[PEN-L:7430] Mass Layoff Of Admail Workers (Canada)
On October 10, Canada Post Corporation issued a notice announcing the mass layoff of about 10,000 admail workers effective as of January 31, 1997. Admail workers are in their vast majority part-time workers delivering unaddressed advertizing mail. Since 1992, they have been organized by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), although they are not covered by all the clauses of the collective agreement reached between CUPW and Canada Post. For example, they are not covered by the clauses providing CUPW workers with some level of protection against layoffs. The announcement of the mass firing of the admail workers was an immediate response of Canada Post to one of the recommendations of the review ordered by the Liberal government on the role of the corporation. According to the Minister in charge of Canada Post, these recommendations are at the stage of being studied, but Canada Post has already jumped to implement them with its proposal to withdraw its admail service. Other recommendations of the Mandate Review include the proposal that Canada Post withdraw from all competition with the private sector, abandon all courier service, and bring "its labor costs under the collective agreement into line with the realities of the contemporary Canadian workplace." The Chairperson of the Canada Post Mandate review, George Radwanski, stated: "There is no readily apparent reason, for instance, why Canada Post workers should enjoy virtually unconditional job security when it is not available to other Canadians in the public or private sector". The Minister in charge of CPC, Diane Marleau, speaking at the House of Commons in October, called the admail service, the delivering of "junk mail" and an "irritant" for the people, and declared that "we believe that getting out of the economy unaddressed admail is a good move for the private sector." CUPW has decided to fight the mass layoff of admail workers with several different activities, including sending delegations to speak to Members of Parliament and starting a letter-writing campaign to Minister Marleau. It will also include this issue in the next round of negotiations in the Spring of 1997. According to CUPW, the layoff of 10,000 admail workers is going to be followed by the layoff of between 4,000 to 6,000 workers involved in the courier service and by layoffs and worsening of working conditions of the Canada Post bulkmail workforce, either through negotiations or legislation. It also says that the layoff of the admail workers will not only result in these workers being deprived of their right to a livelihood, it will involve a deterioration of the working conditions of workers involved in the new admail businesses since the service will be put in the hands of either small businesses who cannot pay decent wages, or in the hands of the media monopolies, such as that owned by Conrad Black, where much of the delivery work is done through very low-wage child labor. Shawgi Tell University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7431] 'CASSANDRA' LABOUR MP SAVAGES BLAIR
PA 14 Nov 96 21:43 GMT S9627 Copyright 1996 PA. Copying, storing, redistribution, retransmission, publication, transfer or commercial exploitation of this information is expressly forbidden. By Gavin Cordon, Political Correspondent, PA News 'CASSANDRA' LABOUR MP SAVAGES BLAIR Tony Blair was today the subject of a scathing attack from his own backbenches. The Labour leader was warned he could be the "shortest serving Prime Minister of this century" with his own MPs queuing up to replace him with Robin Cook in a "palace coup" after the General Election. The dire warning came from the pen of an unnamed "senior Labour MP" who said he - or she - had never known fellow backbenchers to be so "bitterly and personally critical" of their leader. The MP, said to be an ex-frontbencher, was writing in this week's Tribune newspaper which is reviving the old Cassandra column - the pen name of the Daily Mirror's former political columnist. "Behind the facade of unity and discipline the reality is that Tony Blair's position as leader of the Labour Party is weaker than any leader in memory," the new Cassandra wrote. Mr Blair, the column said, was out of step with Labour MPs - even those who had backed for the leadership - in a minority in the Shadow Cabinet on key issues and had "squandered" the traditional support of the trades union barons. "This is Blair's weakness. He knows he can ignore his habitual (hard left) Campaign Group critics but is unaware of just how widespread is the dissatisfaction and outright anger at the style of his leadership and policies among those MPs who put him in the leadership," the column said. "Starting with the anger over the choice of a school for his son and running up to the expensive irrelevance of the Road to the Manifesto, I have never known Labour MPs to be so bitterly and personally critical of their leader." The column said that within weeks of a Labour election victory, the party could be plunged into "civil war" with "major fissures" opening up on Europe, the minimum wage, devolution and trades union rights. "No one but a fool would choose to fight on so many fronts yet all these issues will come to a head by the end of next year and could leave the leader weakened and isolated beyond recovery," it said. "With Robin Cook having built the strongest parliamentary reputation since John Smith, there will be no shortage of MPs during next year's summer of discontent prepared to accept that the damage caused by a palace coup will be less in the long r un than the greater risk of being led by a leader whose policies and personal beliefs are shared by only a minority of the Parliamentary Labour Party." The return of Cassandra, which is due to appear tomorrow, is likely to provoke intense speculation at Westminster as to the identity of its author - particularly if future columns are as critical of the leadership. Mr Blair declined to comment on the Tribune article tonight. Questioned by reporters in Paris he said only: "I don't know who wrote it."
[PEN-L:7432] WEALTH GAP 'FROZEN'
PA 15 Nov 96 5:34 GMT S0139 Copyright 1996 PA. Copying, storing, redistribution, retransmission, publication, transfer or commercial exploitation of this information is expressly forbidden. By Simeon Tegel, PA News WEALTH GAP 'FROZEN' The wealth gap between rich and poor has stopped growing, according to official statistics. In 1979 the poorest tenth of the population had 4.1% of the nation's disposable income after paying housing costs. That fell to just 2.5% in 1990-91. But the statistics for 1993-94, just released, show the figure has remained at 2.5%. At the same time the figure for the top 10%, which was 20% of the total disposable income in 1979, has remained constant at 26% since 1990-91. The corresponding figures for the second and third poorest and richest tenths of the population have followed a similar pattern, according to the Government Statistical Service. A GSS spokesman said: "It seems to show a marked break with the trend of the 1980s." The figures were given in Households Below Average Income, the GSS's annual report into poverty. Other significant findings include rising real income for the poorest groups and pensioners, and more mortgage-payers on low-incomes. Social Security Minister Andrew Mitchell welcomed the report, saying: "The continued growth in incomes is very good news. "Compared to 1979 the average income of all family types and economic status groups reported in HBAI has increased in real terms." In 1979 four out of five pensioner couples were on below average incomes. That number has now fallen to three out of five above the 1979 median. The increase is thought to be due to the rise in private and occupational pensions and the growing number of retired people who now own their homes. The study also found that 55% of the poorest tenth now had access to a car or van and 76% had central heating. That compared with just 39% for both categories in 1979. And the survey showed that people, including the poor, did not always live according to their means. Although more than a third of the 10% of the population with the lowest income were also among the tenth of the population which spent the least, 2% were among the highest spending tenth. Similarly, although nearly half the tenth of the population with the highest income were among the equivalent highest-spending 10% of the population, 1% of their number were among the lowest spending tenth. But Catherine O'Donnell, of the Low Pay Unit, warned: "There is no room for complacency in these figures. "The reality is that the number of people living in poverty in the UK has trebled since 1979. "The increase in families without work is especially alarming. Britain is deeply divided between work rich and work poor."
[PEN-L:7433] Re: more science!
At 7:06 PM 11/16/96, Mark Weisbrot wrote: IMHO, the pomos have made a major positive contribution by transforming a large part of the humanities' undergraduate curriculum, to the point where it is now common for freshman comp. courses to question such "myths" as American democracy, equality of opportunity, etc. Did the pomos do this? Really? Old-fashioned lefties have been trying to do this for decades without the benefit of having read Of Grammatology. Noam Chomsky, who is probably more anti-pomo than I am even, has done more to popularize such critical thinking in the U.S. than any professor of identity ever has. A theoretical problem: if there is no truth, only provisional constructions of truth, and if there is no master narrative, but only a polyphony of local narratives and situated knowledges, than how can you criticize the official (celebratory) version of history as "false"? Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:7434] Dialectics in Psychology; lecture NYC
The Brecht Forum presents Dialectics in Psychology a talk by Eli Messinger Thursday, November 21 at 7:30 pm Child psychologist Eli Messinger will contrast dialectical thinking about psychological issues with conventional linear thinking. Dialectics highlights relational processes, change that goes beyond incremental steps, critical moments, the dynamics of development, and the emergence of the truly new. Messinger will draw on the work of Lev Vygotsky, Klaus Riegel, and Erik Erikson as well as his own practice to illustrate how a dialectical thinking applies to psychology. In fact, many of you use a dialectically-oriented psychology without being aware of it. Eli Messinger practices child psychiatry in a New York City hospital and directs a day hospital program. He teaches on the relevance of Marxist method to science. Admission is $6. The Brecht Forum, and its projects, The New York Marxist School and The Institute for Popular Education, is located at: 122 West 27 Street, 10 floor New York, New York 10001 Phone: (212) 242-4201 Fax: (212) 741-4563 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] //30
[PEN-L:7435] Re: more science!
Doug Henwood writes on pomo: A theoretical problem: if there is no truth, only provisional constructions of truth, and if there is no master narrative, but only a polyphony of local narratives and situated knowledges, than how can you criticize the official (celebratory) version of history as "false"? Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html Response: Reductio ad absurdum: Exactly the way that you just attacked one of the implied conclusions of some pomo views. By pointing out the inherent contradictions, tautologies, logical fallacies, jaundiced prisms, contrived syllogisms constructed with contrived assumptions and contrived data gathered through contrived methodologies and data sources etc. To say that there will remain some "provisional constructions of truth" and a "polyphony of local narratives and situated knowledges" is not to suggest that they must therefore all be seen as all equally valid or even all closer to that elusive "absolute truth." Gradually through debate, cross-testing provisional hypotheses and data/data sources, paradigm/power shifts, old-timers dying etc etc some of the "constructions of truth" become patently untenable for all but the totally warped, some become less provisional and more established, some become the established orthodoxy until dialectically, the spiral process continues with the established orthodoxy under challenge, new and old constructions of truth emerging as provisional, some narratives remaining "local" while other local narratives become more generalized through linking up of people living under not-so-common conditions and forms of oppression and so on... None of this implies or rejects the notion of objective reality; many of the pomos deal with the epistemological vicissitudes, twists and turns, contending paradigms and the basis for those contending paradigms as we dance around, towards or away from some kind of objective reality or truth where their view does not necessarily reject some kind of notion of objective reality heavily filtered and obstructed of course by theological and "secular" filters, power structures and interests. Jim Craven *--* * James Craven * "The envelope is only defined--and * * Dept of Economics* expanded--by the test pilot who dares* * Clark College* to push it." * * 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. * (H.H. Craven Jr.(a gifted pilot) * * Vancouver, Wa. 98663 * * * (360) 992-2283 * "For those who have fought for it, * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * freedom has a taste the protected* * * will never know." (Otto Von Bismark) * * * * * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION *
[PEN-L:7436] Re: more science!
At 2:57 PM 11/17/96, James Michael Craven wrote: Gradually through debate, cross-testing provisional hypotheses and data/data sources, paradigm/power shifts, old-timers dying etc etc some of the "constructions of truth" become patently untenable for all but the totally warped, some become less provisional and more established, some become the established orthodoxy until dialectically, the spiral process continues with the established orthodoxy under challenge, new and old constructions of truth emerging as provisional, some narratives remaining "local" while other local narratives become more generalized through linking up of people living under not-so-common conditions and forms of oppression and so on Uh, is this another way of saying that approximations of "truth" are arrived at through experimentation, struggle, and conversation? Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:7437] Re: more science!
Date sent: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 15:34:26 -0800 (PST) Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood) Subject:[PEN-L:7436] Re: more science! At 2:57 PM 11/17/96, James Michael Craven wrote: Gradually through debate, cross-testing provisional hypotheses and data/data sources, paradigm/power shifts, old-timers dying etc etc some of the "constructions of truth" become patently untenable for all but the totally warped, some become less provisional and more established, some become the established orthodoxy until dialectically, the spiral process continues with the established orthodoxy under challenge, new and old constructions of truth emerging as provisional, some narratives remaining "local" while other local narratives become more generalized through linking up of people living under not-so-common conditions and forms of oppression and so on Uh, is this another way of saying that approximations of "truth" are arrived at through experimentation, struggle, and conversation? Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html Yes it is with the proviso that not all struggle leads toward approximations of "truth"--some forms lead away from it; e.g. struggle based on blind reactions or caricatures; not all conversations lead necessarily toward approximations of truth--e.g alternating monologues based on caricatures of opposing positions as opposed to dialogues starting with at least a correct understanding-- not acceptance--of what is being said and argued; and not all experimentation leads to approximations of "truth" as some experiments represent contrivances based upon contrived hypotheses and syllogisms constructed upon contrived assumptions and meaningless tautologies "supported" by contrived data from contrived data sources or "confirmed" by contrived predictions supported by contrived data-- e.g. much of the neoclassical stuff. Jim Craven *--* * James Craven * "The envelope is only defined--and * * Dept of Economics* expanded--by the test pilot who dares* * Clark College* to push it." * * 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. * (H.H. Craven Jr.(a gifted pilot) * * Vancouver, Wa. 98663 * * * (360) 992-2283 * "For those who have fought for it, * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * freedom has a taste the protected* * * will never know." (Otto Von Bismark) * * * * * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION *
[PEN-L:7438] Re: Nader Voters' Support for Prop 209
On Fri, 15 Nov 1996, Max B. Sawicky wrote: This is the trap of "class not race" anti-corporate messages. The same thing happened in the NAFTA debate where anti-immigrant messages easily penetrated the movement for fair trade. (Significantly, Nader refused to condemn Prop 187 as well.) A class appeal is the best (only?) way to overcome backward views on race. Otherwise you are reduced to moral preachments. You can try saying that race divides people to their disadvantage, but that presumes some larger concept that subsumes race: class. This is an impoverished definition of class that equates it simply with economic inequality between groups. But what is crucial about class is its specific relation to exploitation around the axis of the means of production between owners of capital and workers. Racism is economic exploitation organized around racial differentiation WITHIN the working class where white workers collaborate with capital to assure their privileged caste position. There is no inconsistency between a class appeal to white workers that fights for a larger slice of the wage/profit split while also supporting a racial caste system that reserves the best high-paying jobs to while male workers. In fact, if achieved, such a class appeal combined with racism promises the best result for such white male workers. In fact, this is exactly how white male workers have traditionally organized in the United States, often successfully. The American Federation of Labor was formed by nearly all-white craft unions who withdrew from the declining Knights of Labor to institutionalize the privileged position of their members. In the West, anti-Chinese organizing was a key factor in supporting the growth of unions in the West. George Frederickson argues in his book WHITE SUPREMACY that through this anti-asian struggle, "unionism and working-class politics achieved more legitimacy and influence in some of the industrial regions of the Far West than in most other sections of the country." Which brings us to Buchanan: One, an anti-corporate message is not enough, since that easily harbors a "Buchanan" racist vote. Progressives have to link a clear anti-racism message to its anti-corporate message. Bull. That presumes that Buchanan was really anti-corporate in any substantive way. He wasn't/isn't. Ignoring the honesty of his convictions (and given his families honest worship of Mussolini I'll give him the benefit of the doubt), Buchanan's words are as anti-corporate and class-based as a large chunk of union rhetoric over the years in the US. Listen to a Buchanan speech denouncing meatpacking companies who use immigrants to drive down wages in order to increase profits. Listen to Buchanan denounce affirmative action as a plot by elites to lower the living standards of white male workers. In all those speeches, you hear the echoes of over a century of Jim Crow union organizing in the United States. He may side with corporations against many other workers, but then there is little difference there since many of the AFL craft unions collaborated with employers in breaking alternative industrial unions (notably the IWW) that tried to organize all workers. The problem with class appeals is that it can easily swell on free-floating resentments against the rich that are easily redirected against other, less powerful scapegoats. Just witness the career of Father Coughlin or other racist, anti-semitic "class appeals." Or the shifting of Communist votes in France to Le Pen's movement. The alternative tradition of progressive organizing in the US is not one that tried to remain silent on the issue of race--that was the failed strategy of the Knights of Labor and the Debsian Socialist Party--but that confronted racism directly as a strategic and moral imperative in building a class-based movement. It was the strategy of CIO unions encouraged in this strategy by the Communist Party, A. Phillip Randolph, and a range of other forces making anti-racism a key component of the fight for justice It was a movement that actively promoted equality of opportunity in the workforces they organized and made sure that workers understood the moral and strategic reasons why short-term advantages of white supremacy should be sacrificed. It actively opened the doors of opportunity to all workers and as World War II made the US a key employer and contracts, parts of the labor movement made affirmative action employment a key demand. A. Phillip Randolf threatened a march on Washington unless Roosevelt implemented such an affirmative action policy and left-led unions forced such policies on employers. Union leaders like Harry Bridges of the ILWU were so dedicated to affirmative action that when the war ended and some workers needed to be laid off, he advocated abandoning seniority rules in order to preserve racial diversity in the workplace. In the post-McCarthy period, we had a period of union
[PEN-L:7439] more science!
I would like to think that the traditional left has had as much of an influence on the academy as the pomos have, but it doesn't seem to be true. Noam Chomsky, whose critique of pomo I agree with, has had a pretty small audience for his political writings. Until the recent pamphlets published by Odonian press, his largest-selling book was "The Manufacture of Consent," (co-authored with Ed Herman). This book sold about 25,000 copies. This is very sad but true, and I think if it weren't for his academic superstardom in linguistics, he wouldn't have gotten as far as he did. It is very difficult in this society to speak the unvarnished truth to power and get a hearing, either inside or outside of academia. So while it may be true that Chomsky as an individual has "done more to popularize such critical thinking in the U.S. than any professor of identity ever has," the same is not true for the intellectual current that Chomsky represents versus that represented by pomo-- at least in the last couple of decades. Hundreds of thousands of college students who will never hear of Chomsky will get their introduction to at least some aspects of critical thinking through pomo courses and pomo-trained instructors. The comparison with Chomsky is a good one though, for illustrating a couple of points. One is that the pomos have been able to establish themselves in academia partly *because* they have developed an inpenetrable jargon that serves (as does most of the math in economics) to insulate them from criticism of the non-initiated. Chomsky, on the other hand, in order to write books on politics, has had to pursue a second career of scholarship (in addition to having become one of the most cited authors in history in the course of his first career), which most of us are not capable of managing. Back when deconstruction was the rage, I used to ask my pomo friends why they needed all that jargon, when Chomsky was doing a fine job "deconstructing" all sorts of horrible institutions (and language), without any of it. I never got much of an answer. The other comparison with Chomsky speaks to Doug's second point: the idea of "a polyphony of local narratives and situated knowledges" is much less threatening to academics then having to tell them they are flat out wrong about some really obvious phenomena in the real world. This is another reason for pomo success in the academic world, and I think from a sociology-of-knowledge standpoint, a big reason for the staying power of their relativist epistemology. --- On Sun, 17 Nov 1996 14:03:06 -0800 (PST) Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 7:06 PM 11/16/96, Mark Weisbrot wrote: IMHO, the pomos have made a major positive contribution by transforming a large part of the humanities' undergraduate curriculum, to the point where it is now common for freshman comp. courses to question such "myths" as American democracy, equality of opportunity, etc. Did the pomos do this? Really? Old-fashioned lefties have been trying to do this for decades without the benefit of having read Of Grammatology. Noam Chomsky, who is probably more anti-pomo than I am even, has done more to popularize such critical thinking in the U.S. than any professor of identity ever has. A theoretical problem: if there is no truth, only provisional constructions of truth, and if there is no master narrative, but only a polyphony of local narratives and situated knowledges, than how can you criticize the official (celebratory) version of history as "false"? Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html -End of Original Message- - Name: Mark Weisbrot E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Preamble Center for Public Policy 1737 21st Street NW Washington DC 20009 (202) 265-3263 (offc) (202) 333-6141 (home) fax: (202)265-3647
[PEN-L:7440] transgressive running dogs of performativity
It seems a widespread temptation, not a unique feature of post-modernism, to substitute jargon for thinking. But consider the comic possibilities: slightly disillusioned, but still bristling ex-Enver Hoxha-ite meets itinerant PoMo performance art critic of indeterminate gender and the two of them grope about for a common language. Y'know, the sequel to Kiss of the Spider Woman kind of thing. Whatever. Comedy: They fail. Tragedy: They succeed. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
Support UC Grads
Greetings, Graduate Employees at the University of California system are striking this week in order to be recognized. They need support from across the country and they would appreciate messages of solidarity. If you have a minute to spare please send a message of support to the address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can also send messages to the UC president expressing your disapproval with the way that the UC system has handled this matter and urging UC to recognize the Graduate Employees immediately (see below). In 1994, a majority of grad's voted for the union; the administration challenged their right to organize, but California labor courts ruled in the grads' favor earlier this year. Nonetheless, the administration still refuses to recognize the union. Grads at 3 campuses have voted to strike, and at 2 others, they've voted to engage in civil disobedience. More information is contained in the forwarded messages below. Solidarity, _ | Dennis Grammenos [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Departments of Geography | | Russian and East European Studies | | University of IllinoisPhone: (217) 333-1880 | | Urbana, IL 61801 Fax: (217) 244-1785 | |_| = -- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 09:06:47 -0800 From: William Kramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: SAGE Strike at UCLA: Nov 18-22 I am forwarding a call for support of the upcoming strike by academic student employees at UCLA who are members of SAGE/ UAW To: Friends of SAGE/UAW in the labor movement From: Susan Conrad, John Medearis Re: Our upcoming strike and SAGE/UAW support letters As you may already know, the SAGE/UAW executive board has now set the dates for our upcoming five-day strike for November 18 to November 22. We would appreciate any support you can lend us before and during our strike. Of course, we understand that many unionized UCLA employees are limited by their contracts from taking sympathy actions. 1) One powerful way you could help us is by communicating your support of our campaign to Chancellor Young. Attached please find the suggested text of a letter we hope you will edit to your satisfaction and send on your letterhead to Chancellor Young in support of SAGE/UAW's campaign for recognition. Please do feel free to edit the letter to suit your needs. It would be very helpful if you could send your letter to Chancellor Young as soon as possible. We would appreciate your faxing us a copy of your letter when you send it. The SAGE/UAW fax number is (310) 824-0439. 2) During the strike week, our picket lines will be up by 7 a.m. each morning. It would be great to have some of your members or staff join us on the picket lines for half an hour or an hour on their way in to work or during their lunch breaks. We would appreciate the loan of bullhorns or other amplification equipment for use on the picket lines during the strike week. 3) On Wednesday, November 20, we will be having a Labor and Community Solidarity day. This would be a particularly good day to have members join us on the picket line. The main focus of the day will be a rally, to begin at 3:30 at Murphy Hall on the UCLA campus. We would appreciate having your members and staff join us for the rally. Please contact John Medearis or Mike Miller with any questions about coordinating your support with our strike plans. Either can be reached at SAGE/UAW's office, but you can also reach John at (310) 572-7971 or Mike at (310) 396-4624. Thank you very much for your help! Chancellor Charles Young 2147 Murphy Hall University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 90095 (310) 825-2151 Dear Chancellor Young: I am writing you to express strong support for the Student Association of Graduate Employees (SAGE/UAW) and its campaign for recognition. SAGE/UAW's members--teaching assistants, research assistants, readers and tutors--provide essential services to the university, and deserve the same rights all workers should enjoy in a democratic society. They have deserved recognition ever since their card drive in 1994. Recent events only underscore the justice of their position. As you know, a Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) judge ruled in September that teaching assistants, readers and tutors--but not research assistants--are employees of the university and have collective bargaining rights under state law. Following this decision, SAGE/UAW took a very reasonable position. The union decided, despite its disagreement with the part of the ruling concerning research assistants, to
[PEN-L:7441] Re: more science!
Mark Weisbrot wrote:Chomsky, on the other hand, in order to write books on politics, has had to pursue a second career of scholarship A few years ago, we invited Chomsky to Chico. He had to be booked several years in advance. His costs were high, but he worked from 8 in the morning till midnight, then told me the next morning about the books that he read after he got back to his apartment on the previous night. As we walked along campus, server people approached him who said that they had corresponded with him. In each case, the correspondence furthered their political activity. He remembered the corresponence and spoke with them about things that they had written. He said that he spends about an hour a day on correspondence. I was surprised by how many people on Campus knew of Chomsky and appreciated his work. Now remember, I am writing from Chico, which was a backwater until Bob Dole crashed here last month. In all his communications, he was direct, speaking clearly with language that students could understand. Sure, I found a few points in his economics that were weak. Political scientists could make the same claim, but here was someone who could work fruitfully in an unbelievably wide range of fields and still inspire people to do good politics. Chomsky energized politics on our campus with his short stay. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
