Labor Centers Under Assault
In a country of shining multi-million dollar business schools in almost every major university in the country, one of the silliest rightwing campaigns is complaints that conservatives are oppressed and somehow have no support for their rightwing views on campuses-- leading folks like David Horowitz to propose an Academic Bill of Rights.
Compare those expanding shiny business schools to the handful of labor centers around the country who are under total assault.
In California, Schwartzenneger vetoed all funding for the University of California Center for Labor Research and Education and the campuses have only been able to find alternative resources for a third of the original budget. As the Center leadership emphasizes:
Without any review, justification, or explanation, the governor has reached into the University of California's budget to single out an academically-created program for elimination. This dangerous precedent allows a governor to defund any university programs that he does not support.Where is the conservative outrage over this selective assault on one area of academic inquiry. There is none.
And at the University of Massachusetts, the administration has slashed the budget of the Labor Studies department and ended an ongoing search for a new professor:
. "No other department has been treated this way," said Labor Studies Professor Stephanie Luce. "We are being singled out for attack because of our political activity on behalf of workers' rights on campus and around the world."Business schools can create joint programs with corporate America, biology departments create joint ventures with biotech, but if labor departments cooperate with labor unions on any endeavors, they are shut down without even a peep of protest from the rightwing "guardians of academic freedom."
Of course, it's all a farce. Yes, many humanities professors are liberal, but the economic powerhouse departments on campuses, from business schools to corporatized science departments largely live these days to serve the corporate interests of business America. And the tiny handful of academic programs desgined to serve the needs of working people in the United States are under total assault.
That's the reality of academia circa 2005.
Without a doubt, you're right -- and the problem is not only in higher ed. (Its out of anything I know about in any systematic fashion, but I've read plenty of anecdotal evidence about high-school "economics" courses that are intended to "simulate" stock-trading for profitability ...)
The issue in higher ed though of course is that American universities are now much like Democratic presidential candidates -- they need corporate cash AND they need to hide their need for it. So they give an academic veneer to letting businesses effectively buy a significant portion of the faculty, curriculum and administration under the guise of "Business Schools," and even more nefariously, Economics Departments which are increasingly called upon to serve as supporters/ promoters of local or regional "economic development" meaning of course to find ways to promote out-of-state or out-of-region businesses relocating there ...by developing intellectual justification for stupid, short-sighted economic policies that depress wages nad benefits.
November 22, 2005 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Academia is not a neutral, unbiased, center of learning. All formal education both private and public from k-terminal degree shows a bias in whatever field its attempting to teach/explore/research.
Public universities are funded with tax dollars. In universities with labor centers and colleges (or schools) of business, both are funded by taxes. There are, however, many more and better funded business programs than there are labor centers. Here’s a quick review of some important differences between the two.
Business programs espouse that the proper purpose of their academic teaching is the creation of private profit. In fact, they specialize in teaching future corporate and non-corporate decision makers how to maximize the owners profit. (If you know of a business program that doesn’t, I’d like to know about it.)
One important way to maximize profit is to constantly find ways of lowering the costs that go into creating the product or service that’s put up for sale. From an employer’s perspective one of the major costs of production that needs control is the cost of labor. And so it is logical that business programs teach, among other things, how to maximize labor productivity while, at the same, time minimizing labor costs.
That makes just good “business sense.” But from the perspective of a labor center there are other considerations to take into account. For instance, how do business decisions affect employees, their families, their communities and their nations?
Labor centers look at the evolution of the employer/employee relationship from both the short and long term point of view of the employee. Labor centers critically examine the impact of employer decisions that are made in the name of maximizing profits. For instance in the U.S. in certain situations employers decided that slave labor was needed to maximize profits; or that child labor was needed; or that paying women and people of color lower wages for the same work done by white men was needed. Organized labor and its allies worked to pass laws that limited what can be done to employees in the pursuit of profit maximization. Laws that, without the support of organized labor and its allies can quickly be gutted or overturned.
Because labor centers address the excesses of our economic system and promote unionism, which is the expansion of democracy in the workplace and community, they are seen by critics as dangerous and in need of cutting.
November 22, 2005 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
are any unions showing major concern over these cuts? i mean massachusetts and california still have pretty strong labor pull, couldn't they pressure cut restoration?
universities aren't neutral, so we can either fight back or get stampeded.
alternately, have any unions or labor-friendly organizations or individuals been trying to restore some funding through donations or grants? could Moveon take this on as a fund-raising venture for instance?
November 22, 2005 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was the unions in California who pushed for and got full funding by the state legislature, but they didn't have the support for the two-thirds needed to override Arnie's veto of the Labor Center funding.
As for Mass, you still have a Republican governor who has a lot of control over the university administration.
Losing governorships has political consequences, even in more liberal states.
November 22, 2005 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about the academic unions on the damn campuses, or have they fallen into the "I got mine so screw the other guy" mode.
November 28, 2005 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink