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SEIU Union Drive, “Let the Propagandizing Begin”
April 9, 2016 Disingenuous

After getting nothing from Mr. Holt or the SEIU for a couple of weeks, a little bit of information about the organizing effort trickled out onto campus. A student mentioned to me a Campus Times article in support of the effort, I did not see it. But then, in what turns out to be fairly verbatim language from the CT article, and it what is choc full of vacuous and uninformed sloganeering, this is what hit my inbox. By the way, this was sent unsolicited, to my private email address FROM students at the U of R. It is one thing for other faculty members to send me notes or for the SEIU itself to send me notes, but how on earth would a group of students have access to my personal email address and then use it to send me propaganda?

The note they sent me follows below, my recent correspondence about it is in a subsequent post:

Rochester Faculty Forward rochesterfacultyforward@gmail.com via nationsend10.com 

Apr 6 (3 days ago)

to me

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Michael,

As students at the University of Rochester, we have been working hard over the past couple of months to support faculty’s unionizing effort. We know that the contributions of our faculty to teaching are invaluable, and those contributions can be threatened by the job insecurity, low wages and lack of benefits. To put it simply, your working conditions are our learning conditions.

We’re not the only members of the U of R community to recognize and support faculty’s right to unionize. Several  local elected leaders, including Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren, have come out in support of your these efforts. Last week, we delivered a petition that, when combined with our print signatures, lists over a thousand members of the community in support the of faculty’s union effort.

Faculty also have support from colleagues outside of Rochester. This truly is a national movement; all across the country faculty are coming together to improve working conditions and raise standards in higher education. We support our non-tenured faculty members at University of Rochester as they form their union, following in the footsteps of schools like Ithaca and Wells College, Duke University, the University of Chicago, Georgetown, and American University.

Just as we discussed in our petition, we call on the University of Rochester administration to foster an environment where faculty can decide for themselves on the union question, without interference. The freedom to organize and engage in collective action to improve working conditions is a fundamental right. We hope University of Rochester will use this opportunity to show leadership in respecting the rights of  of our non-tenured faculty.

For faculty who are still considering taking part in the union effort, we hope that you
join the movement by signing this electronic authorization card. Moving forward, we will continue to stand with you and your colleagues as we work together to make the Rochester a better place to live and learn.

In solidarity,

Caleb Whittier
Danielle Gartenberg
Darya Nicol
Joseph Stephens
Margaret Thurston
Miles Meth
Rachel Casper
Shurouq Hijazi

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This email was sent to rizzo.liberty@gmail.com.

How very exciting. Not only am I being propagandized, but I am being propagandized by three of my own students who I have either advised or have had in class. I decided I would respond first to the email address above (and got no response, SURPRISE! and then individually to the students who signed their name to the email). And deeper into the rabbit hole we go.

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