Higher Ed Union Victories

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Thursday, March 26 at 2:30 PM on KPFK 90.7 FM: My guests this week have not made books, they have helped make history. They are academic workers. Yes, this is ostensibly a literary arts show but Bibliocracy often features discussion with activists, teachers, researchers, cultural critics, and historians.  Lately I’ve featured experts on so-called AI in education, and on labor justice in higher education.  Indeed, the motto of my own higher ed labor union is, instructively, (pun intended),“Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions.”  Today’s show speaks, loudly, to what that means by way of a recent and historic victory by the United Auto Workers union, which represents higher ed workers at the University of California, one of the state’s biggest employers. At the same time, I am pleased to recommend a new title out from PM Press, Out of the Lab, Into the Streets.  It is an oral history of the historic —- and winning! —- 2022 high ed union contract campaign for Academic Student Employees at the University of California and offers an occasion to speak with two union comrades, academic professionals with impressive bios as scholars and teachers and, yes, as activists, Kerri McCanna and Kien Le.

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