Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Maybe, probably, I’m not on the right mailing lists, but I just got the following e-mail, which was the first I’d heard of this event:

Rally to Support Striking UM Workers,

Friday March 10, 4:30 pm County Bldg. 111 NW 1st ST That’s Government Center in downtown!!

Every Miami Worker Deserves A Chance for a Better Life. You Can Help UM Janitors Get That Chance.

IT’S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE ENDS MEET in Miami on $6.40 an hour. Yet that’s all many contract cleaners at the University of Miami are paid. $51 a day with no health benefits. Less than half the county median wage. On these tiny salaries, we’re forced to make choices we never thought we’d be faced with in the United States: Do we pay rent or buy groceries? Buy shoes for our kids or fill a prescription? UM’s mostly Cuban-American janitors have been joining together to build a better life for ourselves one where we don’t have to make these choices. But the company we work for–UNICCO, the cleaning contractor hired by the university–has been punishing those who speak out by threatening, intimidating, and even suspending union supporters. So we’ve decided we must strike to make our voices heard. You can help send a message to UNICCO:

Give Miami janitors a chance to live the American dream.

Support Striking Janitors
RALLY: Friday, March 10 ? 4:30 p.m.
County Building, 111 NW 1st Street

For more information, contact SEIU Local 11 305-672-7071, ext. 246
Service Employees International Union Local 11

This all seems rather last minute. I’m certainly not in a position to go. I hope they know what they are doing.

Update: The organizers’ account of the rally — 300+ is a good turnout for this sort of event.

The law school has set up a strike blog to aid communication between the school and students. It’s brand new, so there isn’t much content there yet, but I’m told there will be more within 24 hours.

From: “Coker, Donna K.”
Subject: Strike Blog & Other Related Matters

Dear Students,

I want thank those students who participated in the two events on Tuesday – the information session organized by students at noon and the town hall discussion in the afternoon. While faculty differ in their responses to the strike, the conversation at the town hall meeting made clear that they are strongly committed to student education. The video of the town hall meeting will be posted on the “web cast” page of the web site.

The strong differences of opinion and the robust nature of public debate regarding those differences exemplify the kind of thoughtful community that is the University Of Miami School Of Law. We would expect no less from our passionate and intellectually engaged faculty and students. While some of these issues divide us, we share commitments to intellectual honesty, to justice, and to the value of a community of learning.

The Law School has established a blog to continue the conversation about the strike. You can find it at http://www.umlaw.net/strike/. We asked faculty to post strike-related messages to students on the blog rather than via email. The blog, of course, gives students an additional way to communicate with each other as well as with administration and faculty.

We will continue to monitor the situation with the strike and the ramifications for the law school community. We anticipate sponsoring further informational sessions. If you are having difficulty with locating taped classes (web or otherwise), please let us know. Our AV department is working overtime to keep up with the demands of the current crisis.

Donna Coker
Associate Dean

Steve Vladeck has written up some thoughts spurred by the Town Meeting yesterday. When Students Strike Back — Some Reactions. Go read it. (The comments are well worth reading too.) I’ll wait.

Like Steve, I find myself taken aback by the size of the anti-strike faction among the students, and especially at the vehemence of a significant minority of the students who experience some of their professors’ decisions to move classes off campus as a wholly unreasonable imposition on their time (rather than as an understandable attempt to deal with difficult circumstances), or even as a cheap political stunt enacted by unfeeling hypocritical brutes.

I am lucky I am not teaching this semester, as it saves me the painful choices and the massive amounts of extra work that face my colleagues. So instead, let me ruminate out loud. It seems to me that there are two surprising things going on here: one is the lack of solidarity between (quite a few ) students and workers with whom they are in close proximity. The other is the lack of solidarity between (quite a few) students and the faculty with whom they are in close proximity. Indeed, one might go so far as to wonder at the hair-trigger anger of (quite a few) students at the faculty and administration. (The third thing going on — that so many people see their view as ‘neutral’ and the other view as ‘biased’ is unfortunate, but hardly surprising.)

I can’t help compare this to my memory of being a first semester 1L during one Yale’s many strikes. It may be that because I was off campus I wasn’t exposed to the full breadth of anti-striker and anti-strike-supporter sentiment, but my sense then, almost 20 years ago now, was that these views existed, were articulated, but were held by only a tiny minority. And while there was deep grumbling about individual faculty members’ choices, I don’t recall much hatred. I certainly resented my Contracts prof’s decision to stay on campus but it never felt terribly personal. It was just the way he was going to be.

So I’m wondering if it’s the times that are different, or the place?

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