Got an email from CM today encouraging me to shit or get off the pot--i.e. post, or give up my posting privileges.
So here's my post.
[rant]
I live and work in Wisconsin, at a campus in the UW system. I posted last month about the attempt to communicate with our local state Senator (which was completely fruitless), who is now on the list of 8 Republicans targeted for recall (along with 8 of the WI-14 Dems).
I have been unable to think about anything other than the clusterfuck that is my state's Republican legislature and Governor--except for my classes. I teach 4 courses (2 MW, 2 TR), so I have prep and grading for those that must be done in a timely fashion.
Therein lies the problem: "timely."
In order to do this job, I, like most of my colleagues (and probably all of you here on CM) work long hours. I'm on campus from 8:30-4:30 M-F and I don't take a lunch break. I often work in the evenings, to the distress of my Other Half, who would like to talk to me occasionally, since we got married to have each other to talk to (among other things). I work at least one day (and often two) on the weekend, always on grading. Grading grading grading. This means that my Other Half must take Thing One and Thing Two and keep them occupied. Or it means that I have to find a coffeeshop with wi-fi (which is a bit harder to do here in the hinterlands) because libraries make me itchy.
You know it; I know it. This job is way more than 40-hours per week, if done properly. Yet we are paid on a 40-hour per week basis.
And I am facing what amounts to a 13% paycut, which will go into effect when the bill that passed last week in a dirty, craven end-run around the legalities of bill passage goes into effect on March 26th. I will be making less after attaining tenure than I did when I started this job. Since 2005, the CPI has gone up 15%. I haven't even had a cost-of-living increase since then. Even my OH has had raises in the current economy. I haven't, and have been furloughed 3% over the last two years (which for me amounts to $2500 given back to the state).
So I am on strike. Sort of. I work 40 hours per week: the hours that I am on campus. After that, I do no reading, no prep, no grading. I am done working for free.
I am fucking pissed. I am disgusted. I am sickened and enraged by the tactics employed by the Republicans in power. I have marched on the Capitol twice (most recently on Saturday with 99,999 of my dearest friends). I have posted so much stuff about Wisconsin's budget mess to my Facebook page that my friends in other states are coming to me for updates they're not getting from the so-called liberal mainstream media. Or they're blocking me because they're tired of hearing about it--
But most of all, I am seriously questioning why I spent my entire adult life working towards tenure because I thought that maybe I could have a decent middle class life.
I'm one of the lucky ones. I got into a TT position, and managed to get tenure (unless the Provost, the Chancellor, or the BOR nixes it, which I suppose is a possibility at this point). I love my job--love teaching my students, love my colleagues. I'm so lucky to not have to deal with the bullshit and backbiting that so many CM posters have written about.
I don't want to leave Wisconsin, but I know now where the voters' priorities lie--and it's not with education. Not when the commenters on newspaper websites consistently mouth the idea that teachers at all levels are overpaid, lazy, and useless.
My only hope is that the recall(s) for the Republicans are successful and we're able to roll back some of the horrible shit that's in these bills (power plants for sale to whoever the Governor says can have them, at whatever price; cuts to Badgercare and Medicaid; repeal of clean water and recycling programs; it just goes on and on).
It's going on in Michigan, and Indiana, and Ohio too--and rest assured that if they're successful here, they're coming for you, too. Our only hope lies in solidarity--in concentrated, organized refusal to roll over and take it.
[/end rant]
Chrome:
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you've noticed, but the centrists of the world are horrified about what happened in Wisconsin. I've always been a little pinko-lefty-commie, and my friends used to laugh at my comments about institutionalized racism, inherited social disadvantage, and the importance for unions in just about any profession (barring politicians).
Now I find my Republican-voting, centrist friends horrified. The libertarian doubting Ron Paul. I have friends who voted for Bush both times but marched last weekend with a bunch of farmers at your capitol!
I know a family in Ohio who haven't voted since Clinton, but who are actively organizing against that clusterf@ck. My college roommate is a nurse for the elderly who finally stopped spewing racist shit and is now doing all she can to fight the crazy coming out of the Michigan governor she put in office.
It's going to be a tough few years. But I feel hope for the first time in awhile. I hear common people, bored people, conservative people starting either regret voting Republican or suddenly understanding how crucial public works, public transit, and public education are.
The workers are fucked. But I think this will be temporary. The corporations don't want this unrest to spread (so no mainstream coverage) but people are watching. And they are shocked. Pissed. Ready to stop this fanatic experiment of cutting til we all die.
Japan did the opposite. Compare New Orleans with Soma.
@Chrome: I think all the correspondents got that email. I know I did, and I'd posted twice in the 10 days or so preceding. But I'm glad it prompted you do send another update from Wisconsin, since I've appreciated having your perspective on the mess there.
ReplyDeleteI think Monkey has a point: although it looks bad in the short term, I suspect the Wisconsin situation may be one of the catalysts for more Americans waking up to the full implications of the jobless recovery, the disappearing middle class, and the ongoing attack on public employees and the unions that represent them. Even the relatively comfortable, relatively conservative boomers who can still afford to retire themselves are realizing that, if their college-educated kids can't find jobs that allow them to move out of the house, raise and educate families, and save for their own retirements, the next few decades won't look at all like what they had planned. And for better or for worse, K-12 teaching, and, to a lesser extent, other forms of public service, have often been served, at least psychologically, as a fallback plan (and/or a potential source of a 2nd income, insurance, and/or a pension) for a lot of college-educated adults/families.
BurntChrome, I've got it nowhere near as bad as you, but I wept and raged when making Full Prof brought me a lesser salary than I'd had as an Associate due to pay cuts and furloughs.
ReplyDeleteYou go with your reduction of work hours. I did that too. Meanwhile, we are ALL in solidarity with you in Wisconsin. Why the students are not taking over buildings is beyond me -- they think all this is in THEIR best interest? They and their parents, the "customers," are the only ones with any power the admin would ever listen to. But my undergrads have suffered 32% tuition increases in the past 2-3 years, and are staggering while not quite getting why these labor issues with teachers might be part of the same problem.
@Chrome & Cassandra:
ReplyDeleteI did write all correspondents. We had been temporarily at 100 (the maximum) for a few weeks, but there were a number of folks who had not posted in more than 6 months. I wanted to be fair by writing the same note to everyone, but I clearly didn't word the thing well because a handful of folks thought I was telling them to "shit or get off the pot."
I fucked that up, and I apologize.
About 20 folks (some who had posted only once since June of last year) did give up their spots, so we have space for new correspondents should any want to come aboard.
Leslie K
@Leslie: no apologies necessary. It was pretty clear pretty quickly to me that it must be an email to all correspondents, and the example of inadequate posting was enough to tell me that I didn't fall in the target category.
ReplyDeleteHere in MI we're feeling you pain, brother/sister. It's time for the revolution. In fact, it's so bad that the faculty and the administrators are agreeing on things. Clearly hell has frozen over.
ReplyDelete@Academic Monkey, Cassandra, F & T: Thanks. I appreciate the support, and the perspective. I am trying to take a long view of this whole thing, but since I feel like I'm in the center of shitstorm of epic proportions, I'm finding it difficult (as are a lot of my colleagues. There are 430 of us so far on a FB group and we're mainly there to support each other).
ReplyDelete@Leslie--I took no offense, as I did post last month re: the situation in WI, but I have been hesitant to post more lest it seem like whining. However, unleashing this post definitely made me feel better, and even better is knowing that other people on CM care.
@Prof HH: Solidarity! We're watching what's going on in MI too--fight the powers!!
ReplyDelete@BC and all ...
ReplyDeleteAlthough, to be honest, I have always leaned left-of-center, I assiduously clung to my independent label (and identity) because I truly did believe I could lend my support to any leader of any ideology so long as his/her ideas and values made sense to me.
Then the last three years happened ...
I have lived 99% of my life in the northeast. Yanno, that bastion of pinko, bleeding-heart, Puritan liberalism that the most of the rest of the country looks upon with elitist derision but neglects to notice we regularly elect Republican governors to put the breaks on our Democratic legislatures.
It generally has provided a decent balance of fiscal moderation with a solid devotion to public services.
Not unlike ... Wisconsin.
Walker and his enablers scare the ever loving bejeezus out of me.
I'd like to believe those who are saying this will be the wake up call American needs to awaken from its complacency.
I just watched "Atomic Cafe" (thank you Netflix streaming!), the 1982 documentary highlighting the attitudes and propaganda leading up to and during the Cold War. The demogoguery, hyperbole, and arrogant certitude displayed were chilling! More so as it seemed SO familiar to our modern discourse. BUT instead of being directed at a foreign culture which, frankly, we knew little truth about, today the anger is directed within our own communities.
I feel your pain, BC and hope beyond hope that I am wrong, but in my heart seeing incuriosity and ignorance becoming virtuous -- I fear we are unequivocally f@cked.
@BurntChrome
ReplyDeleteThings will change....according to "The Washington Post" over 56,000 signatures have been collected for a recall election of eight Republican senators in Wisconsin, and they have done this with 3/4ths of the time remaining. If this works, possibly the GOP will get a bloody nose.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/nearly-half-of-signatures-collected-to-recall-wisconsin-gop-senators-dems-say/2011/03/03/ABhVvQV_blog.html
(BTW, your avatar; I own that book. Cyberpunk was more interesting than what we do with a real Internet.)
Chrome--I am so grateful that you posted this; it's a far better thing you do here than grade a few papers, as too few of us know as much as we should about what is going on, as you noted, thnaks to the erstwhile liberal media...What a joke.
ReplyDeletePlease tell us where the recall threat to 8 of the 14 HERO senators is coming from: I'm assuming it's a backlash move on the part of some snot-nosed Teathuglicans, but if I'm wrong, I'd like to know.
In solidarity!
@Mrs C: The recall threat for the Dems is coming from a Utah-based PAC called the American Recall Coalition: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Recall_Coalition
ReplyDelete@Strel: I <3 WG. We're headed for the reality he wrote in 1984.
Chrome --
ReplyDeleteIn Maryland, we call that "Work to Rule", and that's what my wife (high school math teacher) did for a couple of months while the county decided whether to honor or discard the contract they had signed the year before. No grading or prep at home, no unpaid after-school clubs, kids staying after school for help only had 50 minutes.
The contract was eventually honored. I honestly have no idea if WTR made an impact.