04/07/2018
Ford Fam,
You may have heard the Lecturers’ Employee Organization (LEO) entered bargaining on Friday in preparation for their April 20th contract expiration. LEO will be starting a two-day campus-wide strike on Monday for a livable wage. As you may know, lecturers are non-tenure track faculty; meaning lecturers often lack the job security and wage safety as many of their colleagues performing similar work.
Included within LEO’s demands are better pay, more benefits and improved job security. Currently some Lecturers in Ann Arbor only make $15/hr. According to MIT’s calculations for living wage in Washtenaw County, that salary is $10,000 below living wage for any single parent household with children or for any two-parent household with more than one child.
The Ford School Student Affairs Committee stands with LEO during the bargaining period and strike.
LEO is calling for a two day lecturers strike on Monday, April 9th and Tuesday, April 10th. Lecturers on all three campuses have unanimously voted to proceed with strike action on April 9th and 10th. Allies can join their strike by not crossing the picket lines during the lecturer’s two-day strike. Crossing the picket line includes entering into any academic building, including the Ford School.
As members of a community favoring a living wage for our lecturers, the Ford School Student Affairs Committee believes it is only right and just to stand with the Lecturers’ Employee Organization during the upcoming bargaining period.
Here are some next steps for supporting the strike:
· Attend and share this facebook event with your peers on social media: https://www.facebook.com/events/207158619878806/
· Sign and share both this solidarity petition and picket shift sign up: https://www.change.org/p/hoai-an-pham-respectthelecs-demand-a-fair-contract-for-um-lecturers & https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfyxxE0ce2aSvvW6lBs3dIQA3TlvMhkly4xi5TeNcEaS4nHCg/viewform
· Sign up for the LEO listserv and encourage your classmates to do so as well: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScgJ-j_uSBfcEwRP6IQ2FgQtFGtEcNaQ9xe34SA4BrHQ0Gi9w/viewform
For more information on LEO, lecturers at the University of Michigan, and the upcoming strike: https://leounion.wordpress.com/2018/04/02/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-potential-leo-two-day-work-stoppage and https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/04/04/university-michigan-lecturers-union-sets-monday-strike-deadline/488045002/
In solidarity,
- Your Ford School Student Affairs Committee
Lecturers have been taking action: showing up to bargaining, attending regents’ meetings, and making other public statements about our situation. In response, administration has started improving t…
