Name:Samkee Country:Hong Kong Metro:Hong Kong Birthday:2/6/1983 Gender:Female
Interests:listening to soft music, writing, hiking, travelling, cooking (in the memory of slo), meeting friends from all around the world Occupation:Student Industry:Other
T: "We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person." Quote from William Somerset Maugham.
C: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity." Quote from Immanuel Kant's Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?, a good piece of work indeed. Hope that we change because we are continually enlightened but not being gradually assimilated. If the reality sometimes seems too distant, let's hold on to our books--books that keep our mind young and vivid; books that give us hope and passion for life; books that remind us our reasons to live and live in dignity.
"It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person."
Angel Warner, an employee at a Rite Aid distribution center, sat next to me recently in a congressional briefing room and described what happened when she and her fellow workers tried to form a union in their California workplace. She talked about the surveillance, constant threats and harassment they endured; how she and other workers were repeatedly taken aside and interrogated, one on one, about how they planned to vote; how two co-workers were fired; and how the rest lived in fear that any day they, too, might get a pink slip. The union filed numerous charges of unfair labor practices and eventually won the organizing election. But three years after the campaign began, Warner and her fellow Rite Aid workers still don't have a contract.
Like most U.S. companies, Rite Aid takes full advantage of current labor law to try to keep workers from exercising their full rights to organize and collectively bargain under the National Labor Relations Act. Far from an aberration, such behavior by U.S. companies during union organizing campaigns has become routine, and our nation's labor laws neither protect workers' rights nor provide disincentives for employers to stop disregarding those rights.
Late last month I published a study, "No Holds Barred," that was presented at the hearing at which Angel spoke. I looked at a random sample of more than 1,000 union elections over a five-year period to determine the parameters of employer behavior during union representation elections in the private sector and the limitations of the labor law system established to regulate that behavior.
In 34 percent of the elections I studied, companies fired employees for union activity. In 57 percent of elections, employers threatened to shut down all or part of their facilities, and in 47 percent, employers threatened to cut wages and benefits.
In 63 percent of campaigns, supervisors met with workers one on one and interrogated them about their union activity or whether they or others were supporting the union. In 54 percent of the elections, supervisors used these one-on-ones to threaten individual workers.
The bottom line is that there has been a steady decline of workers' rights in the past several decades. Colleagues and I have examined this issue in a series of studies over the past two decades. My new data show that employers are more than twice as likely as they were in the 1990s to use 10 or more tactics -- including threats and firings -- to thwart workers' organizing efforts, and they are more likely to use more punitive and aggressive tactics such as interrogations, discharges and threats of plant closings, while shifting away from softer tactics such as social events, promises of improvement and employee involvement programs.
For the vast majority of workers who want to join unions today, the right to organize and bargain collectively -- free from coercion, intimidation and retaliation -- is at best a promise indefinitely deferred. In election campaigns overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, it is now standard practice for companies to subject workers to threats, interrogation, harassment, surveillance and retaliation for union activity.
The failure of the system to defend workers' rights in a timely manner multiplies the obstacles workers face when seeking union representation, creating delays that favor employers. Employers appeal a high percentage of the cases to the NLRB, and in the most egregious instances, the employer can count on a final decision being held up by three to five years.
A key aspect of proposed labor law reform, the Employee Free Choice Act, concerns revisions to the rules surrounding arbitration of the first contract. My findings show that this provision may be among the most crucial of the legislation. Fifty-two percent of workers who form a union are still without a contract a year after they win an election, I found, and 37 percent remain without a contract two years after the election. For employers, labor law provides yet another means to indefinitely delay unionization.
It doesn't have to be this way. My survey data from the public sector portray an atmosphere in which workers may organize free from the kind of coercion, intimidation and retaliation that so taints the election process in the private sector. Most of the states in the public- sector sample have laws allowing workers to choose a union through card check or voluntary recognition. And more than a third of public-sector workers in the United States are members of unions.
Unless Congress passes serious labor law reform with real penalties, only a small fraction of the workers who seek union representation will succeed. If recent trends continue, there will no longer be a functioning legal mechanism to effectively protect the right of private- sector workers to organize and collectively bargain. Our country cannot afford to make workers defer their rights and aspirations for union representation any longer.
The writer is director of labor education research at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Her paper "No Holds Barred -- The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing" was published last month by the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute.
We strongly and unreservedly condemn the raid on SOAS by the UK Border Agency on Friday 12 June, the deportation of several cleaners and the underlying government policies which will adversely affect UK higher education, and SOAS specifically, in numerous ways in the future. We think it is very important for all UK universities to challenge these policies and practices. We would like SOAS senior management to play an active and public role in this campaign.
At the same time, we strongly oppose the way some students, staff and members of the general public have hijacked SOAS’ reaction, and have made, for the most part,unrealistic and impossible demands upon School management. The occupation of the Director’s office, the crass and disrespectful treatment of Professor Paul Webley, the use of cameras and the threats of French-style ‘kidnapping’ were intimidating, unjustified, and wholly out of order in a university environment.
We find it frustrating that the Director and senior management were unable to distance themselves immediately and explicitly from the Border Agency’s actions. However, we also find the allegations that SOAS senior management was ‘taking revenge upon the cleaners’ utterly ludicrous.
We are pleased to note that an agreement has been reached that led to the end of the occupation. We now urge senior management, the trade unions, the students’ union and other SOAS interest groups to engage in a constructive debate about what can be done to 1) help those cleaners still under detention in the UK, 2) prevent these deplorable events from happening again, and 3) identify the most productive avenues to challenge the underlying government policies most effectively.
Nadje Al-Ali, Chair, Centre for Gender Studies
Stefan Sperl, HoD, Near & Middle East
Rachel Harrison, HoD, South Asia & South East Asia
Michel Hockx, HoD China & Inner Asia
Bernhard Fuehrer, HoD China & Inner Asia (term 2)
Rachel Dwyer, Indian Cultures & Cinema (future HoD, South Asia)
Jaehoon Hoon Yeon, HoD Japan & Korea
Alfredo Saad Filho, HoD, Development Studies
Akin Oyetade, HoD, African Studies
Ulrich Kratz, AD Research, L&C
Parvathi Raman, Chair, Centre for Migration & Diaspora Studies
What follows is a joint statement from Professor Paul Webley and Nizam Uddin (Co-President Students' Union) regarding an agreement that has been reached following the protest in the Directorate office.
Students have agreed to leave the office within the next hour.
JOINT STATEMENT FROM SOAS AND STUDENTS’ UNION
Dear staff and students
Following the protest by students about Friday’s visit by the UK Border Agency, we are pleased to confirm that a way forward has been agreed by all parties involved.
The events surrounding last Friday have been deeply distressing for everyone at SOAS and in particular the individuals who were detained. Furthermore, we are disturbed by allegations that have emerged about the possible role that ISS played in the visit.
We have agreed the following:
SOAS will write directly to the Home Secretary within 12 hours of the end of the protest, requesting that he grants exceptional leave to remain in the UK to those cleaners who are still being detained. In addition, SOAS will request the immediate return of those who have been deported and exceptional leave to remain for those forced into hiding by Friday’s raid.
SOAS will open discussions with ISS, and separately with UNISON, UCU and the SU, to review in detail the events of last Friday.
SOAS will discuss the possibility of bringing cleaning services in-house at the next scheduled meeting of its Governing Body.
SOAS will meet with the relevant unions to discuss health and safety issues relating to immigration raids and acknowledge UCU policy of non-compliance with immigration raids.
SOAS will not take action against those involved in the protest.
This incident has highlighted the need for further debate regarding this issue and, as has been mentioned in earlier correspondence, SOAS will be speaking with other heads of universities about the wider implications of the Government's policy on immigration and any likely impact it may have on our staff and students.
We recognise the valued contribution of all migrants who have worked at SOAS over the years and have a long tradition of welcoming people from all over the world. In our personal capacity, we would also like to indicate our support for the regularisation of non-documented workers.
We would like to thank all staff and students for their valued contributions, support and co-operation in recent days as we have worked towards this agreement.
Please note that with immediate effect there will be changes to the access of SOAS College Buildings.
The changes are as follows:-
All ID cards will be checked - only persons holding a valid ID card will be permitted to access Students are not permitted to sign in visitors until further notice Staff may continue to sign in visitors.
Where possible, staff, students and visitors will be allowed to access the building to conduct their work/studies.
Please be assured that these measures are temporary.
