Lisa Duggan

Walmart U?

More and more, institutions of higher education in the United States are taking a page from Walmart.

As public institutions are squeezed by declining public funds, and private institutions adopt corporate management styles, they often set out to cut costs the corporate way-- by outsourcing, replacing employees in all categories with "independent contractors" without benefits, adding temporary, part time and contract teaching labor at the expense of permanent well paying teaching posts, and busting unions. Then they defend all this the Walmart way as well-- by hiring union busting lawyers and spin masters who help administrators argue that they are't motivated to cut costs and centralize decision making. Oh no! They are Protecting Academic Quality! In the case of New York University, where I am a professor in American Studies, the administration has set out to bust the graduate student teaching assistants union, GSOC/UAW, by claiming that The Auto Workers are trying to take over academic decision making. They're producing images of industrial workers trampling the pristine corridors of the Ivory Tower?! Who could stand for such a thing?

Faculty Democracy, organized to promote democratic governance structures at NYU, hopes that pundits and parents will not be fooled by the cynical rhetorical spin of NYU's administrative pronouncements. But getting the word out and around the university's substantial public relations operation, will be a challenge.

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Posted at 1:53 PM, Nov 04, 2005 in Education | Labor
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