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Letter to the Editor: Faculty Members Speak Out Regarding Labor Organizing Issue

By Lynne Huffer and Jonathan Prude Posted: 05/06/2010

To the editor:

We, the undersigned faculty of Emory University, are writing in the context of the union organizing effort currently in progress among the food worker employees of Sodexo, one of the University’s subcontractors. More specifically, we are writing in response to a statement outlining the University’s stance toward this organizing effort issued by the President’s Cabinet and published in the Emory Wheel (“Emory’s Position on Labor Organizing Issue,” 4.1.10).

We have a major concern about this statement.

It is of course right and proper to stipulate (as the Cabinet does in its articulation of University policy) that Emory should remain neutral on the question of whether Sodexo employees should adopt union representation.

But to agree with this is emphatically not to endorse the proposition that is offered at the outset of the Cabinet’s statement and that appears to frame its entire perspective: that “[t]he employees in question are not Emory employees, and Emory does not control the labor policies of its contractors.”

We find this viewpoint disturbing and disappointing. As the administration must know, the argument by businesses and other organizations that they are not responsible for the behavior of sub-contractors has a long and sorry history. Surely Emory does not want to be accused of seeking refuge behind the notion that practices transpiring on our campus are — effectively — not our problem simply because they are carried out by subsidiary contractors. Surely this is not the proper posture for a University striving to claim an identity — and mount a major fund-raising drive — grounded in claims of blending academic excellence and ethics.

Surely a school committed to “courageous inquiry” and “engaged scholarship,” to being a “noble community,” does not want to be viewed as minimizing its responsibilities for what occurs in its own buildings and on its own grounds. Surely Emory does not want to stand accused of finding it easier to extend moral and intellectual capital to foreign lands than to pay mindful attention to what happens in the DUC cafeteria.

Our point (to reiterate) is not that Emory should take sides on the question of unionization by Sodexo workers. Our point is that the University’s neutrality should be linked not to disengagement — “the employees in question are not Emory employees” — but rather to a clear and affirmative insistence that this institution’s own values compel it to insist that the liberties of all involved — certainly including these very employees — will be taken seriously and safeguarded. We would respectfully suggest that the need for such insistence is the more pressing precisely because prevailing legal and administrative regimens — not excepting several evoked in the Cabinet’s statement — have in actual fact not always proved effective in protecting employee rights.

But then, beyond this affirmative declaration, we would also urge that the University begin to take far more seriously its role as an employer. Emory’s non-faculty workforce currently runs to some 20,000 individuals. The University’s footprint in the local labor market is thus substantial — and its responsibilities are commensurately sizable.

Indeed, just as Emory concluded it needed to initiate new administrative mechanisms — in the form of policies and commissions — to address race and ethnicity, the status of women, as well as sexuality, gender diversity and queer equality, so it may well be time to create comparable mechanisms to consider and formulate employment practices appropriate for a “destination university” of the 21st century. We would suggest that the proposals advanced by Students and Workers in Solidarity (SWS) for a Presidential Commission on the Status of Labor along with a University Code of Conduct for Contracted and Sub-Contracted Employees could prove useful starting points for these new considerations and formulations.

We hope the Emory administration will appreciate that we are writing in the spirit of a shared commitment to strengthening Emory. But we hope they will also appreciate our belief that a strengthened Emory must have the imagination — and confidence — to reassess how it deals with its non-academic labor force.

Lynne Huffer
Department of Women’s Studies

Jonathan Prude
Department of History

A version of the above, addressed to University President James W. Wagner and Provost Earl Lewis, was signed by the following 78 members of the Emory faculty:

1.) Alan Abramowitz — Alben W. Barkley Professor, Political Science

2.) Walter L. Adamson — Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor, History

3.) Monique Allewaert — Assistant Professor, English

4.) Carol Anderson — Associate Professor, African American Studies

5.) Tonio Andrade — Associate Professor, History

6.) Kathryn E. Amdur — Associate Professor, History

7.) Angelika Bammer — Associate Professor, ILA

8.) Matthew Bernstein — Professor and Chair, Film Studies

9.) Stefan Boettcher — Associate Professor, Physics

10.) Elizabeth M. Bounds — Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, Candler School of Theology

11.) John M. Bugge — Professor, English

12.) Patricia Cahill — Associate Professor, English

13.) Clifton C. Crais — Professor, History

14.) Leroy Davis, Jr. — Associate Professor, History and African American Studies

15.) Robert Desrochers — Assistant Professor, History

16.) Jason Francisco — Associate Professor, Photography and Visual Studies; Chair Visual Arts and Gallery

17.) Carla Freeman — Associate Professor, Anthropology and Women’s Studies

18.) Sander L. Gilman — Distinguished Professor Liberal Arts and Sciences, ILA

19.) Jonathan Goldberg — Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor, English

20.) Elizabeth Goodstein — Associate Professor, ILA

21.) Vialla Hartfield-Méndez — Director of Engaged Learning, Office of University-Community Partnerships

22.) Leslie Harris — Associate Professor, History and African American Studies

23.) Peter Hoyng — Associate Professor and Chair, German Studies

24.) Lynne R. Huffer — Professor and Chair, Women’s Studies

25.) Lawrence Jackson — Associate Professor, English and African American Studies

26.) Walter Kalaidjian — Professor, English

27.) Ivan Karp — National Endowment for the Humanities Professor, ILA

28.) Uriel Kitron — Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Studies

29.) Gary Laderman — Professor and Chair, Religion

30.) Jeffrey Lesser — Samuel Dobbs Professor of Latin American History, Director Tam Institute for Jewish Studies

31.) Amanda Evelyn Lewis — Associate Professor, Sociology

32.) Valérie Loichot — Associate Professor, French

33.) David Lynn — Professor and Chair, Chemistry

34.) John Lysaker — Professor, Philosophy

35.) Kristin Mann — Professor and Chair, History

36.) Donna Maney — Associate Professor, Psychology

37.) Ian McFarland — Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Candler School of Theology

38.) Roxani Margariti — Associate Professor, MESAS

39.) James Melton — Professor, History and German Studies

40.) Judith Miller — Associate Professor, History

41.) Michael Moon — Professor, ILA

42.) Mary E. Odem — Associate Professor, History

43.) Michael Owens — Associate Professor, Political Science and Principal Investigator Prisoners of Democracy Project

44.) Laura Otis — Professor, English

45.) Gyanendra Pandey — Asa G. Candler Professor, History

46.) Laurie L. Patton — Charles Howard Candler Professor, Religion

47.) Matthew Payne — Associate Professor, History

48.) L. Edward Phillips — Associate Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology, Candler School of Theology

49.) Robert Presutti — Curator of Archives and Manuscripts, Pitts Theology Library

50.) Jonathan Prude — Associate Professor, History

51.) Richard Rambuss — Professor and Chair, English

52.) Walter L. Reed — Professor, English and Chair, ILA

53.) Beth Reingold — Associate Professor, Political Science

54.) Benjamin Reiss — Professor, English

55.) Judith Rohrer — Associate Professor and Chair, Art History

56.) James L. Roark — Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor, History

57.) Marina Rustow — Associate Professor, History

58.) Deboleena Roy — Associate Professor, Women’s Studies

59.) Teemu Ruskola — Professor, Law School

60.) Mark Sanders — Associate Professor, English and African American Studies

61.) Pamela F. Scully — Associate Professor, Women’s Studies and African Studies

62.) John Snarey — Professor, Candler School of Theology

63.) Holloway Sparks — Assistant Professor, Women’s Studies

64.) Karen Stolley — Associate Professor and Chair, Spanish and Portuguese

65.) Michael Sullivan — Associate Professor, Philosophy

66.) John J. Stuhr — Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and American Studies, Chair, Philosophy

67.) Sharon T. Strocchia — Professor, History

68.) Steven M. Tipton — Professor, Candler School of Theology

69.) Allen Tullos — Associate Professor, ILA

70.) Donald Tuten — Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese and Linguistics

71.) Eric Weeks — Associate Professor, Physics

72.) Regina Werum — Associate Professor, Sociology

73.) Andrea Christina White — Assistant Professor of Theology and Culture, Candler School of Theology

74.) Deborah Elise White — Associate Professor, English and Comparative Literature

75.) Stephen White — Asa G. Candler Professor, History

76.) Cynthia Willett — Professor, Philosophy

77.) Craig Womack — Associate Professor, English

78.) Yanna Yannakakis — Assistant Professor, History