#LIULockout and the Librarians

September 13, 2016

Over the Labour Day weekend, the administration at Long Island University (LIU) in New York locked out all 400 faculty members of its Brooklyn campus, including librarians. Librarianship.ca has invited librarians from LIU Brooklyn share their perspectives on the lockout and its impacts.

On September 1st, 2016, the Long Island University (LIU) Brooklyn faculty received an email notification that, because our contract had expired and that our negotiating team had yet to accept the new best and final contract offer, the university administration would execute a lockout of all its 400 faculty members. This included the adjunct and the librarian faculty.

Everyone was stunned. We had 48 hours to retrieve any files or personal belongings from our offices. By midnight September 2nd, our employment with the university would be terminated indefinitely and our health insurance suspended. Access to our university emails and to Blackboard and all other privileges to university resources were suspended.

The administration didn’t even give the faculty a chance to vote on the contract (scheduled for September 6th). Instead of meeting on campus, the Long Island University Faculty Federation (LIUFF) with the support of our parent unions, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), met inside the historic Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, located a few blocks away from campus in the neighborhood of Fort Greene. The purpose of the meeting was to organize a response to this lockout and to vote on the final contract offered by the administration. There were a lot of emotions that day in the church. Faculty were scared, angry, perplexed, blindsided. It didn’t matter whether you were tenured or not or that you worked for LIU since 1965, everyone had been expelled from the campus. We heard from our union leadership and our union attorney. They answered questions the membership had as best as they could. A lockout is unprecedented in American higher education, although it had been considered at the University of Bridgeport in CT. Lockouts are rare, but when they happen, it usually happens in factories or industrial workplaces. Not at universities, not to teachers.

After we said what needed to be said, we came there also for an action – to vote for or against the new contract and to vote no confidence in President Cline and VP Kane. The vote was overwhelmingly against the new contract (96% of the membership voted no) and about the same majority voted “no confidence” in our president and vp.

What was so bad about the contract? Well, let’s provide some context. This is the stuff that is not explicitly said in the new contract or in some media reports on the lockout. About 2 years ago, our union discovered that there was a significant pay disparity. The faculty at Post, our sister campus in suburban Long Island, were getting paid as much as 20% more (at base salaries) than some faculty in Brooklyn, an inner city campus. Even if faculty were at the same rank. Why were there two different pay scales?

In order to close the disparity gap, the university proposed a contract with some formulas for the next five years. The take back? Pay the adjuncts less, eliminate their adjunct-benefits trust fund (created to defray health insurance costs), the librarians would have to work more days and pay them less on their overload, and cut benefits for the new hires. The president had already fired staff on a massive scale and outsourced certain administrative/operational offices. She had already eliminated two unions on campus. That was the way she was cutting costs. With all that firing, it left the infrastructure of the campus vulnerable. We believe that the administration was betting that the general teaching faculty would not care about adjunct, new hires, or the librarians. They were completely wrong. Our colleagues recognized how hard we work and had our backs.

Valuing faculty librarians

There are only 12 of us out of a faculty of 400, but we are a hard working department. We have award-winning librarians among us and we are all dedicated to helping our students succeed. Library instruction is embedded in First Year Seminar and Core Seminar (usually second year students working on writing research papers). We are also embedded in several health professions courses, including nursing, pharmacy, public health, and athletics. We see business and marketing students as well for their library sessions. And yet we get paid less than our counterparts at the other campus. They also have more resources and more staff. Our Chair of the department also happens to be the secretary of the faculty union. It’s amazing what happens when you have a nationally well-known academic librarian, who is super great at her job, perform her secretarial duties during the lockout crisis. Didn’t they know librarians are the best problem solvers, organizers, and information disseminators? Our secretary got the word out about the lockout. Social media posts were initiated, the hashtag #LIULockout was created. The librarians were instrumental in spreading it as much as possible. Our librarian friends across the nation came out to help too. The librarian army is fierce!

#LIULockout warriors

I saw that term on twitter somewhere and thought “what a great name“ for all the faculty and students fighting against this administration that undervalues us, that doesn’t appreciate the diversity that our student body brings. Why are we undervalued? Maybe because we are in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, a neighborhood that is predominantly a working- class and Black community. Our student body is mostly non-white and female. Our campus hasn’t listed the student demographics in their course bulletin for a couple of years now. The campus was designated a PBI in 2008, a Predominantly Black Institution. So yes, this LIU Lockout becomes an issue of racial and gender injustice as well. The faculty started the protest but it’s the students now uprising and joining the faculty outside the gates. They are participating in daily walk-outs and will continue to do so this week. As they inform and enlighten their peers on this injustice and how they have been defrauded of a quality education, the walk-outs grow bigger in numbers and are getting even louder. They are relentless. As faculty, we are extremely proud of them.

We would like to thank everyone for all their support. You can read about all the news coverage, commentaries, and statements of support at #LIULockout News Coverage & Resources. A big huge thanks to S.E. Hackney (@fiiidget / shackney.org) who created this living document.

Gloria Willson, MLIS, MPH
Health Sciences Librarian
LIU Brooklyn
@originalG3045