http://www.gcadvocate.com/2008/10/look-whos-trusteeing-at-cuny-profiteers-union-busters-witch-hunters/
Look Who’s Trusteeing at CUNY: Profiteers, Union Busters, Witch Hunters… by Advocate Staff We’ve all seen those “Look Who’s Teaching at CUNY” ads on the subway. You know, the ones with distinguished professors grinning like all get-out straight into the camera. The PR campaign puts your teeth on edge if you’re part of the “invisible” 57% of CUNY teaching staff with no job security, getting poverty pay for the same work. Adjuncts, teaching grad students, Continuing Ed and other “contingent” faculty are treated like disposable non-persons by the top CUNY chiefs. For CUNY’s 450,000 students, there’s not much to grin about either: against the background of war and economic crisis, budget cuts, tuition hikes, fee boosts and obscene textbook prices education has become increasingly precarious. Now big banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citibank say community college students will be denied loans — while the feds bail out the private Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac companies to the tune of $200 billion. Who is it that’s pushing to turn CUNY into “Walmart U”? Who keeps hiking tuition and fees? Who says most faculty just “can’t” be allowed a living wage, job security or, in many cases, health care? Who keeps shoving more and more working-class and minority students out of school? Who launched an “anti-immigrant war purge” against “undocumented students” in fall 2001 (which was pushed back by protest and exposure)? To begin answering this, let’s take a good look at who’s trusteeing at CUNY. Though school administrators (like the ruling-class politicians who appoint them) talk a lot about democracy, the people who work and study here don’t run the place. Nor do New York’s millions of working people have a say in the city’s public university. Instead, CUNY’s ruling body is a veritable rogue’s gallery of hand-picked business elite. Union-Busters R Us Exactly who and what is the Board of Trustees? Our attention was drawn to this question last summer, after newly sworn-in Democratic Governor David Paterson appointed Peter S. Pantaleo, a top professional in the lucrative field of anti-unionism. The Board of Trustees (BoT) website identifies Pantaleo as a “Partner at DLA PIPER,” adding: “Mr. Pantaleo represents both domestic and international employers in labor, employment, and civil rights matters. While he has substantial experience litigating cases before courts, administrative agencies, and arbitration panels, the principal focus of Mr. Pantaleo’s practice is advising employers in complex, politically sensitive labor and employment matters.” DLA PIPER is the largest law firm in the United States by attorney headcount, reportedly representing half the Fortune 500. Its website includes a “Labor and Employment Alert” giving employers step-by-step instructions on how to use a recent decision of the anti-labor NLRB to “prohibit use of email for union organizing purposes.” This is remarkably similar to what happened at CUNY’s LaGuardia Community College, which banned faculty from using email to discuss union business until this gag rule was defeated through a campaign sparked by campus union activists. One of Pantaleo’s favorite tunes must be “Viva Las Vegas,” given his cushy relationship with the casino bosses. Google “Peter S. Pantaleo” and “anti-union” and you’ll find a March 10, 1997 New York Times article on Pantaleo lawyering for the Las Vegas MGM Grand hotel during its campaign to stop a unionization drive. All the way up to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), his old firm — Pantaleo, Lipkin & Moss — represented Las Vegas bosses who banned three workers from handing out pro-union leaflets at the entrance to a casino/hotel complex. And who knew there was such a thing as the Gaming Law Review? Turns out there is: its May 1998 edition features Peter S. Pantaleo as co-author of an article on “lessening the power” of the hotel employees and restaurant employees in the city where slot machines never sleep. Another Pantaleo piece, from 2004, tells employers in non-union workplaces how to use an NLRB ruling to prevent employees from having a coworker present during “investigatory interviews.” The Democratic governor’s appointment of Pantaleo may be related to the fact that Dick Gephardt, for years the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives, is Senior Counsel at DLA Piper. The firm was among the top business contributors to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Add it all up and a key point comes through: the Democrats, like the Republicans, represent big business against the working class. (clip) _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
