Not in Our Names

I have said it before and will say it again:  Please do not conflate the beliefs and actions of University faculty, students, or staff with the beliefs and actions of the Administrators.

Today I am flat-out embarrassed by the possibility that anyone might think that the educators, staff, or students of UW-Madison uniformly support the latest shenanigans perpetrated by our administration.  Three such action are especially revolting.

1. Administrators sent threatening letters to our students who are working diligently to ensure that those "in charge" uphold the ethical code of conduct governing UW-Madison's business relationships, rather than kowtow to the business owners of Milwaukee.   More on that in the coming days.

2. The Interim Chancellor played "holier than thou" in a reprehensible letter published Friday about the words of a faculty member, Lydia Zepeda, chair of the shared governance committee on Labor Codes Licensing Compliance. He used the race card against her, calling into question a statement that makes complete and utter sense--and in doing so suggests that he is allowed to stand in judgement of what is "becoming" of shared governance leaders.

3. Tomorrow, Administrators will issue a press announcement in which it will attempt to deflect critique of UW-Madison's substantial rainy day fund, by asking campus "leaders" to show all of the ways in which the money is being used for "good cause." You can bet that the announcement will say nothing about the fact that the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates has failed to address students' major needs, including removing bottlenecks in course access, because the money has been distributed in non-transparent ways, including contributing to this rainy day fund.  Try to look inside Madison's budget-- try asking "what's the real cost of an undergraduate education" and how does this compare to the price being charged? You'll get nowhere.  Defensive budgeting may be expected given the behavior of the Legislature, but it remains detrimental to all of the university's publics.

Sadly, you'll likely see little of our internal dissent revealed at tomorrow's Faculty Senate meeting because shared governance, constrained as it is by fear and conservatism all around us, will be a short and sweet "front" to what's really going on.  Amazingly, this is the last meeting we'll hold until OCTOBER, showing you just how seriously this system is taken.  In the meantime, a new Chancellor and her people will come in, take over, and make a million decisions while most of us are scattered elsewhere, working frantically to get our research done.  Come fall, no doubt more surprises will be revealed.

As he leaves this second term of office, I am left wondering: Why isn't Chancellor Ward choosing to leave the University the proud, ethical institution it has the opportunity to be?  Why not do right by the exploited workers of Palermo's? Why not praise his students and faculty for speaking truth to power in this terrifying age of attacks on academic freedom?  Why not push the subsequent UW Administration towards greater transparency, not teach them how to hide?  Why act like one of the crowd, rather than a leader for the greater good? Carpe diem, Chancellor.

A Letter to Chancellor Ward

This letter went to Ward this morning.  Yesterday's Capital Times noted that a key issue here is a failure on the Administration's part to listen and communicate with campus the same way it does with business. I couldn't agree more.

May 3, 2013

Dear Chancellor Ward,

We are deeply troubled by your latest statement on Palermo’s Pizza, in which you conveyed a continued refusal to acknowledge the findings of the National Labor Relations Board and Worker Rights Consortium. UW-Madison has a history of upholding our Code of Conduct, which the university adopted for a reason.

You have repeatedly claimed to not have enough information to take action toward Palermo’s. This is despite the fact that last November, the National Labor Relations Board found Palermo’s in violation of numerous counts of violating federal labor law, including worker intimidation, physically blocking workers from going on strike, and illegally terminating 11 workers. Though the NLRB may have absolved Palermo’s of other charges, the threshold for warranting a contract cut is one violation. Additionally, on March 11, another unfair labor practice charge has been filed to the NLRB involving the firing of a worker for their union activity.

In addition to the NLRB decision, the Worker Rights Consortium, after an investigation of the Palermo’s plant, determined the company to be in violation of our university Code of Conduct, which establishes a higher standard of labor practices than the NLRB. To be clear, the Worker Rights Consortium performs their inspections contingent upon international labor law, and not the National Labor Relations Act.

We would like to remind you that the Worker Rights Consortium, on February 5th, 2013 recommended: “The WRC concluded that the company must take two key steps to comply with university codes of conduct. First, Palermo must promptly reinstate the striking employees it terminated or permanently replaced employees, with full back pay.” Palermo’s has made no effort to remedy neither the charges of the NLRB, nor the Worker Rights Consortium.

While you claim to be ‘deeply engaged on this issue,’ and to ‘have discussed this issue repeatedly with students, faculty, staff, and campus governance,’ you seem to have a misconstrued impression of what discussion actually entails. Members of the Student Labor Action Coalition first approached you on this issue in a letter on September 24, 2012. In the over seven months that have passed since then, we have consistently written to update you on the situation, with no response from your office.

On Monday, April 29th, students sat-in in your office because for over 200 days you have brazenly ignored our attempts to engage in a conversation on this issue, but even then, you chose to arrest these students, rather than engage in a dialogue with them. This was also your response in 1999 and 2000, when students raised the issue of worker rights, and now you have successfully cemented your legacy at UW-Madison as an anti-worker, anti-student Chancellor. Despite your overly severe reaction to the students who occupied the anteroom to your office on Monday, we will continue to defend the moral compass of the UW-Madison from your efforts to tarnish it.

Sincerely,

UWMAD@Palermo’s Coalition