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In the KnowLabor and Campus ActivismFaculty can play an important role in the resurgence of the labor movement across the nation, according to a new report from the AFL-CIO. Faculty @ Work: Inspiring Activism and Supporting Working Families is part of a continuing effort by the labor body to bridge the gap between academics and the labor movement. The guide aims to encourage faculty to integrate union studies into their courses and to get involved in helping restore workers' rights to organize unions. "We hope that this manual will provide you with some tools to help you bring the labor movement into your classroom and to bring your students into the labor movement," notes AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson in an introduction to the piece. Academic unions, including NEA, now represent more than 200,000 faculty and academic staff in our nation's colleges and universities, most of them in the public sector. Campaigns by adjunct faculty and graduate teaching assistants promise to increase those numbers. Yet students, like many citizens in our nation, don't know much about what unions do. Nor are they much aware of what employers often do to prevent workers from forming unions. The labor movement is hoping academics can help change all that. Workers who try to organize to improve their lives often find that employers will use intimidation --- forcing workers to attend anti-union propaganda meetings, for instance, or threatening to close the workplace --- to oppose those efforts. Adds labor researcher Kate Bronfenbrenner: Some 32 percent of employers fire active union supporters in organizing situations. Studies show that more than 50 percent of workers would join unions if they felt there would be no reprisals. Labor activists believe if more Americans understood their rights, anti-union employers would be less successful. In some communities, faculty have formed workers' rights boards and serve as intermediaries during organizing drives, establishing ground rules and creating a neutral environment for a fair choice on unionization. The new AFL-CIO manual offers many other suggestions for useful faculty roles, as well as ideas on bringing labor into the classroom. For a copy, call 202-637-5185. |
