Furloughs, that is, and the University of California. As you know the state of California, despite having a majority of legislators who are willing to tax residents adequately to pay for services, requires a supermajority to put through any tax increase. So the legislature cannot vote a budget that will pay for the level of services the state government provides.
The state has therefore been furloughing employees to save money without laying people off. This means that, for example, if you need to go to the DMV, you must make sure you’re not planning to go on a furlough day—if you do, your friendly neighborhood DMV workers won’t be there.
The state university budgets react a little more slowly than the state government budgets, but come this fall furloughs will apply to the best public higher education in the world.
As Ari mentioned a while back, at the Athens of the Central Valley there was a straw poll to ask faculty whether they supported taking furloughs on teaching days. Eighty-two percent said yes. For many of these faculty, the logic was the same as the DMV’s (and other state offices’) closure; the service is already being provided at below-market cost: lower funding makes it unrealistic to provide the service at the same level.
This Friday evening, Lawrence Pitts, Interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs for the whole UC, issued a memorandum explaining how the UC will implement furloughs for faculty.
faculty furlough days will not occur on instructional days…. In such difficult times, I believe that we must do everything we can to ensure that the students continue to receive all of their instruction. Asking the faculty to carry a full teaching load during furloughs is a large request, but in my mind is justified by the University’s paramount teaching mission. Research is permitted on furlough days….
Research being permitted means research will be expected, of course; no eight percent diminution in research output will be acceptable, as UCD Academic Senate Chair Robert Powell points out in the local newspaper today.
“Basically he’s telling the faculty ‘keep working – keep doing research and teaching and service, you’re just going to get paid 8 percent less.’ … ”
The California State University not only thought similarly to the vast majority of UCD faculty, it has adopted a policy whereby faculty can and presumably will take furloughs on teaching days.
The University of California at Berkeley will coincidentally be reducing its teaching days for reasons that have nothing to do with furloughs.
The general trend has been clear for twenty-seven years since acute observers noted “the concept of a free [i.e., free to the student] education at publicly owned colleges and universities has already been largely abandoned”.
9 comments
August 23, 2009 at 4:20 pm
silbey
The band must keep playing, even as the Titanic founders.
August 23, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Sandwichman
Time to start thinking “beyond the f-word”.
During the 1930s, spontaneous ‘furloughs’ were called work-sharing, the idea being that reductions in hours across a company’s workforce were preferable to layoffs that left a few people completely helpless. By the summer of 1932 informal work-sharing evolved into the Teagle Committee and the effort to promote voluntary work time reductions. However, simultaneously, pressure was developing from labor for permanent work time reductions with no loss in pay — the 30-hour work week — and the Black-Connery thirty hour law was introduced in Congress in January and passed by the Senate in April 1933.
As I understand it, it was political pressure from the Black-Connery bill that forced FDR to devise and implement a recovery program. This time around there is no pressure from below for fundamental reform, giving Congress and President Obama a “free hand”… to capitulate to the right.
It would be nice to see academics STAND UP AND FIGHT rather than shuffle off to work for nothing.
August 23, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Don
Do a Google on Maryland. As I understand it, a local court held that one of the counties could not furlough employees. Something to do with the state can not pass a law interfering with a contract. Being retired, I did not pay too much attention to this at the time. It was within the last month.
August 23, 2009 at 8:04 pm
TF Smith
I have a research seminar this semester at my local fine public university (the system without with minor league NFL and NBA programs) and the decision was very simple: furlough days are research days for the students; don’t expect any office hours or e-mail being answered on furlough days.
August 24, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Rob_in_Hawaii
Every time the subject of funding higher education comes up we are treated to the same old story: academics are only in the classroom x number of hours per week. Therefore they should be paid far less, after all they hardly “work” at all.
And I guess attorneys should be paid only for the time they are in court? Members of both professions just show up and magically start pontificating without any preparation?
Showing up for every class while being furloughed just plays into this kind of argument. If you “suck it up for the kids” now, I can’t imagine how you’ll get “un-furloughed” when the economy is in better shape.
August 24, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Rob_in_Hawaii
Hope you’re still going to blog on furlough days.
August 24, 2009 at 6:52 pm
kathy a.
rob — sadly, lawyers who work for poor people [“you have the right to counsel”] have struggled with compensation for about ever — agencies are expected to do more cases for less, and other lawyers who are appointed routinely have their hours cut, particularly preparation time. that was before the current budget crisis. in recent months, non-agency lawyers have been paid with IOU’s, and banks haven’t been honoring them. folks who are on the state payroll have fared better, because they get negotiable checks.
August 25, 2009 at 6:27 am
Chris
It would be nice to see academics STAND UP AND FIGHT rather than shuffle off to work for nothing.
Didn’t this blog, a couple months ago, have a story about how academics can now be fired for criticizing their employer’s policies, even though their employer is also the government?
The prospect of being fired during a major recession, when job losses might continue for a couple more years, might have some relevance to whether or not academics stand up and fight policies that are unfavorable to them.
September 11, 2009 at 12:29 pm
infrequent commenter
Are you guys supporting the walkout? Do you have a sense of the breadth of support (beyond the petition)?