10 April
By
On
In Lockout, union
With 0 Comments

When this administration locked us out, we learned that they believed they could run a university without faculty. We won the lockout battle and showed them it wasn’t true. But the war continued and continues. As management shrinks the campus, cutting courses and credits without consultation with us, we see them attempting to run a university without classes. These actions mean that our colleagues are losing their jobs: NTTA contracts are not renewed, long-time committed part time faculty are cleared from the rolls, and anyone without tenure is at risk. As a union, our job is to push back against administration, to organize ourselves andRead More →

02 April
By
On
In Lockout
With 0 Comments

I am pasting below an email exchange with Ann Larson from earlier today. I replied to Ann, and included my union colleagues and those who have invited me to speak on these experiences. I am aware she will be waging a public campaign on social media against me and my work. I have her blocked on social media and am aware that they are happening. Please do not forward these attacks to me. Dear colleagues, I am writing to let you know about a public disagreement regarding the lockout and contract campaign at LIU Brooklyn last year. There were disagreements regarding the direction of theRead More →

04 February
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On
In Lockout
With 0 Comments

I was so pleased to get to attend METRO’s conference on Libraries in the Context of Capitalism. Highlights for me were Roxanne Shirazi‘s investigation into “value” and what exactly librarians are reproducing when we reproduce the academy through our work. Dan Greene‘s talk on librarians and patrons at the Washington D.C. public library was fascinating and left me anxious for his book to come out. Great great stuff. Below is what I said.Read More →

01 May
By
On
In Lockout
With 0 Comments

I want to begin by saying thank you to the union bargaining team for their steadfast work on behalf of the membership in an extraordinarily difficult environment. I hold Kim Cline and the board of trustees solely responsible for the production of the contract we are facing today, one that attacks the most vulnerable members of our unit and pits worker against worker over crumbs while Cline and her team spend $4 million dollars on a racquetball club on Long Island. I want to be clear that I see her and her management team as the enemy today. The anger I have seen and heardRead More →

25 April
By
On
In Lockout
With 0 Comments

My life has been about union work since we were locked out at the start of the academic year. I am not on the bargaining team and I am not the president, but I am the secretary, and I am an academic worker at LIU Brooklyn, and the future of the university and the union matter a lot to me. I have been a librarian these past few months, yes, and my career continues to be my career. I have a family and a mom back in Idaho and part ownership in a racehorse and television shows I love to watch. But union work hasRead More →

16 September
By
On
In Lockout
With 0 Comments

The exhaustion, my goodness. Everything hurts and I was always tired. But I want to remember The wariness as I come into contact again with the people who weren’t locked out. Their wariness with me. Their experiences were different. Some of them are angry at me, at the union, at all this brouhaha. Mom calling to say she saw me quoted in the New York Times. Saying to a reporter after we’d been on the phone awhile, you’re with PSC-CUNY? No, ma’am, I just dropped out of Hunter and started this online news site with a friend of mine who’s still at Hunter I’m aRead More →

12 September
By
On
In Lockout
With 0 Comments

Today my brain is not on fire but it is sunk about halfway into mud. What kind of long haul are we in for? I was able to synthesize a cover letter for a job application so that I can truthfully respond to the questions on my unemployment claim next week. But I don’t want to forget the start of week two. Taking off my glasses and sinking my head into my hands and Richelle and Katy asking me if I’ve eaten anything today. Derek giving me the rest of his fries with thousand island dressing. Start date: September 1, 1999. September 1, 1985. SeptemberRead More →

10 September
By
On
In Lockout
With 0 Comments

When LIU Brooklyn locked out its faculty, they sent us out onto the sidewalk with all of the skills we use every day to make teaching and learning great in the heart of the Blackbird Nation. As we use these skills to organize effectively against them, it is clear that they have made a critical mistake. I am a member of the faculty locked out at LIU Brooklyn. I am a librarian, and we have faculty status at my university. I am also secretary of the Long Island University Faculty Federation, a role that includes lots of minutes taking, organizing agendas and files, and communicationRead More →

08 September
By
On
In Lockout
With 1 Comment

My brain has fallen out of my skull out onto the sidewalk, so there’s no synthesis happening anywhere around here right now. I can say with all honesty that I am spending pretty much all of my waking hours organizing to get our jobs back. But I don’t want to forget: Talking to Klaudia on the phone about filing for unemployment due to a lockout (turns out it’s complicated) and before she hangs up she says, about tomorrow’s action, Emily, wear a hat. Talking with Richelle and Jessica at the diner next door about organizing communications for tomorrow’s action and ordering a slice of peach pieRead More →

05 September
By
On
In Lockout
With 0 Comments

I just got back from my four mile run, the first four miles in a 38 mile week. We’re just nine weeks out from the New York City Marathon. I have been training for fifteen weeks so far. My dad drove out from Boise to watch me run this race in 2015. Six weeks later, he was killed in a Los Angeles crosswalk by a driver turning left in a Ford F150. We had started plotting a strategy to get me down under five hours for a marathon about ten minutes after last year’s race ended. So since December: dropping weight, speedwork during base building, a fucktonRead More →