Wherein the UIC United Faculty Union demolishes one of my criticisms

A long, long while back, I criticized, at this link, a statement made by the union.*  That statement said in part, that some faculty (before the union contract) earned "less than they would if they were managing a McDonald's."**  At the time, I wrote, that the statement conveyed "a certain antipathy toward the type of people who work at McDonald's.  It's almost as if it is offensive that someone who works 'merely' at fast food or other customer service jobs might earn more than someone who does higher work."


But now, I read on the minutes from the UICUF's last representative assembly meeting on February 5, 2015*** that the attendees spoke with a delegation from "Fight for Fifteen," an organization that, apparently, seeks to increase the pay of fast food workers and other workers in Chicago (and perhaps elsewhere) to $15 per hour and to promote union recognition for such workers.  The union's Facebook feed contains a reference to a rally that those workers will hold in April. 

Whatever reservations I have about the UIC United Faculty Union, I support fast food workers' efforts to unionize.  And even if I didn't, I'd have to acknowledge that these statements of support--however modest they might be in the in the grand scheme--demonstrate more support for such workers than my prickly comments from over a year ago. 

So to the union:  Good Job!



*That link goes to a post in which I reproduced a letter I had written on February 8, 2014.  The letter itself is in PDF format, and what I quote above comes from page 9 of that document.

**That statement was part of the union's old website and therefore cannot be linked to.  I'll point out how that is one example in which the union has excised its public record.  One effect of dismantling its old website  is to erase potentially embarrassing statements such as the one I cite here.  That said, I do not claim that avoiding embarrassment is the main, or even a, reason for dismantling the site.  I don't know the reasons the union did so, and there may very well have been good reasons, about which I can only speculate, ranging (I suspect) from technical issues to legal problems with what the union may have said during the lead up to the contract ratification.  Whatever the reasons and however critical I may be of the decision, I believe the union was within its rights to dismantle its old website.

***That link takes you to the page the union devotes to meeting minutes.  From there, click on the link for the February 5, 2015 Representative Assembly Meeting.  It is a PDF document.

Good on the UIC United Faculty Union

I have complained recently (here and here) about transparency and the UICUF website.  But I should point out that the union has posted minutes from its February 5, 2015 minutes.  Here's it the link to the PDF, and here is the link to the page where the PDF is housed.  I have not read the minutes yet but plan to do so when I get the chance (and am not sure when that will be).

Regrettably, the union has not posted its minutes from the December 2015 meeting, or at least not yet.

Still, I would like to congratulate the union for deciding on transparency over secrecy.

Re-evaluating transparency: grade changed to B+

In my last post, I went to some length criticizing the union's website and expressing my view that the union is not as transparent as it should be.  There are still some issues with the website and, in my opinion, with the union's overall transparency and outreach to members.

That said, it has been a while since I've looked at the union's Facebook feed.  One thing I've noticed is that the union posted there its response to Mr. Rauner's recent executive order on public employee "fair share" dues.  In my last post, I had explicitly criticized the union for not making that statement public.  I therefore must retract that criticism.

I will add, however, that the Facebook feed doesn't seem to announce new meetings, post minutes of meetings, or mention some of the problems with working conditions that I am aware of.  For the latter, it's possibly the case that not publicizing those problems might be a wise thing.

Still, in focusing only on the website, I failed to look at the other ways the UICUF tries to keep its members informed.  (It also, by the way, has a Twitter account.)

"B-" for transparency: the UIC United Faculty Union website

I have already noted some of the challenges in the UICUF's new website in an earlier post.  In that post, my biggest complaint was that the new website essentially wipes clean the history of the UICUF.  (Yes, "wipes clean the history of" is a value laden, question-begging cliche about what "history" actually is....but I think my readers get my point.)  Unless the particular page has been cached in one's browser, it is almost impossible to read pages from the prior version of the website.  Therefore, it is much more difficult to know or study what the union said or did in the lead-up to the adoption of its contract.

In that post, I noted in passing  what I considered a promising feature of the new website.  It posted the minutes from its last meeting.  That was an admirable move toward transparency.

But the minutes from that meeting were also the only minutes the union has posted.  There has been at least one other meeting, on December 3, 2014, the same day the UICUF sponsored the "academic freedom panel." I believe there was a meeting sometime last week, but I am uncertain, and if there was, I didn't attend.  It would be hard at any rate to know, because the website doesn't seem to announce new meetings.  The announcement for the academic freedom council on December 3, for example, doesn't disclose that there was a meeting right before.  In fact, I'm not sure I realized there was a meeting until I went to the panel, and arrived about a half-hour early and found a meeting going on.

There are other announcements which I would have expected the union to post on its website but which it has not (at least not yet) posted.  Those announcements would have dealt with certain problems the union and the members of its bargaining unit have encountered in the last two months or so.  I don't wish to disclose them now because the announcements I received came to my email as "official" communications meant only for union members.  If I do comment on them later, I will do so using only sources available to the public or personal information about myself which I feel I have the prerogative to disclose.

To be sure, when it comes to meeting minutes and certain announcements, I can see a rationale for the union not making them public.  I don't believe it has a strict obligation disclose all or any of the minutes .  And something is to be said about reserving the privacy necessary to plot strategy and to discuss sensitive personnel or discipline issues. 

However, some of the "official" announcements sent to the union's listserv seem designed for public consumption, and placing them on the website strikes me as a good way to broaden access to them.  For example, I don't believe I"m disclosing any great secret by saying that the UICUF has a position on Governor Rauner's executive order to exempt certain state employees from fair share dues payments.  That seems like the type of statement the union would want to publish on its site.  Further, while meeting "minutes" might need to be private to cover some issues, publicity is good for transparency.  Because things tend to get known anyway, it might be helpful for the union to have its side of the story out there.  If privacy or secrecy really is a concern, it wouldn't be unheard of or particularly bad for a meeting to speak about certain sensitive topics off the record.  And for what it's worth, in the few all-member meetings I've attended, strategy and "difficult" issues were discussed in only a very general way.  And....the "minutes" from the only meeting that have been posted were not the free flowing discussion or even traditional minutes any way.  They were more like a Powerpoint presentation that the union gave and about which there was presumably discussion not noted in the "minutes."  If something like that from other meetings were reproduced for the website, it would be better than nothing.


In my last post about the website, I said that it has "a bit of an aesthetics problem."  That "aesthetics problem" wasn't something I harped on then.  But the more I think on it, the less charitably I am inclined to it.  The website is so hard to read it seems almost deliberately designed to discourage reading it.  I also wonder how its color dynamics might affect people with color blindness.  (I do not myself have color blindness or know much of anything about that condition, so maybe my objection is off-base.  But still.....) 

As far as aesthetics--and even my other points--go, I'll reiterate what I said  in my last post on the website.  There is a lot I simply do not know about web design.  I do know that there is more work involved than simply typing in something and posting it online, and my vantage point from the cheap seats might make it seem easier than it really is.  The union has limited resources and the time.  It also probably has to concern itself with the security of its site.  It's one thing for me to set up a pseudonymous blog account using a blogspot platform.  It's another thing to set up a website for a sometimes controversial organization.  I imagine there is a non-trivial danger that the site would be hijacked or somehow shunted offline.  Maybe this design is part of an effort to prevent such a development.

Still, I mean this post to be a suggestion to the union on how it might improve its website.  I realize the union has requested feedback from its members on the site.  And this blog post is my way of giving that feedback.

Credit where it's due

I spend a lot of time criticizing the UIC United Faculty Union, and I stand by most of my criticisms, and when I don't, my goal is formally retract them or admit when I am wrong.  I also wish to acknowledge when it does right.  The recent election is one area where it did so.


From what I understand, the union decided at its last general membership meeting not to endorse any candidates.  (I did not attend the meeting, but you can find the notes/minutes from the meeting by clicking here [PDF]).  And it didn't go back on that decision.  I may have received one or two emails reminding me to vote. (I say "may" because I'm on the list serve for another union, and am not sure which one sent me the reminders.)  And none of them told me who to vote for.

Given that the majority of the union's members and an even stronger majority of its leadership probably favored certain candidates over others, that was a hard commitment to honor.  I appreciate them doing so.

I do not speak here about any of UICUF's affiliates, which as far as I know may or may not have endorsed candidates.

On geese, gander, and going dark; or, why some of the links on this blog don't seem to work anymore

In a recent post, I explained why I had briefly taken my blog offline and why I put it back online.  I say this now because in this post I am about to criticize the UIC United Faculty Union for doing something similar with its new website, which you can find here.

The site has a bit of an aesthetics problem, but my main criticism is that it does not have archives of older posts the UICUF had written, to which I have linked on this blog from time to time.  Whatever the intent behind the decision to make this new website, the function is to reduce transparency about the union's history.  The union had made statements on its old website, most of which, in my opinion, were reasonable for a union to make, even those with which I disagreed.  But now, with the older posts not online, it's hard to track the statements it made. 

Perhaps the intent behind this website change is indeed justifiable.  As a pseudonymous blogger, I have the luxury of setting up a blogspot account and then type away.  Mine is not the official voice of any organization with multiple members not all of whom agree with each other.  Also, I imagine a blogspot account is easier to hack into or to pirate.  When it comes into hacking into my own musings as represented in this not very widely read blog, that's a small thing.  If, however, someone were to hack into the union's website, that would be a bad thing.  Also, there's a lot I don't know about running a website.  Perhaps for the sake of functionality, that type of website is best practices.  Maybe there's something about the code or whatever that makes the website better.

I did send an email to the union, and their response was polite and open to discussing my dissension, and I very much appreciate the interaction.  Their response was further proof that whatever my disagreements with the union, they are willing at least to treat people who disagree cordially.  That's smart unionizing.  But the response left a little to be desired and didn't explain much.  It was basically this:  the union wants a more useful and better looking website.

I seem to recall, back when the last website was created, around January 2014 (maybe?  I don't recall), reading a statement on that site suggesting that there had been an older site the union had used.  I don't know if older posts were imported to that new site or not. 

Finally, kudos to one thing I've found on this website.  The union has posted the "minutes" on that site from its last meeting.  I didn't go to the meeting, so I don't know how faithfully those "minutes" represent what went on.  And the "minutes" seem actually more like a report from the union to its members and not minutes per se.  But that is a good thing to make public.  And the union deserves credit for that.

My unsolicited advice to the UICUF: shy away from electoral politics

The UIC United Faculty Union proposes to hold a meeting of members this week.  I won't be going, mostly because I think it would be wrong to go and be privy to a members-only conversation when it is not clear that I am a member.  But I have some thoughts about one of its proposed items of discussion:  "Should the UICUF engage in electoral politics."  (This item is listed on a public facebook feed.  One doesn't even need to "like" the union on facebook to read it.  Therefore, I do not feel as if I am disclosing anything confidential.)  By "engage in electoral politics," I assume the union means, "choose to endorse specific candidates or ballot measures."  I urge the union not to do so.

My argument is both practical and principled. 

Practical:  Union endorsements either don't work, or work very poorly and can have unexpected and bad (for the union) consequences.  While any glad-handing politician may be eager to rack up all the endorsements possible, I suspect very few minds are changed when a union, or other organization, endorses a candidate.  I won't deny the possibility altogether that minds are changed, but I doubt whether people are waiting for what the UICUF's position on, say, Rauner vs. Quinn before making a decision.  Also, and perhaps more important, a UICUF endorsement will probably alienate two groups of people in the union:  those who support the non-endorsed candidate and those of a contrarian nature who may support the endorsed candidate, but resent what they see as "the union telling me who to vote for."

Principled:  The members of the union's bargaining unit are required to give money to it.  If they do not wish to be a member of the union and thereby pay dues voluntarily, they are required to pay them anyway, with only minimal provisions for opting out.  The money is taken from their paycheck.  If the union "engages electoral politics," the members of its bargaining unit are being compelled to endorse speech they may not agree with.  I admit that my case is stronger if the union actually funds advertisements for or against a candidate, while what is at issue is probably something like a press release that costs almost no money and simply says, "the UICUF endorses x candidate for y office."  But the union does claim to speak for the interests of its members and the members of its bargaining unit, and political endorsements are usually at least one step removed from a determination of what those interests are and how best to pursue them.

Of course, the $100 billion elephant in the room is what to do about the state's outstanding pension obligations, and a smaller, but still sizeable, elephant is the prospect that the state might further cut funds to higher education.  And it seems (to me) very clear that if one candidate is elected governor, the hits against public employee pensions and funding to higher ed are likely to be less severe than if the other candidate wins.  What could be more relevant to the people the union claims to represent than the fate of their pensions and the funding for their jobs?  Why can't that fact justify at least endorsing a gubernatorial candidate?

My answer is twofold.  First, I cannot deny those are probably the most important and most discussed issues at play in this election.  But I ask people to keep in mind that there are many reasons to support or oppose either of the major candidates.  We don't vote for party platforms.  We vote for people.  And we vote given the likely outcome of who will control the statehouse.  And sometimes we weight our interests differently.  To one person, the possibility of a tax increase may be more ominous than the possibility of a cut in education funding. To yet another, a cut in education funding is regrettable, but to be preferred if the money saved goes, for example, to health care or to food stamps or to other ways to help people who are less well off.

Second, we can have good faith disagreement on the appropriate approach to addressing some of these problems.  Take pension reform.  One person might very well conclude that 90 percent of a loaf from any pension reform that is likely to be enacted is better than the half a loaf, or the quarter loaf, that a non-reformed system could bring about in 10 years, assuming the most dire predictions of pro-reformers are realized. 

Those types of issues are not easily addressed in a union meeting or in an up-down vote on any given candidate.  The union should keep that in mind and its leaders and voting members should exercise caution before entering those waters.