Joe Berry's July 19 COCAL Updates

...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.  

Getting organized...
According to UK political activist Richard Seymour writing in The Guardian, Chicago teachers could strike a blow for organised labor globally. Although risky, a successful, a fight to halt school budget cuts in Democratic heartland would be a huge boost for unions.




"What was Behind the UESF Strike Vote?" An informative article by Andy Libson on recent strike vote and union election in the United Educators of SF (AFT/NEA). [JB notes: This is my old union and I was part of a similar caucus effort back in the the 1970s.) via La Voz de los Trabajadores.

Watch The U.S. in 2012: What's Class Got to Do with It? This valuable plenary session on You-tube from the How Class Works conference at SUNY Stonybrook last June features a round table discussion with Bill Fletcher, Juan Gonzalez, Bob Herbert, Frances Fox Piven, and Michael Zweig...full of lessons. Other sessions and conference papers are on the website 

Pittsburgh NTT and contingent conference, Countering Contingency, rescheduled for April 5-7, 2013. 

Part-time union at Columbia College, Chicago wins NLRB decision on failure to bargain in good faith by administration, also here.  

NEA Today on recent action as NEA Presses for Adjunct Faculty Rights 

From Labor Notes, on organizing: aim the slingshot well 

Pasadena City College and union at impasse: overloads and large class premiums are key issues

go global...

Report on massive student and faculty and staff and general labor movement demonstrations in Chile in support of ongoing strike 

How Pearson Co. influences education policy globally, not just here  (yes, you have all received come-ons for their books and materials) but also in the UK and other Anglophone countries

for profit watch...

For-profit Academy of Art University  faces whistleblower suits in San Francisco from for former recruiters who claim US government was defrauded of millions 

Fraud lawsuit against Virginia College (for-profit) for defrauding students

miscellaneous...

Note from July 17: Happy Woody Guthrie's 100th Birthday. We need his spirit and songs even more today. see NPR on his legacy and many other sites with commemorations. Just search "woody guthrie birthday"

An interesting discussion on the pension "crisis" at Talking Union

Latest post by Debra Leigh Scott on the Homeless Adjunct: questions students and parents should be asking administrators and admissions officers 

A temp worker story from another segment of the contingent workforce, Labor Ready temps, Mother Jones.