UFCT President: Special Session

Dear Colleagues:

 

As I am sure you are aware, the special session called by Governor Edwards began a few days ago.  And for those of you who follow political activities, the predictable pushing and shoving between the political parties (and various special interest groups) is on full display.  (Such is the nature of politics.)

 

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Happy Holidays from the UFCT President

I want to wish each and every one of you a warm and peaceful holiday season and a new year. 2016 promises to be indeed a new year, as Governor-elect John Bel Edwards takes office after eight long and difficult years for higher education. The UFCT and the LFT will be there to support and serve our new governor--and to voice your interests and concerns in the coming year.

All my best,

Robert Lawyer,
President, United Federation of Local Teachers, 1130

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From the Desk of the UFCT President

Dear Colleagues:

I thought you might enjoy this video of JBE at the LFT Convention.  And it was no surprise that his first public appearance was at our convention, since it was mostly due to organized labor that got him elected.

Though we had a very good day on Saturday, the work to be done to reverse nearly eight years of damage to higher education has just started.

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UFCT Member to Serve on JBE's Transition Team for Higher Ed

Vice President of UFCT Local 1130 Baton Rouge region Valerie Holliday has been appointed by Governor-elect John Bel Edwards and his team to the Transition Committee for Higher Education. Valerie serves as associate professor of philosophy at Baton Rouge Community College.

"This is a most welcome time of great hope for Louisiana and its higher education system. Governor-elect Edwards cares deeply about higher education; it is my honor to serve him and his team," Valerie said.

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The Glorious 70s

I just recently watched Harlan County, U.S.A., directed by Barbara Kopple, about the mineworkers in Kentucky who endured a long and painful 13-month strike in 1974 to gain a contract from the mine operators. Kopple won an academy award for the film for Best Documentary Feature in 1976. If you want a quick introduction to the basics of organizing, this film instructs well, giving all the basic components: workers, owners, scabs, contract, union. It also got me to thinking about other films with a similar content that came readily to mind, like Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), Norma Rae (1979), and Silkwood (1983). It occurred to me that the 70s was a time for pro-labor films; and then I wondered what happened to that theme.

The 80s happened. Reagan happened. That’s what happened. What I had known as a young person, that Reagan turned the country markedly to the right culturally and politically, came back to me in a wholly new and fresh way. As the credits rolled on Harlan, I recursively reread the 80s; I always knew it was a reactionary time, but Harlan in retrospect drove home for me just how dangerously and consummately the 80s and Reaganomics effectively shut down a worker movement. In fact, even now, we reject the 70s as a horrible time for culture in general: disco and pop music, hairstyles, fashion all draw scornful laughter as we look back on it.

What if our disdain of disco duck and the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever is really born in the rejection of freedom movements? The 70s were, after all, the decade after the 60s. And freedom and civil and worker movements were gaining some real traction. Stonewall. Roe v. Wade. A look at 70s narrative fiction films attests to what is now for us an estranged discourse of social criticism and stories of the marginalized: The Deer Hunter, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Shaft, Soylent Green, Dog Day Afternoon, Saturday Night Fever.

So what to make of this? Workers surged in the 30s in America and then they were put down in the 40s and 50s, then they surged again in the 60s and 70s. And then we were shut down. And have been since. So, I say, get out your Bee Gees albums. Or download Too Much Heaven and Staying Alive from ITunes, and listen to those groovy sounds. Dance naked in your house and sing to the dog. Maybe even read up on Stonewall, and watch a Village People YouTube video, if you’re brave. The gay, bad taste of the 70s is actually a pinnacle of artistic, political, and social achievement that deserves not our scorn but our earnest admiration and a sincere revisit. Watch Harlan County, U.S.A.

Valerie Holliday
Vice President
UFCT 1130