On Mon, 8 Mar 2011, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Also: my friend Corey Robin says that Cronon was deeply opposed to the
> attempts of the grad students to organize a union at Yale. He's changed
> his tune apparently, now that his ox is being gored.
Does this ox gored idea really work here? Cronon wasn't in danger of getting fired, he's got tenure. (Or at least he wasn't in danger of being fired before he spoke up and got targeted).
Maybe other people's experience is different, but back in my day virtually all the humanities and social science profs I knew who were against grad student unionization were always pro union everywhere else. That was exactly what was so maddening. They thought unions were great for routinized jobs, just not for their creative jobs, where it would hamper creativity. (A completely bogus argument of course -- the artsy fartsiest of directors have no trouble adapting a union workforce.)
In other words, it was their original position that stemmed from their ox being gored, of their workers being unionized. Not the flip.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Cronon was still against grad student unionization. Although maybe his prominence will make this common hypocrisy harder to sustain.
Michael