Resist the appeal to force

I am and will probably remain a member of the UIC United Faculty union, unless it starts taking positions I cannot in good conscience endorse.  I would say this even if there weren't a fair-share provision.  There are ways in which being represented by a union is useful, and I believe if I'm going to get the benefits of union membership, I should pay for it.  Also, as I've said before, I don't oppose fair-share provisions in principle.  But I'd like my union colleagues to reconsider how they use the fair-share provision in our contract when encouraging members of the bargaining unit to join or remain members of the union.

Back in January or so, when I first mentioned to one colleague my reservations about the union, his or her first response was not to ask about my reservations.  It was to say something like the following (I paraphrase, but it's as close a rendering I can recall):  "Well, Illinois is a fair-share state, and once we get a contract you'll end up paying anyway.  So you might as well join in order to have a say in what goes on."

That's a reasonable response.  And frankly, even though I have found open dissent a difficult thing, I've seen others do it at union meetings and they were listened to, even applauded (I presume for their courage and not in agreement).  They were not jeered.  And as I have said, I have at least one contact with whom I have discussed my reservations and who wanted to take my views on what was going on.  The person in question who mentioned the "Illinois is a fair-share state" argument has not put a lot of, or any,  pressure on me to join or cooperate with the strikes.

But the response is also a veiled appeal to force.  The laws are such that pretty much any contract that was going to be ratified (assuming one was indeed going to be ratified) would have a fair-share provision.  The worker in such a case has no real choice about whether to pay, although if he or she objects enough, there are provisions for the money to paid to a charity.*  The right response to someone with reservations is not to say, essentially, "we're stronger, therefore you'll have to go along anyway."

That, I admit, is a harsh way of putting it.  And I disagree with those of a libertarian bent who identify such laws as coercion and hint that any and all coercion is to be condemned or at least sharply limited.  That fair-share is technically coercion, I agree.  But not all coercion is created equal, and I'm comfortable in principle with this particular form of coercion.  None of that, however, means we ought to throw discussion about merits to the wayside.

There are three reasons for this.  First, joining the union is a vote of confidence in the union.  That is true because public employee unionization in Illinois is done through a "card check" mechanism.  Simply relying on fair-share risks being a disingenuous (if unwittingly so...if it's possible to be "unwittingly disingenuous") claim.  And even if the "card check" procedure were not the current procedure, retaining membership expresses a measure of support for the union that merely paying fair-share dues does not.  And sometimes, refusal to join--or the decision to withdraw membership--can be strongest way to exercise a "voice" vis-a-vis the union.

Second, the current contract will not last forever.  When negotiation's start again in about a year, the union will again face the question of whether it is a good thing.  And if it so happens, and I fairly sure it will given the perennial experience of many of the other unions on campus, that the negotiations drag on, we might again see strikes or threats of strikes.  Maybe now is not the time to question the union, but soon the question will be refreshed.

Third, the question might come to the fore even sooner.  There is a case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, Harris v. Quinn, that might invalidate fair-share provisions for public employees.  I don't know if that's the only way to frame what's at stake in that case, and even an adverse (for fair-share proponents) ruling might not necessarily invalidate all fair-share for all public employees.  But it could happen and as early as this June.

Again and in keeping what I said at the beginning of this post, I will probably remain a member of the union at least as long as I'm a part of the bargaining unit and as long as it is my official and contracted representative, even though I'm still not yet convinced that it is the right thing for UIC.  But the union should not rely overmuch on the fair-share provision.  Even if Harris v. Quinn turns out favorably for the union, the pro-union argument is not reducible to it.


*I should mention here something about which I had been earlier mistaken.  Somewhere on this blog--I forget where--I claimed that fair-share dues are less than the dues full-union members pay.  That was my understanding when I was a member of UIC's Graduate Employee Organization (GEO), but even if it was true then, it does not appear to be the case here.  The contract merely states that fair-share payments cannot exceed the amount of union dues, which I suppose means that they will be equal to such dues.

First thoughts on the contract and the vote

The UIC United Faculty Union voted to ratify the contract, claiming around 97% support of those who voted, but with no mention of how many union members voted or how many members of the bargaining unit are union members.  The contracts can be found here:  Tenure-Track [TT], Non-Tenure-Track [NTT], and an addendum to the NTT contract.  The contract, as I understand, still has to be approved by the Board of Trustees.  I suspect that that approval is largely a formality, but we'll see.

I did not read the TT contract and I have not read the entire NTT contract, although I have read portions of it and attended one of the union's two informational meetings.  I had to leave that meeting early, after the presentation of what was in the contract but before the question-and-answer portion of the meeting was finished.  Because the union requested no public comment on the contract until after the ratification vote, I have not commented until now.

I voted for the contract.  I went into the vote and informational meeting almost completely decided to vote for it.  After having criticized the union and the university for bringing the situation to the brink of an indefinite strike, a vote against the contract might very well have been a vote for a strike. 

One thing I'll say is that the presentation did not mention whether those of us who self-reported our absence for the two-day strike will have our pay docked.  (However, this may have been addressed in the question-and-answer session, which I had to leave early.)  To be clear, I do not think I should be paid for those days.  I did not work those days, and although I am nominally an exempt employee, my standard workweek is usually around 40 hours and that particular week I worked only about 24 hours.  But I would like to know whether or when to expect the deduction from my regular pay. 

As to "shared governance," it's unclear to me how the agreement will affect that aspect of university life.  One reason it's unclear is that I just know too little of how "shared governance" already works at UIC.

As to "faculty governance," which might be a similar creature to "shared governance," this agreement's effect will probably be department-specific.  I imagine in some departments we might very well see a more adversarial situation to validate the fears of the authors at the No Faculty Union blog.  In some departments, we'll probably see something different and more constructive.  I understand also that the contract includes some acknowledgement of faculty and departmental prerogatives when it comes to course curricula, but I have little to say about that. 

I imagine most members of the bargaining unit tend to benefit in some substantive way.  The minimum for "full time" NTT's is increased from $30,000 to $37,500, for example.  And while that falls short of the $45,000 the union originally sought, it strikes me as quite a raise for those so affected.

I would still like to know what "full-time" means in that regard--were those in the "full-time" category who were paid $30,000 working "only" two semesters at 2 courses a semester?  Or were they year-round employees teaching more courses?  The contract states that the bargaining unit includes "[a]ll full-time (i.e. employees who have 0.51 or greater appointment as a faculty member)...."  That statement suggests a pretty broad definition of "full time" that might make the comparisons during the organizing effort to the starting salaries of "full time" faculty elsewhere in Chicago a bit like apples and oranges.  Or maybe not.  Maybe the other universities count "full time" in the same way.

There is some language about re-appointment and multi-year contracts that seems to be beneficial for a large number of NTT's.  It appears uncertain how or whether or to what extent that language will be implemented and enforced by the union.  But the end result will probably mean that a very large number of NTT instructors will have additional security on the job, especially if this contract is not a one-off, but the first of several contracts to be negotiated over a series of years.

It is unclear how this language affects those with "visiting" appointments.  The contract [p. 10] says all visiting appointments are to be for one year and appointments for greater than one year (which I assume includes also visiting "re-appointments") "should be utilized to meet unpredicted or unexpected staffing needs."

When that provision was announced at the informational meeting, several members cheered and clapped.  If you had asked them why, I assume each would have said that this provision prevents the university from simply reappointing someone to "visiting" positions and thereby forgoing its responsibility to make a long-term commitment to its employees.  But I suggest that they're also cheering a policy, the practical result of which might be the discharge of at least a few people currently in "visiting" positions.

Or maybe not.  There's some language in the following paragraphs [p. 11] that suggest some people "may have an expectation" of re-appointment, and although that language does not seem to refer to "visiting appointments," it might be so interpreted in the contract's implementation.  (Whatever the applicability, I'll add that the modal auxiliary "may" suggests something like the status quo ante because it implies discretion.  It is not "shall" or a simple, non-modalized declarative sentence.)

I should self-disclose now that I'm in a visiting position, and I stand therefore to be affected by this new phrasing.  I'm not particularly upset by it.  If it's unfair, it's not peculiarly unfair, but unfair only in the way that the vicissitudes of life and employment and allocation of resources are unfair.  And it's not entirely clear that it will affect me negatively.  It might affect me positively.

I promise not to turn this blog into a forum on my personal job prospects.  But I bring up the issue for two reasons.

First, I think my readers need to know what I perceive my interest in the outcome to be.  I believe I have been very clear about this perceived interest throughout this blog's short history.  But I think if people know where I'm coming from, they can better judge the biases in my own position.  Knowing those biases is particularly important because I blog pseudonymously and because of the type of evidence I use on this blog.  Most of my evidence tends to be of the anecdotal variety, or it tends to focus on my "sense" of what others believe or my own interpretation on what is said or written.  My readers therefore deserve to know.

Second and less selfishly, I want to remind those who support the union that there exists--at least potentially--a margin along which the mostly good thing that is the union contract might hurt some people.

It's like the arguments used against increases in the minimum wage.  A business owner who employees 100 persons at minimum wage might, after the wage is increased, find that he or she can afford to keep on only a certain number.  If that number is 50, then the increase is probably a bad thing.  If that number is 99, then the increase is probably a good thing overall.  But it's still bad for the one person now unemployed.  Even then, it's possible that the higher incomes of the other 99 people and people elsewhere might inject more money in the economy, and thereby trickle down (or to put it less polemically, trickle out) to the unfortunate person who loses his or her job.  At any rate, the republic will still stand and business will, it is to be hoped, recover eventually.

Finally and to cap off this long blog post, I should say congratulations to those who supported the union and organized for a contract.  Most of them, I am sure, sincerely believe that the union and a contract were and are the right thing.  They put a lot of unremunerated and probably mostly thankless time and effort to bring about this result.  They focused (mostly) on real problems, and with some exceptions, they kept the most extreme rhetoric in check.  The members with whom I actually shared my concerns listened without judgment.  One person in particular knows my identity and as far as I know has honored my wish not to be identified.  He or she also followed through for updates on how I was feeling about the whole process.

And at the end of the day, the efforts of the union supporters might very well prove beneficial to the university.

An admonition on admonitions: my "might makes right" drive by

In a recent post, I warned

But sometimes it's a thin line between "we are right and we are strong" and "we are right because we are strong."  The possibility that the view might shade into the other can never be avoided.  But it should be kept in mind.

Let's leave aside my sloppy writing (I should have written "The possibility that the one view might..."), and look at at the message.  Someone can be forgiven for assuming that I was accusing the union of a "might makes right" mentality.

But I really didn't intend to go that far.  I intended merely to warn that such a mentality lurks behind the scenes in any power struggle.  When a power struggle happens, the sides align themselves, and each side marshals its resources for the struggle.  No matter how right or just one side is, it cannot win an out-and-out struggle without in the end being somehow more powerful or lucky, and luck can reflect a kind of "power" if one is in the position to maximize it from having a superior organization and public message.

For unions,as unions, the principal power is the members' ability to withhold their labor and the incidental power is the ability to dissuade or otherwise prevent others from filling their place.  For jobs that require fewer formally acquired skills, people can theoretically be replaced easily and the union's job is limited mostly to dissuading replacements or relying on the state to adopt and enforce a set of "unfair labor practices" that includes hiring permanent replacements.  For jobs that require more formally required skills, the employer has little else to turn to.  For higher ed, it's both.  There are binders-full of newly minted PHD's or qualified MA's to teach many of the courses on offer, especially humanities and social science courses.  But they cannot feasibly be brought in at the end of a semester to finish off someone else's class.

So in this case, the UICUF had a pressure point at which it could exercise a considerable degree of power.  And although we don't know the terms the bargainers agreed to, it's possible that the threat worked to secure a favorable agreement.  Or it's also possible that the union, recognizing the cost a strike would impose on the students, its members, and others, folded and accepted some merely cosmetic changes to the university's "best and final" offer.  Again, it depends on the terms of the contract, and those haven't been made public yet.  But I'm going to assume the union got a good share of what it wanted.

Granted that assumption, my takeaway is that the union "won" the struggle, to the extent that anyone can be said to "win" when things get so contentious.  And winning in this case calls to mind the slogan-arguments used before and during the negotiations.  These are both general and all purpose arguments, like "In Union There Is Strength" and "The People United Can Never Be Divided," and more specific ones to UIC, like "UIC Works Because We Do."  To be clear, I'm not sure I've heard the first two actually uttered during the last few months, and the last slogan-argument seems to me to have originated from the Graduate Employees Organization or the on-campus SEIU locals, or both.  But similar slogan-arguments the union actually used evoke similar ideas.  They stressed the argument that the university is headed in the direction of a for-profit-style "corporation" ("We Want an Education, Not a Corporation!") or is devoting too much resources to administration ("Chop from the Top!").  Those appeal to a mentality that the people, as the people, have an interest in going another direction and that the people, as the people, have the power to effect that change in direction.

My admonition in the original post I quoted from above can be interpreted as what is known in the blogo-sphere as a drive-by argument.  In the guise of warning the union that "we are right and we are strong" can shade into "we are right because we are strong," one might say I'm accusing it of adopting a "might makes right mentality" and that my accusation is a "drive-by" because by saying it in passing I skirt past the need to justify it with any argument.  And again, I'm not going so far.  But the union should keep in mind that what it does in the name of the right and the good might on some level be done in the name of retaining faculty prerogatives and ensconcing certain practices that might need to be changed to accommodate new demands on higher education.  In such a case--and it is still hypothetical--the faculty's power might be an argument against the union or against a future contract and not in its favor.

The right tone

The union strikes the right tone when it thanks the students:

Why? Because yesterday afternoon the faculty and the administration reached a tentative agreement that we all believe will avert a strike and because it wouldn’t have been possible without your understanding and support. We know it ‘s been a stressful semester (for us too!) and we’re tremendously grateful to you for standing with us. Now all of us – students, faculty, administrators – can work together to build an even better and stronger UIC.

The key word here is "understanding."  It seems to recognize that this fracas has all been a hardship for the students.  Although few students probably read the union's website, this statement is a nice gesture.

The union and reconciliation

It appears that the union and the administration have reached a tentative agreement.  It now needs to be ratified by both sides.  I do not know the terms and until I do and until they're made generally public, I'm not going to comment on them.  But I will probably vote for the contract unless there's some "let's ostracize the UICUF Dissenter" clause.  It is important to accept peace and try to work with the union instead of merely to dissent from it, as I have done.*

Whatever the right and wrong of the union and the contract--and I believe there is some right along with the wrong--it seems to me that a clear majority of the faculty support the union and a decisive majority of those support the track the union has chosen to follow.  And that track, far from being the most militant possible, has been mild and generally accepting of others' dissenting views.  I have had to temper my criticisms of the union with an acknowledgment that it was usually willing endorse civility over confrontation.  There were exceptions, but they were few and probably to be expected.


I still have my fears about what a contract might do.  Some departments on campus are getting ready for possible budget cuts in case the legislature doesn't renew the income tax increase from a few years ago.  (It is a strange thing to have one's job depend at least partially on the taxation of others who might not wish to pay.)  Will the contract mean that some NTT [non-tenure-track faculty] can't get their position renewed, not from "retaliation," but because the hiring units might fear a loss of income or, if multi-year contracts are in the new agreement, the financial commitment from renewal?  To be clear, those risks or something like them are always present in any job.  Scarcity is always with us.  And I really can't begrudge the much larger number of faculty whose jobs are, frankly, more obviously important to UIC's educational mission than mine and who stand to keep their jobs regardless.  I'm not indulging in false modesty, but just stating what I believe to be a fact.

And I believe that even a strong supporter of the union should take time to consider the storm that might have happened.  Unions are predicated on the notion that workplace relations are in part a power struggle.  And a strike would have been a power struggle.  I would urge those supporters to be glad that they did not have to play their part in exacting the cost of a strike.  If there had been a strike (and I of course am assuming now that there won't be....I hope I'm right), it would not have been wholly the doing of the union, which in many was responding as one might expect to the administration's proposals.  But it would have been an action undertaken by the union.

During the lead up to this week, there has been some talk by union supporters that "UIC depends on us" and "we have the power."  That's probably true.  But sometimes it's a thin line between "we are right and we are strong" and "we are right because we are strong."  The possibility that the view might shade into the other can never be avoided.  But it should be kept in mind.

But I don't come away with clean hands, either.  I have tried to avoid unnecessary hyperbole and to see things from the union's point of view.  But sometimes I have been very quick to seize on the least charitable interpretation of what the union has said.  Even my decision to blog publicly rather than keep my reservations private or within the union could have functioned to undermine it.

I will say, however, that other than making my reservations public, I have done much of what the union has asked of me.  I have signed a card, I walked out on the two-day strike, I joined the picket lines and attended the noisy rallies (and in my middle-age I am really bothered by loud noises).  I even reported my absence on those days, so my pay stands (probably justly) to be docked unless the new contract provides for payment for those days.

I hope that the contract is the end of this long struggle and that the union and Board of Trustees find it good enough to agree to and avoid a strike.  I do intend to keep my membership active, even if the fair share payment is lower than the union dues.  And as much as I like to be proven right about things, I hope subsequent developments prove me wrong and the union is a force for good at UIC.

*And since this blog has about 355 page views and about 320 of those come from my ISP address, I have to assume very few people in the union are aware of it, unless of course, someone in the neighborhood is stealing my wi-fi just so they can log on to read this blog.

Whose margin?

The point is sometimes made that the union's demands represent only a very small fraction of the "profits" the university has earned over the last few years.  The point is that the university could very easily grant the pay raises the union wants and commit enough resources to start offering multi-year contracts.

In discussing the audit report for fiscal year 2013, the union notes that over 1 billion "in "unrestricted funds, which the auditors define as 'net position not subject to externally imposed stipulations but may be designated for specific purposes by action of management or the Board.'"  One billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, and if it truly is "unrestricted" in the sense the auditors' definition makes it out to be, and if there are no other potential claims on the Board of Trustees that are not included in that definition, then it's probably the case the university could commit to raises and multi-year contracts.

And as far as raises are concerned, the fact that the U of I system has in the last year granted raises to other campuses suggests it can afford to at UIC.  My understanding is that the administration has cited ongoing contract negotiations as the reason for not offering raises here.  As an aside, that seems like a poor tactic on the administration's part.  Its decision was perhaps based on the possibility that a contract would ratchet up the pay scale even more.  And perhaps that was a possibility.  It's not a far stretch from "the administration has granted no raise in 5 years" to "the administration has granted a raise in only one of the last five years, and that raise was only an x %."  But tactically speaking, the administration would have a stronger position if it could argue that it had given raises.

But I suggest that any raise is likely to cut across some margin.  If "the university" has over a billion dollars, it does not follow that each department or unit has access or will have access to a generous share of those funds.  Maybe access could and would be granted easily at any given Board of Trustees meeting.  But would it?  Is that how the contract works?  Does each department or campus unit have to petition for its share of the surplus in order to comply with the contract, and if the Board refuses, will that mean that department or unit will have to make cuts in order to remain in compliance with the large pay scale or with the greater financial commitment that multi-year contracts imply?

One might say my questions show I'm ignorant of the basics of the wording of proposed contracts and of university finance.  I plead guilty.  But am I wrong?  If someone works in a department or unit that stands to lose funds or not win an increase in proportion to the university's "profits," then the effect in some ways might be as if there were no surplus to begin with.

None of this is a sufficient argument against the union's demands.  And the demands themselves have a certain plausibility:  other Chicago-area "full-time" faculty seem to earn higher minimum salaries, although we should keep in mind that "full-time" is rarely defined in these discussions (is it on 9 months of work?  does it refer to 100% appointments or to the 51% + appointments that bring people into the bargaining unit?).  But I am suggesting that the issues at play might be much more complicated than the mere fact of the university's surplus.

Assessing a strike's cost to students

In the discussions over the contract negotiations and the possible strike, one hears a lot of "what about the students?"  And it's easy for "the students" to become something like a slogan, or a shibboleth.  Nobody is ever not going to be for "the students," and everyone claims to be acting in the students' best interests.  And what's more, I think most people are sincere.  They want to do right by the students, at least in the abstract sense that one of the university's core missions--and a major reason most people have gotten involved in university work--is teaching.

At the same time and if negotiations fail, we're going to see a lot of people expressing concern for "the students" and criticizing the other side for not being concerned about "the students." Take, for example,  President's Easter's recent letter to department heads.  In that letter, Mr. Easter declined to submit to binding arbitration because, he said, he is responsible to the Board of Trustees and binding arbitration would compel the Board to accept any decision rendered.  We can therefore expect to hear criticisms lodged against Mr. Easter, implying that he feels no responsibility to the students but "only" to the Board of Trustees.

If those criticisms are lodged, I think that will be overreach.  Mr. Easter's gravest mistake in this case seems to have been not adding the obligatory "and the students" in noting his responsibility to the Board.  And it's not altogether impossible that a pro-union faculty member with an article or book queued up for publication might say, in an off-moment, that he or she has a responsibility "to my editor."  But all is fair in love and war and although this is not a "war," it is a struggle for controlling the public message, and we have to accept that sort of thing.

And of course, the struggle will go tit for tat, so I can't blame the union for criticizing the message.  If a strike does take place, the "upper administration" will bemoan its effect on the students.  And although not a member of administration ("upper" or otherwise), I, too, have also used "effect on the students" as something like a casual phrase on this blog. 

All well and good.  But what is the students' interest and how might those interests suffer in the event of a strike?  A related question that must be asked is, how might they benefit from the type of outcome the union wants?  I do believe, as I've said before, that the union seems sincere in its concern for how the students will be affected by a strike. But even the union's supporters acknowledge that a strike will impose costs and strains on the students.  It is also apparent that some faculty would like to learn more from the students about how these negotiations are affecting them.
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As we speak about the costs imposed on the students and try to learn from the students, it behooves us to keep in mind some important points about this process and what it means when we say "the costs for students."  I have a few suggestions here of what needs to be kept in mind.  I don't consider this list exhaustive, but rather a starting point point for discussion:
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The principal function of a strike is to be an inconvenience for the students.

As a tactical matter, almost the whole point of a strike is to cancel classes.  True, some other general-purpose units and units that serve the general public will also probably close, too.  And some nuts-and-bolts committee work may not get done.  But the immediate goal is to shut down classes.  Keep in mind that the two-day strike in February took place on a Tuesday and a Wednesday, probably because having it those days maximized the number of classes cancelled and the strike's visibility.  If it had taken place on a Thursday and Friday, fewer classes would have been affected.  In some programs and for some courses, Thursdays and Fridays are the days that TA's, who are not in the bargaining unit and therefore cannot legally strike for faculty, work while many of the faculty do other things.  It's not that those faculty are not working.  They might be doing committee work or grading or advising or writing or researching or peer-reviewing ot preparing other classes or doing service--these are all time consuming activities and part of their job descriptions.  But they aren't necessarily teaching those days.

And we should remember those non-teaching duties of faculty members.  Will those be subject to the strike?  Committee work and possibly some service work might.  But--and I stand to be corrected--TT faculty will not necessarily forgo their writing or their research projects during the strike time.  Neither will they likely ask any editors to postpone publication of articles they might have in line (and I'd be surprised if the editors would agree).  Nor will they cease contributing peer reviews or writing book reviews.  I don't think I'd expect them to, either, and I imagine doing so would be difficult.  And for NTT faculty, it would be a non-issue.  If NTT's are publishing or doing research, they are not necessarily being compensated or otherwise being rewarded for it (I think....there's a lot I don't know about some NTT positions).
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We need to remember that current students might not enjoy the full fruits of the purported long-term benefits of a union contract.

It is at least arguably the case that a union contract could be part of a process that in the long run benefits the students at UIC.  I have my doubts, but they are doubts, not firm and confident predictions.  But I suspect that most of these benefits are of the sort that come about after several years of being set on the right track.  I can see an argument that a contract, at least for NTT instructors, enables those instructors to have more time and resources to commit to helping the students.  A contract, especially if it secures multi-year contracts for NTT's, will give them a greater security and enable them to play a bigger role in making tings better for UIC's undergrads.

But that process will likely take several years to see the full benefit.  Nothing wrong with that per se.  Good things take time to build.  But the undergrads currently at UIC won't necessarily be the ones to benefit.  And yet the strike if it happens will come during their stay here and interrupt their classes.
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If the strike lasts long enough, scholarships and jobs might suffer.

No one wants a long strike.  But if it lasts more than a couple weeks, students will not only likely lose the benefit of the last two weeks of classes they've paid for.  They might have deadlines for scholarships or job applications that require, say, a transcript for the spring semester or official record of graduation.  Or recommendations might be due.  I understand that in at least one department, professors are trying to ease the process and do any letters before a strike.  But I don't know how general that approach is on the campus or how well the message gets to undergraduates.

I honestly don't know if this point represents a real problem or only a possibility that a rules-bound person like me tends to think of.  Perhaps employers or scholarship-granting organizations would understand or don't place the type of importance on such things that I think they might.  And I also suspect that if it is a problem, it might be limited "only" to a few situations.  But those situations will be very important for any student so affected.

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These are only things that I have thought of from the safety of my desktop computer at home.  I have not spoken with any undergraduates yet how they see this might affect them.  I also know that union supporters are taking such considerations quite seriously.  If any of them are reading this blog post, they might  wish to take note of the types of things I've said here if they haven't already.