Dear all,
I'd like to express my thanks to Hilmar Pabel, Glenn Chapman, and Krishna Pendakur for organizing the panel on unionization concerns yesterday. Although I had to miss the third presentation (Pabel's), I must say that the first two (Chapman's and Pendakur's) left me at a loss to understand why unionization is a good idea--let alone an urgent priority.
Chapman reminded us, among other things, that a union structure for SFUFA would require far more work on the part of faculty, for example in defining proper workloads for departments and faculties, then monitoring faculty work to make sure those workloads are being met but not exceeded. A union-to-member disciplinary vector also opens up here. No more would SFUFA be an organization of a couple faculty and staff members. No: it would become a much more complex organization of committees, duties, etc.
Pendakur's analysis showed that, while unionization appears to compress salaries somewhat (moving top and bottom toward the middle), its effect on raising them overall is either minimal or nil. I find this point especially compelling since Neil Abramson and others have repeatedly compared our salaries to UBC's, confidently claiming that the unionization of the latter's faculty explains the differential. This claim now appears to be, to say the least, questionable. As Pendakur pointed out, the reason is not mysterious: Unionized faculty don't get more money because there isn't any more money to get. We are not working in a profit-making economic sector where collective action can redistribute wealth. Rather, we are working in a profit-losing sector where the wealth has for the most part already been distributed, or is beyond our control. Unionized or not, we have no power over the money the government gives us; student fees are already too high; and the administration, even if bloated, is little more than a minnow compared to the Jabba the Hutt of our current and future salaries and benefits. Finally, there seems to be an idea that a union would claw back market differentials from the 50% of colleagues who have them, merrily redistributing that money to the 50% who do not. Since the richer 50% are also SFUFA members, with a right to have their interests represented, I find this scenario completely unintelligible--quite apart from the handicapping effect it would clearly have on hiring, in fields where academics have rich offers elsewhere.
In short, I am now more opposed to unionization than I was before. For what it's worth. Best wishes, JDF
PS Only 25% of SFUFA members are on this list. I still think an all-faculty discussion of the union issue is critical, not optional, and that an email list is still the easiest and most effective way to achieve it--especially since the SFUFA exec and director are explicitly partisan. It's like an election campaign where the government controls all the TV stations. I again call upon Brian Green to open up the discussion to all. This can be done very easily, Brian, if you just copy messages like this one to the sfufa-members list. You will still have absolute control over what does and does not get sent, thereby eliminating concerns about offensive messages etc.
--
James Dougal Fleming
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
778-782-4713
"Upstairs was a room for travelers. ‘You know, I shall take it for the rest of my life,’ Vasili Ivanovich is reported to have said as soon as he had entered it."
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