Action Alerts

Attacks on Labor Educators and Labor Historians

Last Update: May 11, 2011

Andrew Breitbart's Affront to Democracy and Attack on Students' Right to an Education

Statement by Judy Ancel

I am Judy Ancel, director of the Institute for Labor Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. While my university prepares its response, I feel compelled to answer the attacks by Andrew Breitbart on my character. I am speaking as an individual and certainly not for UMKC. I am speaking out of my strong lifelong commitment to educating working people to better understand the world they live in. Labor education is a vital part of anyone's education. All Americans, especially our youth, need to understand the contributions working people have made and make in building our communities and nation. Labor education gives them the skills and vision to make a better world.

My students and I are outraged at Mr. Breitbart's invasion of our classroom and his attempts to intimidate us and my colleagues at the university. Mr. Breitbart's chop shop manufactured videos from 30 hours of classroom recordings that were posted for the course, "Labor, Politics, and Society," on the university's Blackboard system. Presumably these were delivered to him by a student, in possible violation of the University Standards of Conduct and the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. These videos were recorded for the use of students enrolled in this course, and for them only. Breitbart disassembled the material, and reassembled it; arranging them to give the appearance that instructors of the class advocate violence. This is in fact the opposite of the position both instructors took in class. Any examination of labor's past would be incomplete without discussion of violence, (which for the most part was directed at workers) and analysis of its roots. At no time did my co-instructor, Don Giljum, nor I advocate violence.

There's no doubt that Breitbart's attacks are politically motivated, part of a broad agenda to weaken unions and the public sector as well as public education. His fabrications have been exposed numerous times in the mainstream media. Yet he and his echo chamber at Fox News continue to cause great harm to educators and other public servants.

On April 18th Breitbart announced his intentions on Fox News Sean Hannity show: "We're going to take on education next, go after the teachers and the union organizers." It is possible that his attack on the University of Missouri and labor education is his first assault.

Breitbart is a master of taking quotes out of context, deletion of what doesn't serve his purpose, and remixing to achieve totally different meaning. For example he has me saying:

  • Breitbart's version: "Violence is a tactic and it's to be used when it's the appropriate tactic."
  • The real version: After students had watched a film on the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike and the assassination of Martin Luther King, they were discussing nonviolence. I said, "One guy in the film. . . said 'violence is a tactic, and it's to be used when it's the appropriate tactic.' . . . " The class proceeded to discuss and debate this.

Thus Mr. Breitbart's editing has literally put words in my mouth that were not mine, and they never were mine.

Breitbart leaves out a crucial statement by Don Giljum in order to make it appear that he advocates violence. Giljum said, "I'm not sure as a tactic today the type of violence or reaction to the violence we had back then would be called for here, and I think it would do more harm than good."  A student then says "and it just legitimizes their dirty tricks." Giljum agreed with him.

There are a number of other instances of very creative editing including:

  • A change of clothes by Don Giljum from one sentence to another
  • The insertion of a sentence by me about crisis situations taken from an entirely different class about how governments use crises to launch big unpopular changes. This is inserted into my lecture on collective bargaining to make it appear that I am advocating that unions provoke crises in the workplace. I have never advocated that. In fact I make sure students understand the limits of union and individual action under both law and the union contract.
  • Making it appear that Don advocates sabotage when his point was about the sad state of labor law and the decline of the right to strike.

These videos are no idle prank. They do real harm. Both Don and I are receiving threats and ugly and scary messages. There are death threats against us on Breitbart's blog.

These videos are an attack on higher education and its mission to working adults, putting labor education programs at risk. They create fear and have an enormously chilling effect on freedom of thought and expression. They seek to undermine the academic freedom that is required to study, better understand, and hopefully improve our conditions of life. Sadly, they have already shattered the very positive atmosphere of trust and openness that we worked so hard to create in this class. One of my students told me, with some discomfort, "My boss watches Fox News." Our students' identities have been compromised. Their right to privacy has been breached, and none of us gave permission for these videos or our images to be placed on the internet. Another student wrote me, "The classroom provides a safe place, or a 'free speech zone', where it's natural that, at times, those of us not used to discussing these topics make inflammatory statements, radical sounding claims etc. that are a part of thinking through the issues and emotions surrounding them. It seems to me that a classroom can be a healthy place to do so, because of the ground rules that are set: everyone gets a chance to speak, respect for opposing views is expected and so on."

And of course these posted videos are an attack on the rights of working people and on anything that is public, including public universities. The right of workers to have a voice in their workplaces and in their economic lives is a human right recognized by freedom-loving people around the world. Education about how to best make those rights a reality should be part of every school's curriculum, certainly in our universities. Yet this attempt to marginalize it and make teachers and students afraid to discuss it is the antithesis of all we stand for.

These attacks on me, my colleague, and the students in my course are an affront to democracy and must be challenged by citizens, workers and students, or else they will continue.

Official Statement from the University of Missouri, Kansas City, April 28, 2011

The University of Missouri-Kansas City continues to review approximately 18 hours of unedited video from the Labor, Politics and Society class. From the review completed to date, it is clear that edited videos posted on the Internet depict statements from the instructors in an inaccurate and distorted manner by taking their statements out of context and reordering the sequence in which those statements were actually made so as to change their meaning. Such selective editing is disturbing and the release of students' images without their permission is a violation of their privacy rights.

We want to underscore our commitment to the importance of academic freedom, freedom of speech and the free-flowing discussion of challenging topics in our courses. We also recognize the serious responsibilities this places on us to ensure a balanced perspective is offered to our students within our curriculum.

In this particular case, we also affirm our belief that studying labor unions, their history, and their role in society is an important subject given the role they have played and continue to play in the United States and the world. As a result, we continue to review the appropriate place for such an offering within our curriculum.

During the course of our review the past couple of days, UMSL has accepted the resignation of its lecturer.

Statement from Gail Hackett, Provost
University of Missouri-Kansas City

David Roediger and the Working Class Studies Association Responds

Past presidents, the president, and the president-elect of the Working Class Studies Association have drafted and signed a strong statement of support for Judy Ancel and Don Giljum, labor educators under attack in a right-wing video campaign. A link to an account of the events and the statement are below.

peace,
Dave Roediger

Statement
Dear Judy Ancel and Don Giljum,

As past-presidents, president, and president-elect of the Working Class Studies Association, we write in solidarity with you both during this time of attacks on you, on free speech, and on the labor movement. We support efforts to correct the record following Andrew Breitbart's misleading mixing of decontextualized quotes from your classrooms to create a video caricaturing what occurs there and in labor education generally. We insist that classrooms in which the working class and the labor movement are studied must be sites for free exploration of all topics, however controversial and subject to misrepresentation.

We deplore the gullibility, and in many cases the anti-labor political agenda, that led media to give extravagant play to Breitbart's mendacious video, especially given that he has serially discredited himself with similar frauds, particularly in the case of Shirley Sherrod. We are appalled by the use of re-edited video tapes and doctored quotes to make false accusations against you. Such tactics could not only damage your careers, but also are often designed to destroy sympathy and identification with the labor movement. Stunts such as Mr. Breitbart's can have a chilling effect, especially among contingent faculty. We call upon faculty, students, administrators and labor organizations to condemn them.

  • Sherry Linkon (Past President)
  • Peter Rachleff (Past President)
  • Kitty Krupat (Past President)
  • David Roediger (Past President)
  • Michelle Tokarczyk (Past President)
  • Fred Gardaphe (President)
  • Nick Coles (President-Elect)
What You Can Do

Send letters of support for Don Giljum to University of Missouri-St. Louis Chancellor Thomas F. George, chancellor@umsl.edu and copy Deborah Baldini, Associate Dean for Continuing Education, BaldiniD@msx.umsl.edu.

It would be useful to challenge the administration's forced resignation of Don Giljum without investigation and due process. Call for his reinstatement and rehiring in future semesters.

Statement from past and current presidents, Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA)

In defense of academic freedom: the case of University of Missouri labor educators, Judy Ancel and Don Giljum

As past and current presidents of an organization devoted to the open dissemination and discussion of issues related to labor and working-class history, we deplore the extraordinary violation of core principles of academic freedom that occurred recently in labor studies classes at the University of Missouri campuses in Kansas City and St. Louis. Those principles involve respect for the privacy of students and faculty members as they engage in free and open discussion of ideas, and are essential to the maintenance of high quality education inside and outside formal academic settings. We speak out as academic historians and labor educators.

The recent violations of academic freedom were perpetrated by Andrew Breitbart, who surreptitiously and illegally, gained access to videos of classroom discussions in labor education programs at the University of Missouri. Breitbart then created an edited and distorted record of those discussions that implied advocacy of violence in labor disputes. The final tape falsified the views of the instructors. The edited video record, parts of which were shown on Fox News and on the internet, have led to the forced resignation of Mr. Giljum and personal threats to both Mr. Giljum and Ms. Ancel.

As labor educators and teachers of labor history, we deplore all efforts to inhibit free classroom discussion and to misrepresent its content. We hope that all those who believe that the airing of ideas is possible only in an atmosphere of free and open education will denounce this attack on academic freedom. We call on the University of Missouri, St. Louis and the University of Missouri, Kansas City to maintain its commitment to the defense academic freedom for its instructors, Don Giljum and Judy Ancel. Anything less than full and unqualified support for them can only have a chilling effect on open inquiry and academic freedom essential to quality education.

LAWCHA Presidents
James Green, University of Massachusetts, Boston (2004-06)
Alice Kessler Harris, Columbia University (2006-08)
Michael Honey, University of Washington, Tacoma (2008-10)
Kimberley Phillips, College of William and Mary (2010-2012)

Links and Op-Eds

Dismantling Labor's Past in Maine

April 26, 2011

The clash over the recent removal of a mural depicting the labor history of Maine at that state's Department of Labor offices has entered the courts. On Friday, April 22, Justice John Woodcock, Jr., of the U.S. District Court in Bangor, denied a request by six Maine citizens for a temporary restraining order against Governor Paul LePage and the directors of the Maine Department of Labor and state museum. The plaintiffs argued that LePage's removal of the mural violated the First Amendment free speech rights of Maine citizens by denying them access to the mural. Judge Woodcock ruled in a lengthy 45-page decision that the mural is government speech and that the governor's administration has the legal right to choose to display or remove art that is owned by the state in state buildings. The plaintiffs in the case, including Maine labor lawyers, union officials, and artists, had sought the restraining order to compel the return of the mural and the disclosure of its location and condition. Woodcock did not issue any ruling on the latter issue, and the plaintiffs still hope to force the LePage administration to disclose where and how the mural is being stored and to ensure its physical integrity.

Other legal remedies to the mural's removal are being explored. In early April, Guy Gilbert, a senior U.S. Department of Labor official, wrote a letter to the Maine Department of Labor ordering department officials to either reinstate the mural or repay the federal portion of the $60,000 under the Reed Act that was used to pay for the mural. Some in the coalition established to defend the mural and demand its return note that Governor LePage did not consult the mural's creator, Judy Taylor, before removing her art, as the contract between her and the state requires, but Taylor has not taken any legal action. Others suggest that LePage's removal of the mural may have violated the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990.

For the latest news and information on how you can support efforts to reinstall the mural, see the Maine Labor Mural coalition website and Facebook page:

http://mainelabormural.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/mainelabormural

- Justin Jackson

April 1, 2011

Over the weekend of March 26-27, 2011, Maine Governor Paul LePage removed a mural celebrating labor history from the Department of Labor offices. In ten panels painted by Maine artist Judy Taylor and installed in 2008, the mural depicts the working people who were central in the making of Maine's rich industrial history. The panels portray diverse groups of working-class Mainers, including colonial-era artisans; nineteenth-century loggers and child laborers; shoe workers on strike with the CIO in Auburn and Lewiston in 1937; and women workers riveting ships at Bath Iron Works during World War II. Together with the renaming of department conference rooms previously named after important figures in the nation's labor history, such as Frances Perkins, the first female secretary of labor, whose family has Maine roots, this act constitutes an attempt to erase the historical memory and heritage of Maine's working people.

For those interested, Judy Taylor's website has detailed photographs of the mural.

The Museum in Lewiston-Auburn and Portland City Hall are deliberating with state officials to take the mural off the state's hands. The Portland City Council is set to vote on April 4 on accepting the mural. The state AFL-CIO and Union of Maine Visual Artists, which has coordinated protests on this, seems to be working to pressure Portland and the museum not to take the mural at this time, in hopes that it might be returned

LAWCHA Resolution

The following resolution has been adopted regarding the Governor Paul LePage's actions in Maine:

The Labor and Working-Class History Association, the largest organization of labor historians in the United States, supports efforts to preserve public art that represents the nation's labor history in local, state, and federal buildings. We deplore Maine Governor Paul LePage's removal of the labor history mural from Maine Department of Labor offices over the weekend of March 26-27, 2011. In eleven panels painted by Maine artist Judy Taylor and installed in 2008, this mural depicts the working people who were central in the making of Maine's rich industrial history. The panels portray diverse groups of working-class Mainers, including colonial-era artisans; nineteenth-century loggers and child laborers; shoe workers on strike with the CIO in Auburn and Lewiston in 1937; and women workers riveting ships at Bath Iron Works during World War II. Together with the renaming of department conference rooms previously named after important figures in the nation's labor history, such as Frances Perkins, the first female secretary of labor, whose family has Maine roots, this act constitutes an attempt to erase the historical memory and heritage of Maine's working people. LAWCHA urges Maine's elected officials to reinstall the mural in its original location and to return the names of distinguished labor activists to the rooms where they belong.

Labor and Working-Class History Association

Executive Committee
President, Kimberley Phillips
Vice President, Shelton Stromquist
Secretary, Cecelia Bucki
Treasurer, Thomas Klug
Immediate Past President, Mike Honey
Executive Assistant, Ryan Poe

Board
Randi Storch, SUNY - Cortland
Moon-Ho Jung, University of Washington
Laurie Green, University of Texas - Austin
Franca Iacovetta, University of Toronto
Erik Gellman, Roosevelt University
Thavolia Glymph, Duke Universityn
Ruth Milkman, University of California, Los Angeles
Joan Sangster, Trent University
Emilio Zamora, University of Texas, Austin
Francisco Barbosa, University of Colorado, Boulder
Eileen Boris, University of California, Santa Barbara
Brian Kelly, Queen's University
Clarence Lang, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Priscilla Murolo, Sarah Lawrence

More Information

How Can I Help?

Getting involved is as easy as writing a letter, making a phonecall, and voicing your opinion! Make yourself heard by contacting:

Office of the Governor
1 State House Station
Augusta ME 04333-0001
Email governor @maine.gov
207 287-3531

Maine Arts Commission
Donna McNeil, Director
193 State Street
25 State House Station
Augusta ME 04333-0025
207 287-2724
fax 207 287-2725
donna.mcneil@maine.gov

Portland City Council
City of Portland
Mr. Nicholas Mavodones, Mayor
389 Congress St #211
Portland ME 04101
207 874-8683
nmm@portlandme.gov

Museum L/A
35 Canal Street
Lewiston ME 04240
207 333-3881
Rachel Desgrosseilliers
rachel@museumla.org

Maine Department of Labor
Acting Commissioner Laura Boyett
54 State House Station
Augusta ME 04333-0054
laura.l.boyett@maine.gov

Maine State Museum
Joseph R. Phillips, Museum Director
83 State House Station
Augusta ME 04333-0083
207 287-6607
email joseph.phillips@maine.gov 		Maine House of Representatives
House Republican Office
Room 332, State House
2 State House Station
Augusta ME 04333-0002

House Democratic Office
Room 333, State House
2 State House Station
Augusta ME 04330-0002
email carolyncondon@legislature.maine.gov

Senate President Kevin L. Raye
Office of the Senate President
3 State House Statio
Augusta ME 04333-0003
email Senator @KevinRaye.com

Maine House of Representatives
House Majority Leader
Room 332, State House
2 State House Station
Augusta ME 04333-0002
email pdcurtis2@hotmail.com

House Democratic Office
Mrs. Emily A. Cain
Room 333, State House
2 State House Station
Augusta ME 04333-0002
email: carolyncondon@legislature .maine.gov

A Time to Defend Labor and the Public Sector

June 6, 2011

Thanks to the leadership that workers in Wisconsin and other states are taking, the opportunity is at hand to change the debate about the fiscal crisis in the states--its origins and the way it is being used to attack the labor movement and to dismantle public services.

In many states LAWCHA members are already playing a role in these discussions. Will Jones and Steve Meyer have been in the news about Wisconsin. In North Carolina, LAWCHA members have pulled together faculty from numerous colleges and universities in a group called North Carolina Protecting the Public Interest to stand with these workers and those who need their services (for more information see: http://lawcha.org/ncprotectingthepublic/). We urge LAWCHA members to do more to bring our perspectives as labor historians to bear on this crisis.

California

Iowa

Iowa unions have been spurred to action this week both in solidarity with neighboring Wisconsin workers and in opposition to attacks from Iowa lawmakers. Despite growing resistance to assaults on public employee rights in other Midwestern states, last Friday Iowa House Republicans introduced HSB 117, their own assault on Iowa's 37-year-old public bargaining law. Iowa union members, allies, and elected officials have since mounted strong and growing opposition.

Iowa's Public Employment Relations Act was signed into law by a Republican governor in 1974. Its passage was presaged by the adoption of similar laws in neighboring states as well as growing pressure from strikes waged by Iowa teachers and firefighters. By all accounts, the system has worked well to promote negotiated settlements of public sector contracts; 98% of public sector contracts in Iowa are settled voluntarily. Those that reach impasse are forwarded to a third-party arbitrator, whose decision is final and binding.

Republicans have pitched their "reform" of Iowa's public bargaining law to the media as a budgetary solution to rising health care costs. The bill would further limit the scope of negotiations, prohibiting bargaining over health insurance, outsourcing, and other items, and would require all public employees to pay at least 30% of the cost of their health insurance.

But as in Wisconsin and other states, the bill's most significant proposals are aimed at stripping fundamental union rights, weakening worker bargaining power, and undermining the purpose of collective bargaining. The bill would, for example, allow either the governor or legislature to reject an arbitrator's decision on state contracts, essentially making collective bargaining meaningless for state employees. Indeed, the provision appears to be an attempt to reverse a 1991 Iowa Supreme Court ruling issued against current Governor Terry Branstad when, during his previous tenure as governor, he attempted to veto pay increases awarded to state employees via the legally binding arbitration process.

Another provision of the bill would allow any public employee to declare him or herself a "free agent," rejecting union representation and coverage under an existing collective bargaining agreement. This proposal strikes at the heart of the principle of "exclusive representation," the foundational legal obligation of an employer to deal with a single, democratically selected union as the bargaining agent for all employees in a given unit. Such a provision could allow employers to offer special deals to individuals who opt out of bargaining unit coverage as a means of weakening bargaining power encouraging decertification elections (after which, complete control of workplace terms and conditions would return to management's hands).

In response, over 2,000 Iowa union members and supporters rallied at the state capitol on February 22 in solidarity with public sector workers in Iowa, Wisconsin, and across the globe. Additional rallies have taken place since in multiple locations around the state, and a second statehouse rally is scheduled for Saturday in Des Moines.

Iowa Democrats have also appeared buoyed by worker protests. In their own show of solidarity, last night minority House Democrats kept a Labor Committee discussion of HSB 117 alive for over 15 hours straight, offering 48 amendments and continuous objection to the bill's attack on bargaining rights. As Rep. Bruce Hunter put it, "You're attacking the workers of the state of Iowa, and when you attack the workers of Iowa, we are going to fight for them." Early this morning, the bill passed out of committee on a party-line vote, but Senate leader Mike Gronstal (who rallied with workers earlier in the week) has already pledged to prevent the bill from coming to the floor in the senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority.

Hundreds of Iowans have made trips to Madison during the past two weeks to join protests there, and union-sponsored buses continue to travel back and forth from eastern Iowa daily. Along with raising their voices, Iowa union members have taken shifts sleeping on the capitol floor, helped direct shuttle bus parking, and transported food donations. Many have returned from Madison transformed and ready to take action of their own. As one of them put it, solidarity is "spreading like fire on the prairie."

Submitted by Jennifer Sherer, Director, University of Iowa Labor Center.

Nebraska

Nebraska is right in the mix of all this anti-union stuff with 8 measures either to restrict public sector bargaining or eliminate it altogether.

North Carolina

A group of LAWCHA members from the Research Triangle Area in November founded North Carolina Protecting the Public Interest, a network of scholars (faculty and graduate students) from colleges and universities throughout the state who have come together to oppose the proposed devastating cuts to public school and service budgets and provide a research center and speakers bureau on these issues for organizations and media. We have almost 100 signatories from over a dozen institutions and, prompted by the struggle in Wisconsin, are now providing news feeds to media and organizations with short lists of our expertise (list in formation attached, as an example for those who would like to start similar efforts elsewhere).

Please visit our website, a template that could easily be copied and modified for other states: http://lawcha.org/ncprotectingthepublic.

It's easy to organize a group like this if you have even 2-3 people who can then reach out to contacts elsewhere via email and calls to get it going. Time is of the essence, what with Wisconsin legislators getting ready to vote and the recent Conservative Political Action Conference aggressively promoting similar attacks on public services and workers across the country.

For more information or to send resources or news for our site, please contact ncptpi@gmail.com or Nancy MacLean at nancy.maclean@duke.edu or (919) 937-9409.

Ohio

Things are also heating in Ohio over collective bargaining for public employees.

Wisconsin

The most dramatic events, of course, have been occurring in Wisconsin. If you would like to add information to this section, please email Ryan Poe (rmp23@duke.edu) to have your alerts, links, and information posted.

  • Report from Madison, WI, June 6, 2011 from Nikki Mandell

    As the legislature's Joint Finance Committee completed their work on the biennium budget and sent it to the full legislature late last week, public demonstrations against crony capitalism sucking at the public till are gaining a new head of steam. Since the end of the massive demonstrations of February and March there has been a tiny, but continuous protest presence in and around the state capitol in Madison, a massively successful signature-gathering canvass in eight state senate districts that ensures recall elections against six of the eight Republicans eligible for recall under WI law, and behind-the-scenes coalition building across many union, student, religious, community, and social justice groups to sustain a new progressive movement in Wisconsin.

    One of the first signs of this renewed focus began Saturday (June 4), with the creation of "Walkerville," the brainchild of We Are Wisconsin, the largest partnership created in the midst of the winter protests. Walkerville, a pointed word-play on the Hoovervilles of the 1930s, is a small tent city set up on two of the four blocks surrounding the state capitol. As we gathered at the official opening on Saturday evening, organizers made it clear that the permit for Walkerville was the result of negotiation and compromise with the city of Madison - the very kind of public policy-making that is so sorely lacking from our Republican governor and legislators. (State officials were not inclined to grant a permit to use the capitol grounds across the street.) In addition to a cheerful account of the city permit's various requirements (including spaces designated for 24-7 tents and spaces where tents may be set up 9pm to 7am only), the first night included a musical performance and a group "Solidarity Sing-a-long" (an extension of the daily sings in the capitol rotunda, including new tailor-made lyrics to labor and civil rights standards). Although I didn't stay over the first night, I was struck by the multi-generational make-up of the first night's residents. As I had expected, there were many college-age folks amongst the Walkerville residents. However, they were by no means a dominating force. Many families with children inspired a "Family Zone" play area; many retired and grand-parent aged residents were lounging by tents with protest placards. On Sunday I heard estimates that there were 100 tents on Saturday night.

    This was too much fun and politicking to miss, so Sunday evening my family and I loaded tents and pads into backpacks, rode our bikes to the capitol square, and joined Walkerville for the night. We enjoyed another evening of live music, Solidarity Sing-a-long (bad voices drowned out, so I may learn those new lyrics yet!), watching a game of capture-the-flag on the capitol lawn across the street, and conversation. And, what a pleasure to sit out in the warmth of the summer evening. Yielding to the dictates of a 5am rainstorm, we struck camp long before the 7am deadline. However, this was not before I gained new insight into the life of the homeless. City streets, even on a Sunday night are very, very noisy, and bright. Even with the comfort of tent shelter and a sleeping pad it was impossible to get a good night's sleep. I suspect that our night was made noisier by what appeared to be a handful of loud, purposefully harassing drive-bys. I should mention that our tent was around the corner from the men's homeless shelter in the capitol area. This proximity has made it easier for some of the homeless to join the protests; they have also had a tenuously welcoming reception to shelter in the capitol during the March occupation, and to free food and medical attention provided at many of the demonstrations, including Walkerville.

    The Walkerville tent city is a bit of lived street theater, but like all good street theater, it has a serious and practical purpose: to anchor the ongoing opposition to the robber baron policies embedded in the soon-to-be legislated state budget, and to serve as a readily accessible teach-in about the bad policies embedded in that budget. Each day of the first week is themed, with talks and speak-outs on a different aspect of the reactionary Republican assault on public services and public workers. Sunday was public education day, with talks by the head of the Madison teachers union and a teacher involved in one of the recall campaigns. Today (Monday) is public services day, which included a march by thousands of firefighters, cops, and nurses around the state capitol. Marches and teach-ins over the rest of this week will take up public health, higher education, democratic government and corporate power. Teach-in and Walkerville events are scheduled daily at noon and 7pm, so working people can attend.

    Public engagement on all these fronts remains crucial. Walkerville, six recall campaigns, and the multi-faceted activism promoted by We Are Wisconsin, public sector unions, and many other groups are the leading edge of what may be a new progressive movement. Time, and massive public engagement will tell.

    Nikki Mandell
    History Department
    UW-Whitewater

  • How can I help out in Wisconsin?
  • Wednesday Report from Madison (Wednesday, March 16)
  • TourDeForce360, Panoramic Photos from Madison (with sound)
  • Sunday Report from Madison (Sunday, March 13)
  • Friday Report from Madison (Friday, March 11)
  • Live Stream of the Madison Legislature (Wednesday, March 10, 2011)
  • Stand with Wisconsin, Twitter Feed from Wisconsin (Wednesday, March 10, 2011)
  • Tuesday Report from Madison (Tuesday, March 8)
  • Sunday Report from Madison (Sunday, March 6)
  • Wednesday Report from Madison (Wednesday, March 2)
  • Monday Report from Madison (Monday, February 28)
  • Weekend Solidarity Report from Wisconsic (Saturday, February 26)
  • Update from Will Jones (Tuesday, February 22)
  • The Latest from Nikki Mandell (Sunday, February 20)
Links and Op-Eds about Wisconsin

Campus Living Wage and Anti-Sweat Shop Campaigns

April 29 Update

Nationwide Student Sit-Ins, More to Come

When it comes to budget cuts and policies that hurt students and campus workers, student activists are refusing to sit down ... unless it's their President's office. In the past week students at 5 major universities have staged sit-ins for student and worker rights, and this seems to be only the beginning.

For the past few years students across the country in United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) have been running campaigns against budget cuts and salary freezes that hurt students and already underpaid workers. This spring has been blowing up with an impressive show of student labor solidarity and community activism. Students in USAS launched a national "Take Back Our Economy" project and mobilized in more than 30 cities on March 2 and April 4 to take action in support of workers' rights. A week ago today, USAS activists at two universities in the Southeast simultaneously occupied their university president's offices to demand justice for workers on their campuses. At Emory University in Atlanta, students staged a 7-hour sit-in after over 100 students rallied with MLK nephew Isaac Farris Jr. and State Senator Vincent Fort, to urge President James Wagner to terminate the school's multi-million dollar contract with food service giant Sodexo, exposed for human rights abuses globally. Using Skype, the Emory activists teleconferenced with USASers at Virginia's College of William and Mary, live from their own sit-in in President Taylor Revely's office, where students sought resolution to a 10-year campaign by campus workers for living wages. The William and Mary group was arrested after midnight, while Emory's sit-in escalated into a sprawling "tent city" outside the administration building until Emory arrested 7 students yesterday. The next day in New Orleans, 21 students at Tulane University took over President Scott Cowen's office, singing and chanting to demand that the school kick out Sodexo and protect campus workers' rights, leaving 3 hours later after administrators threatened disciplinary charges and brought in police.

Sit-In at Rutgers University

Tuesday, the action came back to Madison, where 70 students occupied the office of University of Wisconsin Chancellor Biddy Martin to protest her promotion of a privatization scheme that would lead to skyrocket tuition and outsourcing good union jobs on campus. And right now, 20 students continue their occupation overnight of the building of New Jersey's Rutgers University President Dick McCormick to stop tuition hikes, support campus workers, and drop Rutgers' deal with the Nike-dominated "Fair Labor" Association.

Emory Students Arrested at Sit-In

Students have noticed disturbing trends nationwide since the beginning of the recent 'economic crises' where universities and local governments implement cuts and policies that hurt working people and students, while corporations continue to receive record profits and universities continue to invest in new construction projects and enormous salaries for university administrators. It's time to take a stand against the corporations that are bankrupting our states and funding right-wing politicians to attack workers and students. It's time for corporations in Virginia, who have the second lowest income tax in the U.S, to start paying their fair share in this crisis. The Living Wage Campaign is part of a broader movement towards schools, workplaces, and an economy that works for us. Although we're witnessing enormous state budget cuts to education, William and Mary's budget has increased every year for the past 10 years or more. The College currently receives less than 13% of our funding from the state, and relies heavily on private donations and other sources of funding. As we more towards a school that looks more private than public, we need to start considering finding private donors and sources of money that can go towards living wages, just as we find these donations for new buildings and projects. It's time for our government and our universities to start prioritizing real people, and for students to start challenging policies and ideologies that force our workers to live in poverty and make education increasingly unaffordable.

To find out more about Living Wages and the history of the campaign, visit our website wmlivingwagecampaign.com or email livingwages.wm@gmail.com

Past Events and News

More than 300 faculty members have agreed to join in standing with the workers who make university logo apparel. On the list are faculty from more than 125 universities and colleges and from numerous academic disciplines. If you would like to join them, send your name, university affiliation, and e-mail address to the Faculty No-Sweat Network.

The Faculty No-Sweat Network will be working over the coming weeks to put in place a system to provide periodic updates and alerts to Network members, to keep you informed about key developments, including:

  • New reports from the Worker Rights Consortium on labor rights violations in factories making university apparel;
  • New initiatives and campaigns launched by United Students Against Sweatshops;
  • The performance at campus stores of Alta Gracia apparel, the ground-breaking brand that is making university apparel in a unionized, living wage factory in the Dominican Republic;
  • The progress of other key labor rights initiatives - like the outcome of collective bargaining at Russell Athletic's re-opened factory in Honduras and the efforts by the WRC and many other groups to challenge the Bangladesh government's persecution of leading labor rights advocates;
  • And, most importantly, ways that Network members can support these crucial efforts.

Recently, these efforts have paid off on campuses around the country:

Know of other examples of universities using no-sweat labor vendors? Let us know at lawcha@duke.edu!