The “at-will” attack at UNT

January 9, 2012

DENTON, Texas--A fight is brewing between employees of the University of North Texas (UNT) system and their employer. On November 4, Lee Jackson, chancellor of the UNT system, released an e-mail to employees delivering the news that UNT was ready to move to at-will employment policies for all non-contract employees.

While the entire private sector employs at will in the state of Texas, public institutions like UNT are exempt, and universities remain among the few places in Texas where workers enjoy the most basic right of knowing why they're being fired. Currently, it is written into the charter of the UNT system that employees may not be fired without reason.

Chancellor Lee Jackson and the system Board of Regents, all appointees of Republican Gov. Rick Perry, cited a recommendation from the University's Employment and Policy Review Committee that suggests firing employees without giving them a reason will streamline faculty productivity.

While that recommendation was released in 2010, giving the administration an entire year to consider the plan, Jackson scheduled only four public meetings at which employees could comment on the proposal--one each for UNT's Dallas and Fort Worth campuses and two for the main campus in Denton, both on the same day.

Employees were told they had until November 19 to make any comment, and after that date, no further input would be considered. Judging from the atmosphere at the public meetings, there was never the intent to consider employees' input.

The meetings in Denton were so heavily attended that the room was packed to the doors, and the crowd poured out into the hallway. Many tried their best to huddle as close to the door as they could to hear what was being said inside. It was pointed out that the room reserved for the meeting, clearly inadequate, was immediately adjacent to an unoccupied room about three times its size. The excuse given was that the chancellor was unable to book that room.

In fact, none of the canned responses delivered by university administration staff (Chancellor Jackson himself was never present) satisfied the gathered employees. The crowd was palpably enraged and unquestionably opposed--employee after employee stood to deliver their story, explain their opposition to the proposal or demand answers from the administration.

When asked to explain why the proposed policy was necessary, the answer was never direct or sufficient. "Streamlining" the university's "business model" didn't sit well with any of the employees, all public-sector workers who knew their jobs weren't supposed to have anything to do with a business model.

Concerns about the direction the university was taking were raised and ignored. Questions about effects on retirement were asked and ignored. Demands to explain how quickly the measure would be implemented were also ignored.

Members of the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU) worked to guide the discussion, but the many individual voices of protest were not successful. University of North Texas employees are served by the TSEU, Local 6186 of the Communications Workers of America. At present, however, no more than 30 UNT employees are members.

Horror stories about unionized workplaces thrive in the Republican red culture of Texas, but even as TSEU members made their argument, employees of the university lamented the lack of organized resistance to these kinds of one-sided class war tactics. Even in the deep red of Texas, workers know what's right and wrong.

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