A busy time for the administration

Well, the administration’s been busy this week; we knew the NTT’s were going to take it in the neck and they have, with, according to the Southern Illinoisan, the administration sending out “78 letters informing non-tenure track faculty that they will be laid off from their position or reduced to part-time hours if they do not take the four administrative closure days.”  To my mind, this discourse between the unions and the administration is becoming less and less about issues of mutual importance, and more about power.  And not just power, but power in the zero-sum sense of the word.

To that end, the administration is employing the traditional approach of divide and conquer.  Within our context of GAU, this policy may manifest itself by having graduate assistants covering the classes once taught by NTT’s.  Needless to say, that policy would see graduate assistants become scab laborers against our fellow union sisters and brothers, a policy that GAU leadership is completely opposed to.

To my mind, we have entered a new phase in our relationship with the administration.  Layoffs and the like are no longer in the realm of theory.  Rather, they are a reality.  If there is any possible positive to this situation, it is this: finally, the administration has revealed its true nature.  No longer do we have to tolerate looking at the hypocritical facade of an administration whose actions never matched its rhetoric.  We always suspected, and now we now know the administration for what it is, an institution still mired in outdated modes of governance, who sees collaboration as a threat, and power as a one-way relationship.  But I have no doubts whatsoever that come what may, we will look past our own self-interest and maintain our solidarity.