October Days of Action—from teachers to #adjunct faculty #CEW2015

…and points/days between. Earlier this month, when I started getting ready for CEW and developing a CEW Archives project, I noticed there seemed to a lot of such days this month. So I made a list ~ with links, of course. That's what I do. What does the list below seeing all those social, environmental and economic justice movements and days of actions side by side, tell us?

From World Teachers Day to Campus Equity Week (leaving Keith's Equality question aside for now) October is loaded with social justice days for speaking out. However important raising public and internal group awareness is, we damn well better do more than show up to table, hang banners, pass out flyers and wear buttons for a few days out of the year.

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates, late May

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 

Updates in brief and links

Around the Adjunctiverse

'Junct Tour is home again! Catch up with road trip posts on 2255 Films, Chris LaBree's blog, the Homeless Adjunct and 'Junct Tour Event page.

Josh Boldt has a post about media aggregation on the Adjunct Project plus new Forum and Job Board 

Carol Leitner, former Westchester CC adjunct sues, says she was fired for expressing opinions (which included support for Arizona's controversial 2010 immigration law, and student complaints.)

Rowan AFT adjunct union endorses no-merger with Rutgers-Camden resolution

The Culture Of Dissent

The question: will #OccupyEverything influence #CEW2011. Will all that is blowing in the wind play out in &/or influence the community (such as it is) of adjunct, contingent faculty and other NT knowledge workers? If so, how? If not, why? Awaiting your comments. 


The Culture Of Dissent is re-posted from Firedog Lake where Billy Glad blogs at Annals Of The Hiests like Occupy Wall Street — fast becoming Occupy Your Street (Any Street) — and October 2011, coming soon to Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. The protestors have rejected politics. They are wide awake. They no longer believe a political solution to America’s problems is possible. They are determined to win or lose in the streets, and they are committed to the notion that culture trumps politics. (Think of the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-war, anti-draft movement that ended the Vietnam War and the Johnson Presidency at the price of undermining The Great Society and opening the door of the Oval Office for Richard Nixon.) The way, we used to say, the cookie crumbles. [cont'd.]

Five Things That #OccupyWallStreet Has Done Right

What can can adjuncts, contingent faculty and other marginalized academic knowledge workers learn from Occupy Wall Street about organizing and building a movement that we can't from either marketing strategies or by the book union methods?

"#OccupyWallStreet protests are now well into their second week, and they are increasingly capturing the public spotlight. This is because, whatever limitations their occupation has, the protesters have done many things right."

1. They chose the right target.

2. They made a great poster.

3. They gave their action time to build.

4. They created a good scenario for conflict.

5. They are using their momentum to escalate.

"... the fact that #OccupyWallStreet has not relied on established progressive organizations ends up being a strength. Its independent participants are inspired by the increasing attention their critique of Wall Street is getting, and they are willing to make greater sacrifices now that their action has begun to capture the public imagination."

Read more about the Five Things That #OccupyWallStreet Has Done Rightat Talking Union .Rephrase the above statement, making judicious substitutions for "Occupy" and "Wall Street." Start thinking about how we could adapt them, scale them down for CEW.

'via Blog this'

TODAY: Statewide UW Walkout 12n

from the Defend Public Education forum  

From inside the capital, workers on the job supported the rally by displaying a sign of "SOLIDARITY!" through the window for protesters to see. (Fight Back! News/Staff)

University of Wisconsin State-wide Walkout Thursday:
Spread the word -  Students will walk out of all UW schools on Thursday at 12n CST in opposition to Governor Scott Walker's budget proposal that will break unions.

Wisconsin school walkouts,
Students all over Wisconsin have walked out and schools in Madison are being closed because of "excessive teacher absence," which looks to me like a strike.  The attack against collective bargaining, notice that police unions are exempt, is unprecedented but the response to this, which is part of the austerity measures happening across the country, is tremendous and we need to unleash this type of response nationally as the workers, students-- the community as a whole in Wisconsin has.

East High School students walk down East Washington Avenue Tuesday with police escort to protest Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to remove collective bargaining rights for most Wisconsin public employees. Photo Credit: Matt DeFour - Wisconsin State Journal

Local News

• Appleton East students show union support 
• Stoughton students walk out of class to protest Walker’s moves
• Hundreds of East High students leave school in protest of Walker proposal 
• Viroqua students walk out in protest 
• Students stage impromptu protest at Shorewood High 
• Eyewitness photos of Tuesday protest 

Photo: Chronicle, 2/15/2011
 With Unions Under Threat, Academics Join Huge Rally in Wisconsin

EWU News

from Curtis Keyes, August 24, 2010, Chicago IL 

Colleagues,

GREAT NEWS!

The National Labor Relations Board has decided to uphold our Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) claim that East-West University violated our federally-protected rights to organize an adjunct faculty union. This decision is a major and SIGNIFICANT victory for all of us who have given so much to the institution!! It will be felt for many years to come! The Labor Board has given EWU about one week to settle the ULP under the following terms:

• Erma Faire-Doeing, Ken Peterson and I will be fully compensated for summer classes that we were scheduled to teach but were taken away from us by the administration. 
• EWU will go back to the hiring procedures that it used during the 2010 Spring Quarter. 
• This means that the firings related to our union organizing will be rescinded. 
• While the pay raises announced by the administration for the 2010 Fall Quarter will remain intact, the University will not promise any "future benefits" to the part-time faculty as part of an effort to undermine support for the union. 

The fact that the employer took this action of giving raises in response to the "threat" of bringing in a union is a big victory for all of us since we have not had a raise since 2004. This is just the beginning. Even with the raises, we are still the lowest paid adjunct faculty in the Chicagoland area; once we have a union, we can continue to negotiate for greater improvements than what we are currently receiving.

If EWU does not accept the terms of this settlement, the Labor Board will issue a formal complaint and prosecute EWU for violating the law. The ULP trial will not only be very expensive for the University, but it will also generate a good deal of negative publicity that EWU can ill afford.

EWU Chicago Protest. Tues July 13

   

JOIN THE UNITED ADJUNCT FACULTY ASSOCIATION

 East-West University (EWU), Chicago

DEMONSTRATION

PICKETING AGAINST UNFAIR LABOR ACTIONS 

by EWU Chancellor Khan and Provost Jain.

Support our Protest Demonstration on Tuesday, July 13^th

11AM-1PM @ 816 S. Michigan Avenue, in front of the EWU main entrance

Southwestern College students protest class cuts (& what the Administration did)

AAUP is taking an interest in this one after we brought it to their attention on adj-l. Click through to the blog post for comments.

Southwestern College Students Protest Class Cuts (And What the Administration Did Afterward) via The Writer's Washroom by Nickolas on 10/24/09

On Thursday, October 22, students at Southwestern College in Chula Vista chose to protest against the unilateral actions of the school president and its Board. The protest was civil and held in the fifty yard-by-fifty yard zone that the school calls its "Free Speech Area."


It should also be noted that the Free Speech Area is hidden away between several buildings and is invisible to any road, parking lot, or driveway that surrounds the campus. To a member of the voting public - such as myself - who showed up to watch the students, it was difficult to find. I, like others, had to park and wander the campus until we found it.

For the last Board meeting, President Chopra refused to move the venue from the tiny room it usually used to the auditorium it regularly uses when it expects a big crowd. He knew that students, professors, members of the public, and the press were coming to express their displeasure at his budget-slashing plans, so more than one hundred people – like me – stood outside and listened to the meeting on little speakers, while police guarded the doors.