U of M Labor and Community Strike Support Committee

September 14, 2007

Dear President Bruininks, Provost Sullivan, Vice President Carol Carrier, Director of Human Resources Patti Dion, and the Board of Regents:

We are writing as concerned faculty, staff, administrators, and students of the University of Minnesota. The AFSCME strike is now entering its third week, and while university administration spokespersons and the press downplay the effects of the strike on university business, we feel the loss of valuable personnel most acutely. We urge the university administration to reach a fair settlement with AFSCME so that our trusted colleagues and friends can return to work at the fair and just living wages that they deserve.

We represent dozens of units in the university, but we write collectively as families of the University of Minnesota Child Care Center to demonstrate our support of all of the teaching staff there.

The UMCCC is one of the university’s most highly valued and important assets. It has been recognized as a model child care center in the state for its design, high quality care, and especially, its award-winning teachers. The UMCCC staff, but especially its teachers, provides a vital service to the over one hundred university faculty, staff, and student families who depend on the excellent, nurturing environment and curriculum that our children receive every day. By providing excellent care to our children, UMCCC teachers allow us to do the university’s work in our own departments and administrative units and in our research, teaching, and service.

As is the case with all of the members of AFSCME, UMCCC teachers are severely underpaid. And this wage inequity threatens not only the quality of child care at the university, but also the ability of UMCCC families to do the vital work of the university. Unlike other child care centers in an industry that has a notoriously high turnover rate, the UMCCC is known for having teachers who have been at the center for several years. It is vitally important to ensure that UMCCC teachers are paid the salaries that are commensurate with the excellent work and service that they provide. If we do not, we risk losing our most experienced and talented teachers and irrevocably diminishing the quality of care at the center.

The vital importance of our UMCCC teachers has been made even clearer to us since the beginning of the AFSCME strike. The very ability of parents (who are faculty, staff, administrators, and students) to come into work, not to mention do a good job, depends on quality child care. We believe that having well-appreciated teachers and happy, secure children is perhaps the single most important influence on parental productivity. Cutting edge research, teaching, and service cannot occur in a vacuum; our work is absolutely dependent on the stellar work of others. This necessary strike, and the disruption in our collective work that has ensued, demonstrates the utter dependence and fragility of our dual roles as working parents. It unmasks the pretension of "business as usual" and the sheer folly of assuming that “we” can carry on without all of our workers.

The UMCCC community – the teachers, staff, parents, and children – are deeply feeling the effects of the University administration’s refusal to properly compensate ASFCME workers with funds the legislature has earmarked for this purpose. Nine of the 25 AFSCME employees at UMCCC are presently on strike. Staff who remain at the center continue to provide excellent care, but under difficult conditions. One teacher who had been on maternity leave has been called back to work. Many parents have considered bringing in their children for shorter days or keeping them home whenever possible in order to alleviate pressure on UMCCC teachers and staff. But this is not an option for many of us if we wish to continue to do the university's work.

The substitute teachers and student child care workers are doing a great job under great pressure, but our children miss the innovative curriculum and projects, the secure routines, and the calm under pressure that only the most experienced teachers can provide. We greatly appreciate ALL of the teaching staff at the child care center. We strongly feel that we cannot afford to lose any one of these teachers who would be a tremendous asset to any child care and education center in the country.

Many of us came to the University of Minnesota because of its reputation not only as a leading research university, but also because of its history of community responsibility – its caring for its employees, and its realization that work-life balance is crucial to a thriving university. Having underpaid teachers constantly facing economic insecurity not only undermines their sense of worth, but also prevents them from doing what they are highly trained and motivated to do: care for children. Underpaid teachers are simply not in keeping with a world-class, standout research university.

We cannot expect undernurtured teachers to in turn nurture our children. We cannot expect stressed-out parents to invest in the university. The fissures and contradictions of such an assumption have been laid bare through this strike. We thus urge you in the strongest possible way to do what is right and what is just. To see our way out of this crisis, we need only to listen to the voices of our children: “We love our teachers.”

Sincerely,

Erika Lee
Fesler-Lampert Professor in the Public Humanities
Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies
Parent of Billy Lee Buccella, Bungalow C, UMCCC

Mark Buccella
Parent of Billy Lee Buccella, Bungalow C, UMCCC

Karen Ho
McKnight Land Grant Professor
Assistant Professor Anthropology
Parent of Mira Ho-Chen, Bungalow E, UMCCC

Tracey Deutsch
Assistant Professor of History
Parent of Gabriel Chang-Deutsch, Bungalow E, and Nathanial Chang-Deutsch, Bungalow B, UMCCC

David Chang
Assistant Professor of History
Parent of Gabriel Chang-Deutsch, Bungalow E, and Nathanial Chang-Deutsch, Bungalow B, UMCCC

Jigna Desai
Director, Asian American Studies Program
Associate Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies
Parent of Khayaal Desai-Hunt, Bungalow A, and Rohan Desai-Hunt, Bungalow E, UMCCC

Ruskin Hunt
Research Associate, Institute of Child Development
Parent of Khayaal Desai-Hunt, Bungalow A, and Rohan Desai-Hunt, Bungalow E, UMCCC

Arthur Reynolds
Professor of Child Development
Parent of Evan and Lynn Reynolds, Bungalow E, UMCCC

Judy Temple
Associate Professor of Public Affairs and Applied Economics
Parent of Evan and Lynn Reynolds, Bungalow E, UMCCC

Virajita Singh
Senior Research Fellow, Center for Sustainable Building Research
Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, College of Design
Parent of Keshav Singh, Bungalow C, UMCCC

Alex Felthauser and Kristen Evenson
Parents of Toby Felthauser, Bungalow D, UMCCC

Christine Salomon
Research Associate
Center for Drug Design, Academic Health Center
Parent of Ezra Gearhart, Bungalow C, UMCCC

Micah Gearhart
Research Associate
Genetics and Cell Development
Parent of Ezra Gearhart, Bungalow C, UMCCC

Kirsten Fischer
Associate Professor of History
Parent of Ava Fischer-Ross, Bungalow D, UMCCC

Fumiko Matsumoto
Japanese Language Teaching Specialist
Parent of Momo ZumBahlen, Bungalow D, UMCCC

Kurt ZumBahlen
Parent of Momo ZumBahlen, Bungalow D, UMCCC

Vinay Gidwani
Associate Professor of Geography and Global Studies
Parent of Aman Gidwani, Bungalow D

Kate Walthour
Director of Admissions for the School of Social Work
Parent of Jackson Muenster, Bungalow B, UMCCC

Katherine M. Byrn
Teaching Specialist in Literacy Education
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
College of Education and Human Development
Parent of Eli Byrn Bungalow D

Carla Dewey Urban
Coordinator, MINITEX Library and Information Network
University Libraries
Parent of Colin Urban, Bungalow D