe Berry.  Updates are also archived at chicagococal.org. Follow COCAL International on Facebook.  

around the adjunctiverse

Judy Olson's first hand account and detailed analysis of contingent faculty success at NEA Assembly on unemployment support item, also covered by CHE and briefly in IHE   

New blog post by NFM veep Matt Williams, Wet Tinder or the contingent faculty movement catching fire?  

NFM blogger and board member, Bill Lipkin blogs for info about adjunct mentoring programs 

On adjuncting in Catholic higher ed and the threat of it (casualization) spreading into Catholic K12; Nashville K-12 schools going the adjunct route too  

Union made

Faculty and staff unhappy with changes at Columbia College Chicago (quotes from PFAC, staff union and academic senate leaders)

WA state governor attacks negotiated faculty (joint FTTT and NTT unit, AFT/NEA there) pay raises

Current chapter in never ending DuqU story: NLRB impounds ballots in Duquesne U adjunct union representation election due to administration challenges, put election on hold 

Yeshiva  to be reconsidered in light of organizing attempt at Point Park U with many friend of court briefs from admin orgs and unions 

New President of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Larry Hanley, says need to organize riders, not just drivers [a lesson here for us?] 

News from other contingent workers: Indianapolis hotels try to go to an all temp, contracted out workforce to stop union drive 

for profit highered

Western Assoc. of Schools and Colleges (WASC) the regional accreditor for the western states) gets tough with for-profitAshford U, owned by Bridgepoint. Note this is not the Community College section of WASC, headed by Barbara Beno, which has been attacking City College of SF for being too good to its mostly pt faculty and having "too few" administrators) and in a related story on for-profits and accreditation 

Federal judge strikes down part of federal regulation of vocational programs and more on next steps

For-profit grads face wage disadvantage 

global

Articles on mass protest against the electoral fraud in Mexico  

The Guardian Higher Education Network discusses (via comments) future (casualization) of academic work, teaching and research, mostly but not exclusively in the UK, participation by US and other anglophone academics includes

unclassified

Rogue accreditation team threatens San Francisco City College's accreditation. CFCC is likely the most p/t-friendly cc in CA. 

[Chair of the accreditation organization for cc's for Western States, the regional accreditor, is Barbara Beno, ex-President of Vista College, Peralta CC District in Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda, CA) where she opposed both money for part-timer raises and benefits and the creation of more FTTT jobs, and was generally an enemy of the union. This is a very serious attack on all we have fought for for decades!]. See also here and here (both from InsideHigherEd)

EdWeek series by chmtchr: Part 1 of Gates Foundation "leveraged" philanthropy, Corporate Profit Versus Humanity on Three Fronts; Part 2, The Gates Foundation's Education Philanthropy: Are Profit Seeking and Market Domination a Public Service? 

Registration deadline past for the Coalition of Grad Employee Unions (CGEU) conference in Vancouver, BC, Canada in August but you can still follow the action from afar on the CGEU Listserv, the CGEU 2012 Facebook page or on Tumblr  

  

A provocative idea for labor law reform - just cause dismissal rights for everyone (like now in Montana) which would also help protect organizers and activists. Good comments list.

The Emergency Labor Network (ELN) issues a Labor action for Medicare for All. For more information write emergencylabor@aol.com or P.O. Box 21004, Cleveland, OH 44121 or call 216-736-4715 or visit website.   

An interesting update on the student strike in Quebec