Category Archives: U.Miami: Strike’06

Having been away when the strike hit, I am perhaps unduly perplexed as to some aspects of it.

Here’s a quick summary of what I (think I) understand, and what I’m fairly sure I don’t know about the economic issues.

I think that there are about 450 mostly janitorial employees in the would-be bargaining unit. This includes both the Coral Gables campus and the Medical School (and perhaps the Rosenstiel campus too?). The workers’ current grievance is with UNICCO, which contracts with UM. The UM contract is only one of many held by UNICCO.

Most people I’ve talked to believe Donna Shalala could end all this with a phone call and money. Whether that’s true or not, UM’s leverage is both economic and moral, and especially the moral aspect is a reason why one might reasonably expect Donna Shalala to take a leadership role.

One thing that seems generally agreed is that whether or not there are any current constraints on the extent to which the University can insert itself into what is in form a dispute between its contractor and the contractor’s employees, this contract ends soon, and there are fewer limits on UM’s ability to announce what terms it will wish to put into the next contract, be it with UNICCO or a competitor. If UM were to announce that the next contract will require a minimum wage of $N per hour, or a specific level of health benefits, that would be legal, subject only to questions of timing (I’m told that were the announcement too close to a unionization vote it might be seen as an unfair labor practice); the downside from UM’s point of view is that it would undercut UNICCO, which the University seems strangely loath to do, and would ultimately cost money. How much money is itself an interesting question (see below).

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Another communiqué from Michael Fischl, this time regarding a message from an undergraduate here at UM.

Dear colleagues

I urge you to read the first-hand account of the “shoving” incident that appears below. In a nutshell, last night Alyssa Cundari (an undergraduate and a member of STAND, the student organization that has been leading the fight on campus for a living wage) was distributing STAND living-wage flyers at a University function taking place in the open courtyard of the Architecture school. She was uninvited, of course, and, when she was asked to leave by someone official-looking, she did so immediately.

A short distance from the function, she was confronted by UM public safety officers who asked if she was the individual who had been distributing flyers at the courtyard function, and the ensuing interaction quickly went south. They confiscated her remaining flyers, demanded her name and her I.D., and told her they were going to file a police report; in response she refused to cooperate; in response one of the officers ultimately grabbed her arm and shoved her; and then another officer accused her of battery on a police officer. (As a wise observer said during the police riot at 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, “I’d call the police, but they’re already here.”)

As it happens, last night I was next door at a strike-related event at Eaton Residential College, and I heard this account from Alyssa first-hand; moreover, it was confirmed in every respect by two students and Nina Baliga from the SEIU, all of whom witnessed the entire event (Nina filmed some of it). Alyssa was devastated, beside herself, and very scared, and she spoke with Donna Coker (who is one of the faculty masters at Eaton), me, and three student affairs/residence halls officials for about an hour after the program. (By the way, the latter handled the incident professionally and sympathetically, promising that there would be a most forceful communication to campus security officials about the inappropriateness of the officers’ actions first thing this morning from someone far higher in the food chain than any of us.)

I am sharing this with you because I think it raises several important issues beyond the grievous injustice done to one of UM’s students: (1) tensions are very high on campus and are likely to increase, and folks need to be warned that there is reason to worry about the adequacy of the training and professionalism of the public safety officers who will no doubt be out in force (in this case, Deputy Dan is decidedly not your friend); (2) it confirms – as if further confirmation were needed – that the current capacity of University officials and staff to deal fairly and professionally with real and outspoken dissent on this campus is, well, not at all where it ought to be (a point, by the way, that President Shalala herself made in the Herald piece on STAND back in December); and (3) it also confirms that the rules are different when the word “union” is involved, because I can’t imagine that University officials would have sent public safety after a student who was passing out flyers for any other cause at a party being conducted in an open public space on campus, where the student in question had already immediately complied with a request to leave.

In sadness and disappointment more than anything else,

Michael Fischl

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Via Michael Fischl comes this UNICCO Strike FAQ — many answers to one frequently asked question (does that make it a freqently answered question?):

If so many UNICCO employees really want a union, why aren’t they all striking?

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My colleague Michael Fischl forwarded me a statement “signed by a rapidly growing number of faculty and students in response to the ‘Statement Regarding Possible Strike’ distributed to the University community via email.” He writes that people wanting to sign it are should send a message to that effect to worker_justice_um@yahoo.com.

Here’s the text of the statement:

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In the UM Strike FAQ provided by the administration, they say the following:

Q: Will picket lines be established around campus perimeters or in front of University of Miami buildings?

A: No. Any potential picket lines should be confined to the pre-designated entrance to the Coral Gablescampus reserved for UNICCO employees. This reserved entrance has been established pursuant to NLRB rulings that seek to avoid enmeshing individuals who are not parties to the dispute. UNICCO, UNICCO employees, and union organizers are aware of the designated location, which will be clearly indicated with appropriate signage. The designated location is at the parking lot entrance just south of the Alumni House between Brescia Avenueand Red Road.

Q: Will faculty, staff, students, vendors, or visitors be required to cross or pass a picket line in order to gain access to campus parking lots or buildings?

A: No. Any potential picket lines should be confined to the pre-designated entrance to the Coral Gables campus reserved for UNICCO employees. This reserved entrance has been established pursuant to NLRB rulings that seek to avoid enmeshing individuals who are not parties to the dispute. UNICCO, UNICCO employees, and union organizers are aware of the designated location, which will be clearly indicated with appropriate signage. The designated location is at the parking lot entrance just south of the Alumni House between Brescia Avenue and Red Road.

In other words, no roving pickets, no strike roulette.

But if there’s one legal and symbolic picket location (in a corner of the campus where most students never go, I might add), then we have no choice but to treat the entire campus as covered by a picket line, do we?

Is the really bad national publicity worth this sort of hardball?

I’m glad I took a big load of books and papers home last Monday. Now I just don’t know whether to hope that faculty meetings will or will not be held on campus….

The Orlando Sentinel has a better story on the UM strike than any I’ve seen in the Herald, although the Herald does report that the limited strike starts today.

Perhaps because the University is not actually the party against whom the union is striking, the consensus seems to be that if there’s no actual picket line at your building, it’s OK to go in (and, I hope, to leave it if the strikers turn up later?). As there are only 450 or so workers in the would-be bargaining unit, and we have three large campuses, they can’t be everywhere. So it’s sort of strike roulette. I do find this odd: I know that at Yale we considered the campus off limits whether or not picketers happened to be in a particular place. Perhaps there’s some subtlety about secondary boycott law I’m missing here.

Or maybe it’s just the times: shortly before I left Miami, a colleague told me an awful story. He opened class on Monday with some remarks about how he would deal with the strike, and after a while some students put up their hands and said, in effect, “what strike?”. They had heard nothing about it. Then another student put up a hand and asked what this “picket line” thing was that he was talking about. It emerged that the student had never seen or heard of a picket line in his entire life. Not in the news, movies nor books. The labor movement is indeed in trouble.