6/23/2004 06:14:00 AM (link)
The State of Illinois wants 2% back from the UI budget. Across the bargaining table the UI is suggesting that if we have any pull with the supposedly pro-labor governor we should take GEO's economic proposals up with him, and people are getting sacked -- an unusual thing for a state university, where usually the comparatively crappy pay is made up for by the comparatively greater job stability.
A colleague ruefully suggested that maybe layoffs would get people squaking & something'd change in Springfield. Bullshit. Everyone already thinks it's hard economic times, can't be helped, et cetera.
UI, listen up. I have a simple solution. Calculate what 2% is, and whip out your summer electric bills. Then cut the power to everything other than the med & vetmed facilities for however long it takes to recoup that 2%. FULL TIME. No austerity-measure just-at-night nonsense. Flip the switch, start counting, and get it done.
Keep paying your people; it's not right to balance this debacle on anyone's back, and they've got their own electric (and other) bills to pay. Then set up a complaint line straight to Springfield.
Let everyone complain about the lack of A/C, light, and computers. Let parents complain that their kids aren't being taught, that the dorms aren't serving food. Let researchers complain that their experiments can't move forward. Let units complain that they can't provide internet access, printing jobs, repair services, fitness facilities, radio, TV. PULL THE PLUG AND SHUT IT ALL DOWN.
The press would have a field day, and it would make the point that Springfield's been missing all along: UI needs that 2%. And it wouldn't be comfortable, but you can do this -- you're not (yet) a corporation where stopping production would essentially mean your fiscal death. And I just about guarantee that the juice would only be cut for a day before that money'd come sailing right back.
UI, are you listening? DIRECT ACTION GETS THE GOODS.
powered by blogger.