Hampshire Gazette
Op-ED: Pat Greenfield, Dale Melcher and Harris Freeman: UMass Labor Center cuts a body blow 
September 15, 2016
​We just celebrated Labor Day to honor the contributions of labor and working people. It is ironic and disappointing that at this time of year, the UMass Amherst administration has taken steps that will undermine the viability of its Labor Center, the Commonwealth’s signature graduate program committed to research, teaching and service on behalf of workers and the labor movement.

The master’s degree offered by the Labor Center is unique, providing graduates with pathways to civic-minded careers advancing the rights of workers and their organizations, while tackling the intractable problems surrounding workplace inequality and low-wage work...read more.

Labor Notes
As UMass Higher-Ups Gut Labor Center, Students and Alums Speak Out
September 15, 2016
Read more...

SocialistWorker.org
Gutting the UMass Labor Center
By Ben Taylor, September 27, 2016
IF YOU set foot on the shady walkways of the University of Massachusetts' (UMass) flagship campus in the bucolic Pioneer Valley, you'd be forgiven if you thought that the school's money woes of the past few decades were a thing of the past...Read more.
​

The following statement was issued by Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy, UMass Amherst; President Steven Tolman, Massachusetts AFL-CIO; and President Francis Callahan, Massachusetts Building Trades Council:
​
After a productive meeting in Boston this week, we are united in reaffirming our commitment to support the vital work of the UMass Amherst Labor Center. For more than half a century, the center has been at the vanguard of preparing labor leaders in Massachusetts and throughout the country. We are resolved to work together to revitalize the Labor Center so that it maintains its status as one of the nation’s best in its field.
A number of recent reports concerning the status of the Labor Center, both in print and online, have called into question the university’s commitment to Labor Studies and to the labor movement more generally. We want to jointly emphasize that the UMass administration continues to be deeply committed to the center’s important work. We are all committed to restoring the program’s vitality.
We will cohost a meeting at the UMass Amherst campus in the coming weeks with key stake holders in the Labor Center to consider ways that the UMass administration, labor, and key stake holders can partner to strengthen the Labor Center so that it can continue to play a leading role in advancing the cause of organized labor and Massachusetts workers for many years to come.

https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/joint-statement-umass-amherst-labor-center

Boston Globe
Umass labor center loses director, some funding
By Laura Krantz, Globe Staff, September 07, 2016
A nationally respected center for labor studies at UMass Amherst has lost its director, and the university removed some of its funding — putting the center’s future in apparent jeopardy while worrying alumni and union activists around the country.
School administrators insist they support the center and have a plan to make it thrive. There are approximately 30 such centers nationwide, most of them at public universities, and the UMass program is known as one of the best...read more

MassLive
Former director says Labor Center in peril;UMass says otherwise
By Diane Lederman | dlederman@repub.com on September 09, 2016 at 3:03 PM, updated September 09, 2016 at 6:48 PM
AMHERST — When former University of Massachusetts Labor Center Director Eve Weinbaum was concerned about a $30,000 budget cut to the department, she sent an email to alumni and center supporters. 
She didn't expect the letter to take on a life of its own. "The email was for small group of supporters very involved with the Labor Center and know me personally," she said.
But it got forwarded widely and reposted online...read more

Daily Hampshire Gazette
Umass Labor Center roiled by layoffs, budget battle
By Chris Lindahl, Friday, September 9, 2016
AMHERST — Budget changes at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Labor Center have prompted faculty, students and allies to sound off against what they say is a siege by an administration eager to cut seemingly underperforming departments...read more

​Equal Time Radio
Northeast’s Only Labor Studies Program Faces More Cuts
Friday, September 9, 2016
Chris Brooks, a UMass-Amherst Labor Studies grad student and staffer at Labor Notes, joined by former program instructors, Dave Cohen and Judy Atkins, explain that the UMass Amherst administration has been cutting the Labor Center’s budget for many years. Chris, Dave and Judy talk about why Workers Education is so important. This is the Northeast’s only Labor Studies Program. The Center has been told to shrink the curriculum, to cut electives and to eliminate some required courses including Collective Bargaining and Contract Administration, Current Issues and Debates in Labor, and possibly Labor Law, among others in order to lay off faculty and cut costs. With cuts to student financial assistance, the Labor Center can no longer welcome all students, labor leaders, and rank-and-file activists regardless of class, race, nationality, or ability to pay. Administrators insist that they will only allow the Labor Studies Master’s degree program to continue to exist if it serves as a “revenue generator” to fund other parts of the University.

Listen at: http://www.equaltimeradio.com/2016/northeast%E2%80%99s-only-labor-studies-program-faces-more-cuts

In These Times
The Fight to Save UMass Labor Center Is a Fight for Worker Power
By Shaun Richman, Tuesday, SEP 13, 2016, 6:53 PM

The Labor Center at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) at Amherst is in turmoil. Its director, Eve Weinbaum, says she was abruptly pushed out of the position. In an alarming e-mail to alumni, students and allies, she protested funding cuts to teaching assistants and part-time instructors and, more troublingly, threats to the “Labor Studies faculty’s autonomy to make programmatic decisions and to designate a Director.”...read more.

Jacobin
Defending Labor's School 
By Chris Brooks & Rebecca Givan, September 15, 2016
The Labor Center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is the flagship labor studies graduate program in the United States. Over the past five decades, nearly a thousand trade unionists have earned a master’s degree through the Labor Center, which is both academically rigorous and practically connected to the lives and experiences of the working class.

Perhaps this is why the Labor Center is now under direct assault by UMass administrators...read more.

Hampshire Gazette
Op-ED: Pat Greenfield, Dale Melcher and Harris Freeman: UMass Labor Center cuts a body blow 
September 15, 2016
​We just celebrated Labor Day to honor the contributions of labor and working people. It is ironic and disappointing that at this time of year, the UMass Amherst administration has taken steps that will undermine the viability of its Labor Center, the Commonwealth’s signature graduate program committed to research, teaching and service on behalf of workers and the labor movement.

The master’s degree offered by the Labor Center is unique, providing graduates with pathways to civic-minded careers advancing the rights of workers and their organizations, while tackling the intractable problems surrounding workplace inequality and low-wage work...read more.

Labor Notes
As UMass Higher-Ups Gut Labor Center, Students and Alums Speak Out
September 15, 2016
Read more...
​

SEPTEMBER 12,2016 LETTER FROM CHANCELLOR SUBBASWAMY:
​Dear Colleagues,

On September 1st, the MSP Executive Committee endorsed and forwarded a message from the incoming MSP president regarding the funding of the Labor Center, the home of graduate programs in labor studies in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.  The message, addressed to many recipients outside UMass, falsely claimed that the Center is under attack from the administration and asked recipients to send protests to the provost, dean, and chair of the Sociology Department (the Center’s administrative home).  Since then, we have received several hundred messages, some of them containing quite personal attacks on the recipients, resulting in damage to the reputation of the university.
In the message pasted below from September 3rd, Dean John Hird responds to the false claims, and I forward it to you confirm the accuracy of his account and to offer my own commitment to the future of the Labor Center.
Sincerely,
Kumble Subbaswamy
Chancellor
*************************************************
From:  "John A. Hird" <jhird@umass.edu>
Date: Saturday, September 3, 2016 at 7:51 AM
To: SBS Faculty Listserv <sbs-faculty-l@sbs.umass.edu>, SBS Staff <all-sbs-staff@sbs.umass.edu>
Subject: supporting our Labor Center
Dear Colleagues:

Yesterday I began receiving numerous emails from outside the university expressing distress over reports that the UMass Amherst administration “has been cutting the Labor Center’s budget for many years” and plans “to eliminate funding for the Labor Center and Master’s degree program in Labor Studies.” Perhaps you have heard similar statements.  I am writing to assure you of the administration’s support for the Labor Center.  The narrative that the Center and its faculty are under attack is simply untrue.
As we begin a new academic year, the Labor Center’s future is very bright and its programs enjoy the full support of the Sociology department (in which it is housed), the College, and the central administration.  The program’s faculty have developed a plan to grow enrollments in its programs, and Tom Juravich has agreed to serve as the Center’s Interim Director. There is no threat to the Center and I have great confidence that Tom and the Labor/Sociology faculty will be able to rebuild the residential program.   One of the great strengths of the residential program is its placement record, and I’d encourage students interested in good careers involving economic justice, working people, and the labor movement to give this program a close look. 
Although the residential MS program has struggled in recent years with falling enrollments, the limited-residency Master’s program (Union Leadership and Administration, taught winter and summer terms through CPE) has been thriving and is running a significant budget surplus.  Last spring, the faculty collaborated with Michelle Budig, chair of Sociology, and me to develop a plan for rebuilding the residential program.  Among other elements, that plan includes hiring a half-time staff member devoted to recruitment to the program, which we accomplished in May.  The plan also includes bridge funding to support the residential program until enrollments rebound.  The instructional support for the program is intact and now undergirded by the robust revenue from the limited residency program. 
The Labor Center has a long, distinguished history and has graduated many students who have gone on to admirable careers. We continue to honor that history, the Center’s dedicated faculty, and its many proud alumni by working with the faculty to restore the success of all the Center’s programs.Best wishes, and enjoy the long, Labor Day weekend.

John