New Press by Labor Center Alumni and Friends

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...
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