Fight, don't beg! To hell with the UA Board of Regents! )
UNAC sent out an email imploring its members to testify at the September 3 University of Alaska Board of Regents (BOR) meeting:
This is our chance to tell regents what we’re going and how things are going. Make your voice heard; call in to testify! Possible topics include: The value of our work (talk about something noteworthy you’ve done recently); Obstacles you’ve faced at work (job search results, staff support, etc); Personal obstacles you’ve faced as a result of your work (lost spending power, high energy costs to live and work in Fairbanks, high cost of living vs income, etc).
This is naivety in the extreme.
It’s hard to imagine a group more apathetic (even hostile) to the University’s workers than the University of Alaska BOR. Its members were appointed by the same governor that just vetoed a bill that would let workers know the productivity quotas they are held to. Very few members of the BOR have experience in higher education administration or even advanced degrees. To serve on it, you basically need to be one of two things (both is better):
A crony of Governor Dunleavy, who tried to suddenly slash the University’s state funding by 40% (e.g., Regent Crum, whose family riddles the Dunleavy administration)
A capitalist (e.g., Regent Jepsen was a ConocoPhillips Alaska executive, Regent Seekins owns a car dealership, Regent Church owns a bunch of companies, etc…)
With just a little less legislative oversight, the Board would be packed with degenerates brazenly hostile to public higher education (e.g., Bethany Marcum, Tuckerman Babcock).
This, then, is our union’s absurd conception of working class action: plead with and prostrate before our avowed class enemies.
We have a different idea. Instead of hoping for noblesse oblige that’ll never come, let’s learn to impose our class will! Let’s discuss and figure out how to take militant action outside of the union ghetto! When we finally talk to the BOR, it’ll be to tell them to get fucked.