The Western Michigan University Administration’s recent, unprecedented abuse of its campus-wide email system is a classic, anti-union propaganda effort to divide and pit employee groups against one another. In a series of campus-wide emails—full of false and misleading claims about the university’s own faculty members—the Administration has painted itself as generous and benevolent during tense compensation negotiations (deadline tomorrow). It is WMU’s faculty who are greedy and entitled, the messages suggest, providing manipulated self-serving numbers to “prove” its case. 

What’s going on here? President Montgomery knows that if he can get employees to bicker with, and even attack, one another, we’ll stop focusing on him. The result of his campaign so far? A few appalling, vicious anonymous emails to WMU-AAUP leaders, and some willful destruction of union fliers at the WMU-AAUP headquarters. But another result, one surely not intended by our labor scholar president, has been a flood of solidarity from Western employees all across campus. Indeed, each of our recent, wildly successful demonstrations has included folks from no fewer than FOUR Western Michigan University employee groups, some appearing in public with us despite their fear of retaliation.

Again, President Edward Montgomery is a labor scholar, and he knows better than most that “United We Bargain, Divided We Beg.” Not surprisingly, he would rather have employees focused on one another rather than his own exorbitant compensation, weird financial priorities, and lack of vision for our beloved university. Does the fact that his propaganda seems to be leading to attacks on his own faculty—putting students too in the firing line—make any difference to him? Is the Western Administration—with its private anti-union lawyer riding shotgun for the president—so committed to beating its professors into submission that it will destroy our campus climate in the process? 

Oh, and if you want a look at some data provided by an actual qualified, external analyst of academic financial data rather than the Administration’s propaganda machine, here you go. And for more detailed rebuttals of the Administration’s false and misleading propaganda, see here and here. Please share this message far and wide. Remember, Western’s president has the might of the university’s communication system (and ample coffers) at his fingertips, while we must rely on our member and allies. And while we are working with our attorney to build an Unfair Labor Practices complaint against the Administration regarding these actions, we do still need to ensure that employees’ voices are not drowned out by management.

What can you do?

  • Stop by Montague House to pick up fliers and posters in support of our ongoing visibility campaign
  • Reach out to members of WMU’s Board of Trustees—President Montgomery reports to them—and urge them to fix this now!
  • subscribe to this blog, share this post, and keep abreast of ongoing communications from our leadership, including this recent interview with our president
  • order a WMU-AAUP t-shirt today and wear it to show your solidarity for all the frontline Western Michigan University employees who actually do the work that makes WMU work!

Leave a comment