Boston Magazine has an in-depth look at the end of Larry Summers' presidency which refutes much of the idiotic reactionary explanations put forward by Dershowitz, Tierney, and others, and offers an anatomy of tyrannical leadership in the neoliberal university which is engrossing, to say the least. Summers lies to the faculty, openly tries to bribe professional school deans into buttressing his presidency in the face of what he incorrectly views as localized rebellion in the facutly of arts and sciences, and ignores women faculty. Yet for all its ugliness, this article, like the events it documents, lends hope for the proliferation of similar developments elsewhere.

Anya Kamenetz in today's Times

By the same token, internships promote overidentification with employers: I
make sacrifices to work free, therefore I must love my work. A sociologist at
the University of Washington, Gina Neff, who has studied the coping strategies
of interns in communications industries, calls the phenomenon "performative
passion." Perhaps this emotion helps explain why educated workers in this
country are less and less likely to organize, even as full-time jobs with
benefits go the way of the Pinto.

Although it's not being offered this year, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s Union Summer
internship program, which provides a small stipend, has shaped thousands of
college-educated career organizers. And yet interestingly, the percentage of
young workers who hold an actual union card is less than 5 percent, compared
with an overall national private-sector union rate of 12.5 percent. How are
twentysomethings ever going to win back health benefits and pension plans when
they learn to be grateful to work for nothing?

So an internship doesn't teach you everything you need to know about coping
in today's working world. What effect does it have on the economy as a whole?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not identify interns or track the
economic impact of unpaid internships. But we can do a quick-and-dirty
calculation: according to Princeton Review's "Internship Bible," there were
100,000 internship positions in 2005. Let's assume that out of those, 50,000
unpaid interns are employed full time for 12 weeks each summer at an average
minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. That's a nearly $124 million yearly contribution
to the welfare of corporate America.

In this way, unpaid interns are like illegal immigrants. They create an
oversupply of people willing to work for low wages, or in the case of interns,
literally nothing. Moreover, a recent survey by Britain's National Union of
Journalists found that an influx of unpaid graduates kept wages down and patched
up the gaps left by job cuts.

Kamenetz's points about the precarity and contigency of the internship economy are well taken and insightful, yet the unqualified statement that "unpaid interns are like illegal immigrants" leaves me uneasy. It ignores the racialized contruction of work and the very different class positioning of college graduates and undocumented, low wage service workers, even as she does note the ways in which unpaid internships require one to be "rich enough to work without pay to get your foot in the door." This is not, of course, to say that I disagree with much of Kamenetz's argument - I don't. Kamenetz does a fantastic job here of demystifying the pernicious and exploitative material conditions and ideological dimensions of unpaid work. But what this simile elides seems dangerous to pass over, something of a colonizing gesture which might yield greater value if unpacked and scrutinized further.

Shapiro and the Sidney Hillman Prize.

How Ian Shapiro's book, which I will admit to never having read, was ever nominated for the Sidney Hillman prize, I don't know. That Unite-HERE (Hillman was a leader of the the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers' Union, which merged with the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union to form UNITE in 1995) would refuse to honor Shapiro, the superstar political science professor who has often used his prestige and power to aid Yale's anti-union campaign against 2500 Unite-HERE members, seems a foregone conclusion.

Yet what this episode, reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, might teach us is that the actions of union-busters resonate not only within the halls of the ivory tower (itself a construct whose time has long since passed,) that supposedly progressive academics will be "called to account," (to borrow a phrase from Catherine Stimpson, another union buster,) that those of us who have lost our jobs, have been intimidated by our faculty, have walked picket lines in the freezing cold, and/or have put ourselves on the line for a just workplace and a better university are not alone.

I'm not sure what else it's appropriate to write here, since I don't really see the point of not-anonymously slinging mud at a tenured professor who has done a fairly successful job of dumping mud on himself.



I'm linking Hugh Baran's blog Creative Trouble. Baran is a UOCista whom I have never met. I am linking him because a) his nascent blog is quite interesting and b) he linked me.

On GSOC's day in court, (those of us who pleaded not guilty will be back in August,) Cary Nelson and Jane Buck explain why they were with us last month and why our struggle is so important for the future of academic workers.

NYU quite possibly represents a turning point in the history of efforts to
improve working conditions in higher education. Especially after nearly 30 years
of a steadily growing national trend toward the increasing use of poorly paid
contingent labor to do most undergraduate teaching — a trendin which higher
education mirrors the now radical disparity between CEO salaries and the
salaries of those on the shop floor — NYU’s effort to decisively disempower its
more poorly paid teachers heralds a future of bitter labor conflict in the
industry. While it was inspiring to stand beside the courageous students at the
forefront of this struggle, it was sobering indeed to realize matters may now
get much worse on many other campuses.

Despite a few gaffes in chronology (Medical debt justice preceeded the bank campaign by a good six months,) this is by far the best article about CCNE and CORD which I've ever seen.

"We beat this statement to death with a stick," said Ted Gardner, a retired
firefighter recruited to the cause. "We've never denied or been against the
cancer center. Everyone gets cancer."The critical, behind-the-scenes role van
den Heever, Marks and their organization played in mobilizing people like
Gardner turns the accepted plot line of the cancer-center dispute inside out.
For more than a year, it was portrayed in the media and in dueling ad campaigns
as a contest between the hospital and a union seeking to enlist its blue-collar
workers, with Mayor John DeStefano, a leading candidate for the Democratic
gubernatorial nomination, caught in the middle.The union - New England Health Care Employees Union, District
1199, a part of the 1.8 million-member Service Employees International Union
- had indeed laid siege to the hospital for eight years, finally winning the
right to hold an election under favorable rules. And DeStefano got credit for
ending the impasse, as did Marna Borgstrom, a longtime Yale-New Haven executive
who in October was promoted to president.But a funny thing happened on the way
to the March 22 peace treaty that most everyone greeted with jubilation. In the
end, it suddenly seemed to have less to do with the union than it did with
residents of the city's Hill section, the poor neighbors of the giant hospital
complex. Late on March 21, the night before the deal was announced, DeStefano
took Borgstrom to a meeting he arranged at the Sacred Heart Church in the Hill,
where she listened to residents tell her what the hospital needed to do for the
neighborhood if she expected to get the cancer center built.

Also, congratulations to all you graduated folks.

Farallon Capital Management sells its holdings in CCA, the notorious private prison corporation. Geert Rouwenhorst oddly wistful.

As congress happily acquiesces to Bush's criminaliation of undocumented workers and gleefully agrees to add ever more fencing along the border and entertain discussion of a congressional amendment attacking same-sex marriage, the NLRB deals workers at tax exempt institutions another blow.

With a weak labor law system that allows for pervasive employer
intimidation and excessive delays in organizing and bargaining, workers and
their unions are turning to those in their community who can support them in
their efforts to fairly seek union recognition or negotiate a contract.
Employees should be able to contact third parties to stand in solidarity with
and actively voice support for their rights without fear of reprisal. By
allowing an employer to retaliate against its employees for seeking such
assistance, the Board has further narrowed options for those trying to improve
their working conditions.

Dear Senators Clinton and Schumer,

You know you look bad when Joe Leiberman votes more "progressive" than you do.

Multimedia message

"we are leading academia"

Six Months.

First, a mini-rant. Medical student Brian Levine sat on the GAC and helped design the company union proposal which he, Rodney Washington, and John Beckman are currently touting ad nauseam. Today, the WSN reports that Levine has been awarded a $50,000 fellowship from the University's new Catherine B. Reynolds program (named after the controversal philanthropofinancier who is NYU's newest trustee.) Does this strike anyone else as problematic?

Now on to the real post. Today marks the end of the sixth month of the strike. It's been a difficult, crazy year, occasionally amazing, occasionally ludicrous, like yesterday when none other than Geraldo Rivera walked by us while we were leafletting in midtown, refused a leaflet, and was too busy and/or famous to deign to talk to a bunch of lowly strikers. Dude, even Alec Baldwin at least had some quips for us. Look, Geraldo. We're news. We're newsworthy. Al Capone's secret vault? Not so much. Next time you see folks wearing picket signs, maybe you should talk to them. You might learn something.

Speaking of newsworthy, yesterday was the screening of Steve Fletcher's film I'm on strike because..., which is a 20-minute long documentary about the press strategy of the strike and well worth seeing both for the insights Susan, Mike P, and Steve provide, the interview with some of the nerds which explores an apparent rift between the 113 University Place orthodoxy and the subterranean branding campaign launched by incognito rogue sociologists, and all of the actual strike footage, of picket lines and rallies and storming the library and the 4.27 convention and civil disobedience, a powerful reminder of how long and hard this struggle has been and how hard we have fought and how much harder we will continue to fight as we move forward into the summer and beyond.

very, very sad news

Grant McLennan, co-leader of the Australian band the Go-Betweens, died
Saturday, May 6, in Brisbane at the age of 48. McLennan passed away in his
sleep; the cause of death is not yet known.

since i forgot to do this last week and the week before, you get not one but two random shuffle playlists this weekend.

New pornographers- "Use It"
Man Man - "Banana Ghost"
Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty - "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around"
Notorious B.I.G. - "Things Done Changed"
Linton Kwesi Johnson - "New Crass Massahkah"
Mighty Diamonds - "I Need a Roof"
The Ramones - "Sheena is a Punk Rocker"
Mission of Burma - "The Ballad of Johnny Burma"
Xiu Xiu - "Crank Heart"
Dinosaur Jr. - "Lose"

Mets beat the Braves last night, so now i'm all happy.

NYU, exposed.

There's a new website that everyone should check out, particularly NYU students and NYU alumni and alumnae. This website goes into depth on how NYU works, its relationships with New York, its trustees, administration, finances, and endowment, and its real estate agenda. Particularly interesting is the article on tenure and gender, which asks "who is being asked to sacrifice for NYU's future?" and finds that

Three years into John Sexton's presidency, data show
that there are almost 30% more non-tenure track faculty than when Sexton became
president. NYU women make an average of 88¢ on the dollar that men make
for comparable work.

Edit: Friday random shuffle
101'ers - "Keys To Your Heart (Ver.2)"
Beatles - I Will"
Burning Spear - "John Burns Skank"
Shellac - "Mouthpiece"
The Replacements - "Customer"
GBV - "Little Whirl"
Bush Tetras - "Stand Up and Fight"
Super Furry Animals - "Psyclone!"
Annie - "Chewing Gum"
Stooges - "1969"

Straussians Gone Wild

wtf?

perstare et praestare

That's NYU's motto - "To persevere and to excel," or, more literally, "to withstand" ("stand through") and and "stand before." As Bob Proto once noted that the struggle to fight for social justice in New Haven constituted "the only light and truth" at Yale University, and as the members of Local 34 who rewrote "Solidarity Forever" in 1984 noted that it was "the workers who are standing up for Lux et Veritas," so a similar dynamic seems to be operating here at NYU now. On day 177 of GSOC's strike, in our 26th week, less than a week short of the six month mark, GSOC members have withstood (perstiterunt) economic blacklists, threats and intimidation, sketchy abusive hugging, infantilizing and demonizing rhetoric, freezing cold weather, Alessandro Miglio, the repeated proclamations from the university's PR flacks that we are anti-undergraduate or that we simply do not matter any more, that our strike is crushed. We have responded by growing, by gaining momentum, by building our strike, our struggle, and our union. In the process, we've stood before (praestiterunt) the neoliberal university's instrumentalist reason and begun to articulate a democratic, constituent vision of an accessible, diverse university beholden not to the corporate criminals who sit on NYU's board of trustees behind Martin Lipton, but instead to a wide spectrum of social movements struggling for a better world.

And now, I give you me getting arrested, courtesy of the GSOC website. Our mouths are open because we're shouting "Contract! Now!"

And in the book nerdiness category...

this just came in the mail today!

A song of social significance.

This is a work in progress, the latest in my ignominious attempts to rewrite popular songs to pertain to labor struggles at universities. Here, i've done something I've generally shyed away from recently, in attempting to rewrite a song i actually love, and not in a hipster "Journey Rulez" kind of way. I'm still trying to figure out the last line of the final verse. If you have suggestions, I would welcome and very much appreciate them. Anyway, without further adieu, i give you "Bastards of Young," GSOC style. Original lyrics and music by Paul Westerberg, as performed by The Replacements on the classic 1985 album Tim.

John, what a mess, tenure ladder no redress
And so on picket lines your name is sung
Dreams unfulfilled, graduates deskilled
And so we'll keep on walkin' and refuse to be forgotten

We are contingent teachers, GSOC on strike
We are contingent teachers, GSOC on strike
the labs and the sections

We won't teach no Hume or lecture on Khartoum
Our drums we'll sound, until we win this fight
health benefit reduction, voodoo economic suction
And so we'll keep on walkin' and refuse to be forgotten

We are contingent teachers, GSOC on strike
We are contingent teachers, GSOC on strike
the labs and the sections

John Beckman tries to frame us, NYU's Class War defames us

The ones who made this mess are the ones whom we protest
justice doesn't demand anything less
They walk down Wash. Square East and they call us a disease
But we'll win negotiation, whatever they try we'll beat 'em..

We are contingent teachers, GSOC on strike
We are contingent teachers, GSOC on strike
the labs and the sections

Take it! It's Yours!

The smell of shady gentrification?

Seems awfully convenient.

Hunger strikers win card check at University of Miami!

The parties agreed to conduct an impartial process to verify whether a
majority of employees are interested in collective bargaining representation by
the SEIU. At least 60 percent of the workers must vote in favor of unionizing by
August 1, 2006 for UNICCO to recognize the union. Under terms of the agreement,
a card-check verification process will be conducted by a neutral third party,
the American Arbitration Association.
***
The dispute at Miami has become a focal point for labor activists and
political leaders nationwide who want to help low-income workers at colleges,
especially at institutions that outsource work to companies. The dispute at
Miami follows major student activism on behalf of janitors at Washington University in St. Louis and helped encourage
activists at the University of Virginia, among other campuses.
At an
impromptu celebratory gathering after the agreement was released, several
janitors said they were excited to vote to join SEIU. Most make less than
$11,000 a year for a full eight hours of work each day and do not have health
insurance.
Throughout the school year, students had worked
hard to support the janitors, joining in rallies and participating in hunger
strikes. “Student support was instrumental,” said Asher. “They shared a vision
with the janitors on how to make this university a just place.”

This is so inspirational, and sucjh a huge victory. I'm at a loss for words. Congratulations to all the people who fought so hard for so long for this.

I don't have any pictures from yesterday's rally, but it was amazing, completely filling Union Square. Favorite chant, other than the perennial "Bush, escucha, estamos en la lucha!" was "No somos cero. No somos cien. Somos milliones, cuenta nos bien!" (Apologies for lack of accents.)

While paper-writing this weekend i took intermittent Buffy breaks, finishing season 2 and beginning season 3. Season 3 remains my favorite. It's epic in a way that even season 2 never was for me. It's the moment where high school assumes a mythic quality but also feels far more "lived in" than in the previous two seasons, partially because of Oz and the increasing prominence of the supporting cast (Jonathan, Amy, Schneider, Harmony, Larry, et al.) I'll freely admit that part of the reason I love the third season is the huge freaking revolt at the end, but there's such a wealth of storylines and so many incredible episodes. That said, rewatching "Becoming, Pt. 2," the season 2 finale, I found the episode far more moving than I have the last couple of times I've seen it. Not only does it set up "Anne," which is easily the show's best season premiere ever, but it's somethig of a perfect climax for the orgy of pathos that is season 2, and the buffy-joyce scenes are pretty priceless.

Thank god the folks in Washington are looking out for us little people.

Paper hell. More later.