Is Catherine a dean or a provost or some such thing? In that case, I might agree with you that her main job is to police "workers to extract work from them." If she is just a college professor, though, she is no different than a public school teacher, though she might not believe that she is just a worker.
I don't know why leftists should insist that college teachers are managers in a class of their own, rather than part of the working class. It makes no sense to speak of an "academic class" bundling presidents, provosts, and deans with professors, adjuncts, and GAs. It's capital and the state that supports it that want to classify collage professors into a "managerial class" and say that we are not in need of unionization:
***** Faculty unions difficult to form By Kathryn Imes
The road to faculty unionization can be lengthy, something Steve Abbott, professor of communications at Columbus State Community College knows quite well.
Abbott is also the president of the Columbus State Education Association, Columbus State's faculty union. CSEA will soon take part in fact-finding, along with Columbus State's administration, in an attempt to resolve contract disagreements over salary that brought talks with a federal mediator to a standstill.
CSEA unionized last fall and has been embroiled in contract negotiations with administration since March.
"It's not unusual for the first contract to take so long," Abbott said. "It involves a lot of getting up-to-speed between parties and setting ground rules."
Abbott added that in contrast to the salary issue, Columbus State and CSEA reached agreements on grievance procedure and disciplinary/corrective action policies, which were initially the union's most pressing issues.
"We're ready to reach some kind of conclusion," Abbott said. "The Columbus State Education Association doesn't want to strike, and the college doesn't want us to strike."
Pieter Wykoff, spokesman for Columbus State, was unavailable for comment because he was out of town.
Prior to the successful November 2001 vote, an attempt to unionize in February 2000 failed by a slight margin. The vote to unionize came at a time when some faculty felt their concerns were not being heard by administration.
"The faculty felt they were highly marginalized," Abbott said. "But now we're a united power and legally must receive some kind of consideration from the administration."
By law, unions negotiate things like hours, wages and working conditions. Once a contract is agreed upon, the administration and union must abide by it or face legal consequences.
While Columbus State faculty decided unionization was the right step to take, Gerald Winer, professor of psychology at Ohio State and president of the OSU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, is still working to convince OSU faculty it is right for them.
"We're in a moratorium period," Winer said. "The faculty really hasn't shown as much interest as we'd like, and until there is interest, we can't move forward."
Winer listed apathy, cowardice and negative connotations of unions among others, as reasons a union has not gotten off the ground at OSU.
Still, Winer and the Ohio State AAUP are not giving up on their efforts to promote unionization. They are trying to increase membership and create a core of motivated people within their organization.
When faculty attempts to unionize, there are many hurdles to overcome.
"Traditionally, the view has been that professionals don't need a union like autoworkers, for example, do," said James J. Brudney, professor of law. "People who are professional tend to not create a big push for unionization."
One hurdle lies within the culture of central Ohio, Abbott said. Historically central Ohio has never had a strong union base, like cities such as Cleveland and Youngstown, where unions are part of the culture.
Another possible problem lies with the nature of educators.
"Educators tend to be a pretty independent lot," Abbott said. Some people think unionization might compromise academic freedom, while others are philosophically opposed to educators unionizing, he said.
"Workers have to figure out whether they want to give up some independence for more strength as a group," Brudney said. "Some ultimately come to the conclusion that they can't do as well for themselves on certain issues as a union can."
Other than the aforementioned reasons, four-year universities face another major obstacle standing in the way of unionizing - the 1980 Supreme Court case of the National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University.
The Court ruled university professors at some institutions could be likened to managers since many hold positions allowing them to take part in governance of the university. People who are involved in management generally do not unionize.
"The Yeshiva case is a major roadblock," Brudney said. "There are small trends toward unionization (at four-year universities), but the law impedes it."...
<http://www.thelantern.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/294302.html> *****
Why spin a theory that ends up supporting the Yeshiva decision?
BTW, here's a case where "culture" matters. What "culture" tells professors -- especially in Central Ohio! -- obscures the social relations of which they are part. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>