This is the reply I received to a request for further information concerning the recent posting by Anders Schneiderman. Mark Laffey ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Thank you for your request for more information. As you read the facts below, you will find that the accusations that IIR and its Director Clair Brown are "anti-labor" or "anti-affirmative-action" are simply not true. The strong allegations that Nathan Newman and Anders Schneiderman are now publicizing are not only false; they deflect attention from the real and mundane reasons for their conflict with IIR and the University of California. We address these allegations briefly below. The Center for Labor Research and Education (CLRE) at the Institute of Industrial Relations (IIR) celebrated its 30th anniversary in 1994, and we at IIR are very proud of the role both CLRE and IIR have played in the California labor movement. CLRE has served its labor constituency well over its history and will continue to do so with strong, vital programs. Historically, two renowned CLRE programs focused on developing minority leadership in the labor community and occupational safety and health programs for unionists. This is the tradition upon which today's CLRE and IIR are building. Over the past twenty-three years, Clair Brown has worked with CLRE to develop programs that make university research accessible to the community. Two programs she founded are the internship program which links undergraduate students with labor unions to conduct research and other projects and the Labor Center Reporter, a graduate student publication containing articles pertinent to the labor community. Upcoming events organized by CLRE include a teleconference on the minimum wage debate, and two educational conferences for labor practitioners: one on participating with management from a union perspective, and one on unions in the global economy. The last three years have been a difficult period for IIR. The Institute has absorbed a 40% budget cut in State funding. Yet, under Professor Clair Brown's direction, the Institute made an effort to protect CLRE and the graduate student training program so that the share of the overall cut taken by these programs was substantially less than 40%. IIR's efforts to buffer CLRE's budget are completely consistent with its historical mission of informing labor and industrial relations policy and practice with state-of-the-art research and education. It is a sad turn of events that two disgruntled student researchers have recently pursued a smear campaign against the Institute of Industrial Relations. The dispute centers on these students' refusal to accept to faculty oversight of certain research activities they were conducting in IIR's name and to conform to normal UCB academic standards and budgetary management procedures. In 1993, Nathan Newman and Anders Schneiderman, with the faculty sponsorship of Geography Chair Richard Walker, created the Center for Community Economic Research (CCER) within IIR. CCER developed a number of innovative programs to make electronic information sources available to the labor community. However, Newman and Schneiderman's handling of a research contract with a Bay Area union local has been unprofessional and inept and is thus unacceptable to represent a division of the University of California. In a meeting with Newman and Schneiderman, Professor Walker of Geography and IIR Director Brown made explicit the standard University procedures for the contracting of University-sponsored research. Newman and Schneiderman's "fact" sheet timeline refers to a problem with the payment of graduate student employees associated with their Center. It neglects to mention that the problem arose with their procrastination and lack of cooperation with routine University procedures for handling payroll requests. While assuring the Bay Area union that the agreement was proceeding through the proper University channels, Newman and Schneiderman had in fact repeatedly failed to take the elementary steps required to set that process in motion despite much urging from IIR staff. They also refused to stay in close communication with the Center for Labor Research and Education which coordinates all IIR union-related outreach and research programs. It is now the responsibility of IIR to deal with incomplete contract obligations left by the Newman and Schneiderman's departure from IIR and the dissolution of their Center. The remaining three graduate students will carry out the union project as University employees. After months of resistance and conflict with IIR staff, Newman and Schneiderman in February of this year announced to Professors Walker and Harley Shaiken that they were leaving IIR and moving CCER to another campus research institute. They in fact made this announcement prior to receiving an invitation by the second Institute, whose Director declined to accept them on the grounds that they had shown an unwillingness to abide by the University rules governing all campus research centers. No one has been fired or laid off from IIR for "pro-labor and anti-racism activities." On the contrary, despite severe budget cuts, no dismissals have taken place in the last ten years, and only one person (the editor of our academic journal) was laid off from IIR three years ago. IIR does not censor materials or articles. The Labor Center Rerporter (LCR) article allegedly censored by Brown is scheduled to appear in the next issue with changes made collaboratively between the LCR Editorial Board and the author. IIR follows standard editorial practices with all of its publications which include the academic journal Industrial Relations, the LCR, and CPER, a periodical published by IIR's California Public Employee Relations program. Professors Michael Burawoy and Kim Voss sponsor the LCR during alternating semesters, and graduate student Robert Wrenn accepted a TAship for the current semester. IIR faculty and staff favor greater diversity at Berkeley as at other university campuses across the country. The assertion that no faculty of color are active at IIR, however, is simply untrue. IIR has a long tradition of active support for faculty, staff and student diversity on the Berkeley campus (IIR has taken the initiative on several occasions to assist the University in preparing recruitment packages for minority and women faculty). IIR staff is diverse with respect to race, ethnicity, and gender, and an unusually high proportion of women in occupy professional and leadership positions at IIR. When positions become available at IIR, every effort is made to attract a diverse pool of applicants, and each position is filled in a timely manner. The announcement of the current opening at the Center for Labor Research and Education, as with previous such listings, is being mailed to and/or posted at over a hundred labor newspapers, community groups, and all campus ethnic studies departments and campus minority student organizations. IIR supports and cooperates with the three existing Labor Studies programs in the Bay Area. We are in full agreement with the directors of these programs that they do an excellent job of meeting the needs of the Bay Area's labor community. Newman and Schneiderman's dispute with and departure from the Institute of Industrial Relations are unfortunate, unnecessary, and essentially of their own making. We have attempted to respond to the key charges made in their public statement against IIR. Interested parties with additional questions are invited to contact IIR by e-mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more complete information on our current plans and activities, please visit our WWW site at http://violet.berkeley.edu/~iir/.
