MI-AAUP President Susan Moeller hands a check to AFL-CIO President Karla Swift in support of the Protect Our Jobs Campaign. The Campaign looks to amend the Michigan Constitution and include collective bargaining rights for all workers in the state of Michigan. Over the past year and a half, the Governor and legislature have dismantled rights, increased costs of benefits to workers and prevented payroll dues deductions. The campaign is currently seeking petition signatures to reach the 378,000 threshold.

The Chronicle of Higher Education

April 19, 2012

AAUP Election Results Reflect Backlash Against Recent Leadership Decisions

By Peter Schmidt
Washington

A slate of candidates calling for an overhaul of the American Association of University Professors has trounced its opponents in elections to that organization's top offices, with the results reflecting the growing strength of the group's union-focused wing and a backlash against the AAUP's traditional leadership and its decisions over the past year.

Election results released late Wednesday showed that all seven members of a slate calling itself "AAUP Organizing for Change" easily won races for the association's top posts.

Most notably, in the race to be the association's president, Rudy H. Fichtenbaum, a professor of economics at Wright State University with strong support among labor organizers, beat Irene T. Mulvey, a Fairfield University mathematics professor supported by several of the group's past leaders, by a vote of 2,246 to 1,295. (About a tenth of the association's members voted in the elections, a turnout that is fairly typical for the group.)

Mr. Fichtenbaum, the treasurer of the AAUP's Collective Bargaining Congress and a prominent advocate for academic labor in Ohio, was a strong critic of the association's ouster last year of its general secretary, Gary Rhoades, who was widely liked by union organizers in the field but often clashed with the central-office staff. Mr. Rhoades, who resigned after coming into conflict with the AAUP's current president, Cary Nelson, and after seeing his reappointment as general secretary opposed by the association's executive committee, was joined by a long list of leaders of the AAUP's unionized affiliates in endorsing Mr. Fichtenbaum's candidacy.

Charles J. Parrish, a member of the "AAUP Organizing for Change" slate who easily won an at-large seat on the association's national council, on Thursday described his slate as "a bunch of people who basically have not been in the main current of the AAUP and all of whom objected to the firing of Gary Rhoades." He said, "We all supported what Rhoades was trying to do in reaching out to other organizations and in reaching out to the field."

Congratulations to the newly elected officers of the AAUP:

Rudy Fichtenbaum, a professor of economics at Wright State University since 1980, has been elected president of the AAUP. Fichtenbaum has a PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia and has authored more than forty-five articles and book chapters, dealing primarily with race and sex discrimination, changes in income distribution, the impact of unions on wages and benefits, and the effect of occupational structure on earnings. He served twice as faculty president (1990–91 and 1996–97) and in 1997–98 helped organize the faculty at Wright State into a union. He helped lead the fight against SB 5 at Wright State and throughout Ohio, testifying before house and senate committees and speaking at several rallies.

Fichtenbaum has also served in a number of leadership positions within the state and national AAUP, including as president of the Ohio AAUP conference, as an AAUP national Council member, and on the executive committee of the AAUP’s Collective Bargaining Congress (CBC). He currently serves as a Council member, as treasurer of the CBC, and on the investment and audit committees of the AAUP.

Fichtenbaum issued a statement in response to his election, which said, in part:

It is a great honor to have been elected to be the 50th President of the American Association of University Professors. I ran as part of a slate of candidates Organizing for Change.

Congratulations also to our Michigan representative to the AAUP National Council:

2012 District 3 - Susan Moeller, Eastern Michigan University

2011 District 3 - Joel Russell, Oakland University

 

By now we've all seen Chrysler's "Halftime in America" ad that aired for the first time during the Super Bowl. It is nothing short of inspiring: a stark reminder of the will of Michigan's workers to roll up their sleeves, gather collective strength, and push through some of the hardest times our state and our nation have ever seen.

We're making a comeback because we understand the power of cooperation and collaboration. As Clint Eastwood pointed out, "But after those trials, we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one. Because that's what we do. We find a way through tough times, and if we can't find a way, then we'll make one."

Unbelievably, there are politicians in our state Legislature who want to divide us and dismantle everything we stand for to appease corporate special interests. They want Michigan to follow Indiana's race to the bottom and become a right-to-work state. Those pushing the right-to-work agenda make the false and misleading claim that workers in Michigan are forced to join a union. But nothing could be further from the truth.

There are no laws forcing workers to pay union dues or belong to a union.

Even Gov. Rick Snyder and Senate Republican Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, won't get behind turning Michigan into a right-to-work state. Both have said this issue is too divisive, and shouldn't be a priority at a time when elected officials must remain focused on creating jobs.

Six of the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates are right-to-work states, and all six of those states have higher unemployment rates than Michigan. After Oklahoma passed its right-to-work law, jobs fell by 25 percent and the number of companies moving there dropped by 33 percent.

Workers earn an average of $1,500 less per year in right-to-work states, and struggle with higher health care costs and gutted retirement benefits. Right to work is a power grab aimed at weakening workers' rights that will lower wages and will not create a single job or educate one child.

This weekend marked the 75th anniversary of the Flint Sit-Down strike, which was a turning point for our country's middle class and a victory for workers wanting a safer, more secure workplace and a better life for their families. The higher wages, health care, pensions, and vacation time bargained for by workers through their unions carried over into every workplace in America, and Michigan was a leader in this important movement. Indiana just became the 23rd right-to-work state, and we need to make sure no other state, including Michigan, becomes the 24th. Why should we follow such states off a cliff, as extremist politicians would have us do, when we have an opportunity to lead?

Corporate special interests ran our economy into the ground, and it's time to take back everything Michigan has lost. What we haven't lost is our heart, and our spirit, and our belief that if we work together and rally around what's right, we'll make our way.

Karla Swift is president of the Michigan AFL-CIO.