MUNACA Strike Update

Tomorrow (friday) there is a massive solidarity rally at 11am at the Roddick Gates. If you’re local, go. More information at http://munacastrike.wordpress.com/, which is where you can get lots of other good MUNACA strike news.

Today I got a very nice thankyou note from a MUNACA picket captain for bringing croissants with me this morning(I always try and bring food to the picket line when I go in–it’s a good excuse to talk with people). Here’s my reply:

—

Hi XXXX,

Many thanks for your kind note, but let’s be clear here. You and the strikers are doing the hard work. I just bought croissants at my corner bakery and wore a button.

As we discussed, I am firmly of the belief that your bargaining will be good for others. The cuts to retirement benefits affect all employees, and despite whatever ridiculousness the administration spins about professors “accepting” this or that cut, we have done no such thing. MAUT has been largely ineffectual and irrelevant, though at least some of their members are waking up to the strike now that a prof was singled out for taking their courses off campus in solidarity. And of course, the quality of work issues and pay won’t affect professors as much (except inasmuch as we want the staff to be happy) but they will be good for all the other unionized workers at the university. Although Tony Masi’s last letter tries to paint MUNACA’s position as unreasonable (and by implication greedy), I think it is eminently reasonable to want to have a secure retirement and to have a salary that keeps pace with increases to the cost of living.

[snip]

Sincerely,
–Jonathan

Disability Theory Quote of the Day

“Constructing the axis on which disabled and nondisabled fall will be a critical step in marking all points along it.”

–Simi Linton, “Reassigning Meaning,” in Lennard J. Davis, ed, The Disability Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 2010), 235 (originally in Simi Linton, Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity (NYU Press, 1998)).

Today’s seminar topic was identity and identity politics, and many of our authors considered at length the politics of the term disability and their discomfort with it. Part of the dissatisfaction (notice the function of dis here) is that the term describes a particular position along an axis of difference rather than the axis itself. It is akin to “women” “black” “native” “gender queer” etc. What disability theory lacks, I think, is a name for the continuum on which disability exists, something that functions like race, gender, coloniality, sexuality–all these terms relativize their dominants (white, male, European, straight) by placing them in a cultural field. “Embodiment” is a candidate but much too fraught because it has already been the subject of so much theory, and because disembodiment is itself an operative concept (one cannot be disgendered, deraced or declassed and “desexualized” does not mean escaping the cultural complex of sexuality).

Perhaps there’s an answer somewhere in the disability theory literature I don’t know. But if there isn’t, there should be.

Announcing MFLAG, and other news from McGill’s second week of labor disruption

The MUNACA strike continues, though both sides have agreed to meet with a conciliator, so there is at least some hope that they will work towards an agreement.

A group of concerned faculty have formed the McGill Faculty Labor Action Group (MFLAG), and we joined the student solidarity group in Thursday’s protest (note that the article has one inaccuracy: although a majority of MFLAG members are currently arts professors, we are not the only faculty represented in the group).

Things remain fairly spirited on the picket lines, though let’s face it: walking a circle for four hours is pretty dull. That’s why it’s important for people who support the strike to visit the picket lines. I make sure I spend some time on the line every time I go in to school, and I also make sure to bring in some kind of baked good from the Portuguese bakery around the corner.

What to do if you support the MUNACA strike:

Join the picket lines. Spend some time talking with MUNACA employees. The way to do it: 1) buy some tasty finger food and bring it with you to share or donate; 2) find the picket captain (hint: there will be a clipboard nearby) and introduce yourself; 3) see if anyone you know if picketing–the staff from your department or program would probably love to see you; 4) march for as long as you’d like–even a few minutes breaks up the day for the picketer and keeps spirits up.

Write a letter to Heather Munroe-Blum and Tony Masi expressing your support in your own words. Even if you don’t understand or agree with every single plank of MUNACA’s demands, you can still write a general letter expressing your support. Send a copy to MUNACA president Kevin Whittaker.

ORGANIZE. There are solidarity groups now for professors, undergrads, and (presumably) graduate students. As groups, we can accomplish more than as individuals.

Show some kindness: be patient with other university workers, especially M-level employees (“M class” employees are usually office managers who supervise MUNACA staff; right now the administration is trying to make them do the jobs of all the people they supervise, as well as their own).

Finally, DOCUMENT. The administration says it’s business as usual, but it’s not. Services are bending and breaking all over campus. If you can’t do your job or pursue some aspect of your studies because of the strike, document it.

September is Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month

More information here and here.

It’s good that this is the month to be aware of thyroid cancer because boy, am I sure aware of it. After a year away, in which I could effectively spend most of my time living in denial, I’m back in the medical system with lots of followup appointments and tests. I haven’t done a lot of public post-cancer reflection on this blog, other than a brief stint in February, when I was working through my own struggles with the memory of lost time (start here and hit “next” for the series if you missed it).

But now I’m back and so it’s appointment after appointment. Mostly my doctors tell me I look good, which I mostly do since I’ve managed to achieve something approximating the expected sabbatical weight loss. A year later I have some lingering complications, and complications to my complications. Most of them are pretty minor when I catalog them: I learned in visiting with my radiation oncologists that the sudden, frequent and painful neck spasms I’ve been having since May are likely the result of scarred muscle from the external beam radiation treatment (as he put it, “we have to put the radiation somewhere, and it’s better than your bones). Massage and hopefully physical therapy will help with that but I have no idea what the long term prognosis is. A hernia I first experienced after waking from my 4-day-twilight in February 2010 bothers me from time to time. The worst flare up involved a car, bubble tea, coughing and laughing. And there’s other stuff I will leave off the blog for now. But of course the big thing is the voice.

People tell me my voice sounds fine, and if it’s not too loud around, I suppose it does. It resembles the way my voice used to sound. But ultimately, it’s not the sound of the voice (well, it is its sound in that people say “what?” to me a lot more and computers and phone menus don’t recognize my voice as a voice). AS I said in my August 29th entry, it’s the experience and the mechanics of speaking. I have been waiting to try and give a fuller description of what it is like to talk now. Wednesday I have an appointment with a laryngologist that should yield some insights. Not that my audience is waiting with baited breath or anything, but I will finally start to deliver on the impaired vocal phenomenology then.

Update: MAUT disingenuous?

Last night’s message from the provost indicated that

The University has a signed agreement with MUNACA representatives, designating animal care as an “essential service”. These essential services will ensure that proper care of animals will be maintained for the duration of the strike. For specific details as they relate to your area, please contact Dr. Jim Gourdon, Director of the McGill Animal Resources Centre (jim.gourdon@mcgill.ca).

Which makes the MAUT line about research animals (quoted in the post below) look disingenuous.

I’m so annoyed by the MAUT’s position statement that I had to make another post just to express that. Perhaps it’s because they claim that they speak for professors that I am so bothered but an apparent failure to hold to a basic standard of truth, maturity and careful reasoning.

McGill University Non-Academic Workers on Strike

MUNACA, McGill’s union of non-academic professionals, went on strike yesterday at 6am. MUNACA members do a great deal of the work that keeps the university running. Our department has three MUNACA staff, and I depend mightily upon them as a faculty member. In my time as grad director and then chair, I got to know them even better. They work as hard as faculty, the hours are often as long, and mostly they do things so we and our students can walk around leading the life of the mind. For this, they are paid considerably less than faculty, but also less than their other counterparts are major Montréal universities.

To my knowledge, this is the first major strike by that union at McGill; no doubt it is fuelled by their affiliation with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).

Today’s Montreal Gazette has a story summarizing some of the issues, “balanced” by some whining by people who don’t like being inconvenienced. In fairness to the people quoted, the McGill Association of University Teachers (an entity which claims to represent professors on campus but appears to have no real power or existence separate from university administration) also has a somewhat childish “this is a bad time for a strike” clause in their official position statement, which I excerpt here:

A strike at this time would heavily impact students returning to classes, departments attempting to mount classes and to administer programs without a full contingent of support staff, and faculty who must teach classes without necessary administrative support. MAUT would like to bring attention to the special difficulties faced by researchers who are entering the granting season, whose success may be diminished by the absence of administrative support. Further, the interruptions to timely ordering and delivery of research materials and supplies from suppliers will heavily impact the training of graduate students. Even worse, the potential, irrevocable loss of critical animal models for many researchers will be catastrophic. Their research success is the key to McGill’s excellence, and it should be kept in mind that submissions to granting agencies represent team efforts, with administrative staff playing indispensable roles in preparing grant proposals.

That seems like some faulty logic. If MUNACA staff are so critical, maybe they deserve some of the things they are asking for?

Anyway, if professors think that the strike is about them, or their research, or their feelings, I fear they are sorely deluded.

—

You can read up on the strike on MUNACA’s site and around the web. If you feel motivated to write a letter of support, send it to our principal, Heather Munroe-Blum.

Other things you can do:

–> join the picket line
–> bring nice pastries or other snacks to the picket line (maybe not from union-busting Tim Horton’s, though)
–> educate your friends and colleagues about the strike
–> meet with other like-minded people and dream up more substantive strategies to support the MUNACA workers until the strike is resolved

My letter to the principal and provost is reproduced below, lightly edited:

—

Dear Heather and Tony,

I am writing to ask that you do everything in your power to come to a quick settlement with MUNACA. I am aware of the administration’s official position on the matter and have read the official communiques, along with MUNACA’s.

In three years as chair of the department of Art History and Communication Studies, I got to know my MUNACA staff very well. They work as hard as many faculty, and always went the extra mile to look after students or the department. They are totally dedicated, and totally essential to the running of the university.

But since 2007 I have seen all sorts of staff benefits erode, from summer Fridays, to the changes in the pensions, to replacements for staff who leave (effectively increasing the workload of the remaining staff). I read what Michael Di Grappa said about compensation packages, but the salaries are low compared to other schools and I tend to think it has something to do with assumptions about the local market for Anglophone office workers (though many MUNACA employees are bilingual, Francophone or Allophone). To this I would only add that MUNACA staff do not always feel particularly valued by the university, and a show of good faith now would go a long way in that respect.

I know we’re in a huge financial crunch, but surely the savings from squeezing support staff can’t be that much in the grand scheme of things.

We could and should do better. I hope that you will.

Sincerely,
–Jonathan

PS — As always, if there is a role I can play in helping the university support its support staff, please don’t hesitate to call on me.

Speech Impairment: in the news, in the booth, at some parties, and in situ

Yesterday’s New York Times had a story on sports figures with temporary vocal cord paralysis–announcers Joe Buck and Dick Vitale, and referee Mike Pereira. The piece more or less exactly describes my own difficulties. Here’s Pereira talking about himself and Buck:

“You have to reach more into your diaphragm to get the vocal cords to work,” he said. “When Joe reaches deeper, he has movement; he can get near his voice. I’d reach to my core to put out what people called a loud whisper. I remember being exhausted by the end of the day to get people to hear me.”

Buck, meanwhile, has to modulate his voice:

“Still, his voice strains when he becomes excited or tries to raise his volume quickly. When Prince Fielder and Adrian Gonzalez hit home runs at last month’s All-Star Game, Buck could barely be heard over the crowd. His call of a touchdown to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Hines Ward during a N.F.L. preseason game last week was perfunctory, as if he were a quiet Pat Summerall.”

Although all the people in the story had recovered or expected to recover (I don’t), the problems are all too familiar. Where I used to be able to raise my voice, now my voice just cracks up if I push it too much. And there’s still a too much before “too much.” After Saturday’s two parties, and even with the speech amp around my neck, I was exhausted from simply trying to make myself heard. It sounds like I am speaking at normal volume, but inside, I’m yelling.

Part of it is on me, to let the excitement go and allow the amplifier to do the work. But I also find more and more that I avoid loud places when I can. Intellectually, I remain critical of the “noise is bad for us” line of argument, whether we are talking about public places, private homes, or aesthetics. But experientially a noisy room exerts a kind of weight on my vocal system. It does that to everyone, but to use a phrase from Tobin Seibers, my speech system–the voice, mouth, lungs, diaphragm–is considerably more tender. The air is thick with sound, and my speech swims more slowly, pulling my breath with it. I can literally talk so hard that I become light headed. I haven’t talked to the point of passing out since March 2010, when I was still learning, but I sometimes surprise myself by getting too close to the edge.

In any event, like the announcers, I worry about my voice as a significant source of my livelihood. I have been developing a kind of “rider” for talks I give, as experimentation has yielded some insights. But I wonder what it will be like to deliver lectures to big classes. Happily, this year I have seminars. And the mechanics of speech will be for another post or series of them.

In the meantime, and regardless of the game, you can bet I will be listening with interest to Buck’s first football call on the 11th.

[Insert reflexive comment about “why do we need celebrities to validate our disabilities?” here.]