what hurts the most is knowing who they are. i mean, there's foul things being done to people all the time, everywhere, but most of the time, you don't recognize them as your friends, your pals, the people who you talk to regularly over these looooong columbia years. it hurts to see them dislocated from their usual place, their desk, their offices, their productive space where they work, not only for themselves but for us.
 
the comments hurt too. the ease with which some of us students can accept the lies that we are fed about unreasonable unionized workers, who are too greedy and the powers that be know that, and they buy it by the pound.

it hurts to hear us students complain that it is workers like the sisters and brothers at 2110 that make that smoothie at j.j's place so expensive. it hurts that so many of us have already accepted that it is them, the ones who work the hardest for the lesser pay that are causing college prices to climb. what a simple way to get ourselves off the hook...
 
i don't know kids, but it seems we need to remind ourselves that in attending this school we are intrinsically contributing to the continued life and success of an institution that is not kind to its workers. we need to realize that the least we can do is tell them that we don't think it is right to exploit, or deceive, or ignore human beings, just because they are not sitting up at Low.
 
think about the beginning of each semester, when you are running around getting your life together. there's so many things to do, right ? think about how many times you need to call some office, get yourself some financial aid appointment, some service, some help. think about how often you just lifted that one finger, dialed a number, and someone on the other side  said 'can i help you ?' think about how many times you went up to a desk, completely clue less, or lost, or freaked out, and someone took care of you. think about how often you didn't even notice who they were, the family pictures they kept, or how it really wasn't in their job description to crack a joke, or to smile at you, or to ask you how you were doing, or wish you a good day.

 think about people out of work. think about not having the option to leave the picket line, because you're cold, or your feet hurt. think about not knowing how you are gonna make it without your job.
 
even if you believe the nonsense that you are the elite student, and they the workers are not "you", you know that they have been there for you. they are part of your community, and they  the workers are not "you", you know that they have been there for you.  they are part of your community, and they don't just act like it once in a while, when the gates of the ivory tower open up. how often in all your time here, did you get george rupp on the line asking  "can I help you ?"

i was just thinking, and i thought you should be thinking too.

I was curious when Eli Sanders suggested a "compromise" on the University's proposed "merit" pay system, and a bit disappointed when I discovered that Sanders' idea of a "compromise" is most people's idea of all-out surrender.

Sanders offers Columbia's proposal for a "joint labor-management committee" on the "pay-for-performance" plan as evidence that the Administration is serious about the fairness of that plan.  Recent history suggests otherwise.  During the negotiations for the last contract, the Union and the Administration agreed on a "joint labor-management committee" to study bargaining unit erosion.  Rather than being a forum to solve the problem, the committee has simply been a stalling tool in the hands of the Administration.

This committee has to be seen in the larger context of the union grievance procedure that surrounds it.  Before the 1930s, labor/management disputes were solved on the shop floor.  If workers were upset enough by a foreman's proposal, they would walk off the job.  The Wagner Act created the grievance procedure, which was further consolidated during World War II through the National Defense Mediation Board.  This procedure is a bureaucratic means of resolving Unfair Labor Practices and contract violations, and it is systematically stacked against workers.  It operates on the principle of "guilty until proven innocent."  It also takes issues away from the workplace, where worker problems can be dealt with collectively by workers, and into a mess of paper-pushing hurdles.

For example, if a worker is required to perform dangerous tasks in violation of a contract (such as a Columbia residence halls worker who gets fungal infections from the cleaning she performs), she can file a grievance.  It then goes to several committees, and finally (if the union can afford the massive legal fees) into several levels of arbitration.  It can typically take years to resolve.  Meanwhile, the worker in question has to continue suffering through those working conditions.  Often the worker will have quit, or been promoted or transferred, before the grievance is resolved (how willing the arbitrators are to rule in workers' favor is another issue entirely).  The joint labor-management committees that Columbia is proposing to study "merit pay" are just one more toothless level of red tape that will make grievances take even longer to finish.

Such is the best case scenario.  At worst, such a committee could turn union representatives into second lieutenants of management, enforcing the particulars of an unfair system whose overall structure they have no say in.  Sanders seems to think that a "merit pay" system would be fair if the race and gender inequalities it creates could be eliminated through this committee.  In fact, these inequalities are merely grotesque symptoms of a more general unfairness.  The research of Richard Freeman and others has shown that "merit pay" systems are substantial wage unequalizers, not just along the dimensions of race and gender, but more generally through various measures of overall wage inequality (the variance of wages, the 75%/25% wage ratio, etc.), and that unions are substantial wage equalizers in a large part because they get rid of "merit pay" systems.  If it's not race or gender, then it's age, looks, weight, friends, or the financial fortunes of a given department that make for arbitrary favoritism.  The Union should be allowed to continue in the business of eliminating these myriad inequalities, not that of juggling them.  If an unfair pay decision has the Union stamp of approval on it, it becomes much more difficult if not impossible to grieve.  To claim as Sanders does that this amounts to giving the union "equal say in the system used to grant increase" is an Orwellian caricature that masks union co-optation in the language of union power.

Substantial academic research, such as that of John DiNardo and Thomas LeMieux, has shown that declining unionization is a key factor explaining growing inequality in the US.  The "merit pay" system we're seeing at Columbia is just a small microcosm in that expanding system of unequal opportunity.  We should resist it strongly in our own microcosmic way.

I suspect that Sanders is motivated by a genuine desire to see worker morale improve.  I would like to see this too, which is exactly why I oppose the "pay-for-performance" plan.  Morale has been eroded over the past several years by speed-ups and layoffs.  For example, there used to be several workers in Student Administrative Services (i.e., Financial Services and the Registrar's Office) whose job it was to sit behind the counter and help students.  Then the University installed a computerized registration system, and told these union workers that technology had made their jobs obsolete.  They were laid off.  Now, all of the people who sit behind the counters in SAS all have other jobs as well, and they rotate out to help students while balancing their previous jobs on top of it.  In an attempt to counter the effects of the layoffs, the Administration has reorganized the department half a dozen times since 1990, which has only created chaos and further demoralization because management has systematically refused to address the downsizing at the heart of the issue.

The "pay-for-performance" system will only make this worse.  When Emily Lloyd talks about creating new worker "behavior" and "culture" with the merit pay system, she is referring to the continued speed-ups she hopes the Administration will get out of it, as workers compete for bonuses and the fastest workplace becomes the norm.  That Administration, having failed so many times itself to improve the quality of work, would be better off asking workers how to do it.  But as long as workers see layoffs at the end of any reorganizing effort, they will have no reason to cooperate.  The best thing Columbia could do for its workers' morale is to re-staff its union positions.

In Solidarity,
Tavis Barr
GSAS/Economics
Students for a Fair Contract

I was intrigued by the fact that in his article, Prof. Marable seemed to be saying one thing, but doing another. He makes the very correct claim that "Latino, Asian, or African-American faculty or administrators [should not be] above criticism on issues", and that "dissent is always a good thing when mediated by mutual respect". In light of that, I cannot understand why the criticism Chaplain Davis has encountered for not allowing Earl Hall to be used as informal strike safe haven would figure in the minds of Prof. Marable (and many others) as an attack on her personhood, and as manifestation of the labor movement's tendency to "view the narrow filter of economic issues and social class, rather than perceiving the complex connections between race, class, and gender".

Simply put, many of us disagree with Chaplain Davis as an administrator. If indeed it is not her fault that policies on the use of Earl Hall space have changed (and the top powers that be are to blame), it is still within her power to stand visibly and in solidarity with students and strikers, and confront the higher administration, her bosses on the issue. Her choice to not do so is legitimate, but so is the choice of some in the community to publicly denounce her for it. Personally, I don't think who she is, and what struggles she's endured is relevant here. Most of us at this institution, and certainly all of us who are presently out of a job because of this institution, can also tell our own tales of strife and endurance. We are all to be praised and respected for it. We are all worthy of Prof. Marable's active support.

To speak of class reductionism, and to call out general tendencies of "white upper and middle class people who sympathize with the labor movement" of failing to "adequately appreciate the nexus of class, race, and gender" (although relevant in some other discussion) is uncalled for.

There are many movements, ideologies, theories and states of mind, which aim to limit the identities of individuals, and addressing that is critical to a true movement to liberation, in the broad sense. In this case though, what is the need to go that far ? Aren't we simply dealing with an administrator who made an unpopular administrative decision ? I certainly would like to believe that, but it is harder and harder, because all I hear about is "a controversy has developed".

George Rupp, Emily Lloyd and other administrators are under attack in these very pages of the Daily Spectator almost every day. No one steps forward to talk about the nexus of much of anything in their defense. I like it that way. I like to keep my vision clear, and my voice unabashed by the subtleties of politics born and sustain in offices in (and adjacent to Low). It is a matter of sides, yes. Indeed, it is a matter of "knowing thine enemy" as a very wise faculty member once told me.

I refuse to fall for the trap of having bad decisions legitimized by superfluous considerations of how hard people have worked to earn the right to make bad decisions. It makes me mad. It makes me feel like someone wants to con me into silence. As long as my brothers and sisters need a place to stay, meet, find safety and support on my campus, and I cannot provide that, I am going  to continue to disagree with this administration, no matter what their color, gender, creed, religion, sexual orientation, general ethics, and preferred method of negotiating their relatively compromised power.

Contrary to what Prof. Marable thinks, it is never easy to criticize a Black woman as a token, or for any other reason. Not as long as we are so quick to throw up such elaborately woven and spoken smoke screens.

I am not tenured, white, male, or upper class. I am a Columbia student for a fair contract. And I am free to dissent, with all due respect.