An email from the SWA

In response to Wrighton's allegations and tactical use of campus-wide email to influence opinions, the SWA issued this email to those emails that it could access (don't believe this is campus-wide). To help them get a fair voice in the matter, I publish it below. This protest cannot and should not devolve into a he said she said debate...but Wrighton seems willing to use such tactics by relying on "verbal agreements," which, any legal-minded person knows, put the other party in a VERY weak position, as a simple denial if often enough to cause turmoil. The truth? I don't know, I'm not there. Judge for yourself, dear readers. And yes, alas, I have deleted Wrighton's email, but I believe it might be found on the SWA's site...or in your own inboxes.
--sjg



Due to the lack of ability of the students participating in the sit-in
to communicate with the University community, there have been
understandable misperceptions regarding the letter sent out by the
Chancellor today as well as other more common misconceptions of both our
actions and motives. This e-mail is our attempt to clarify those
misunderstandings:

I. CLARIFICATIONS: Outlines the events of this past Saturday and
addresses the letter sent out by the Chancellor today as well as the
continuation of the sit-in and end of the hunger strike.

II. MISCONCEPTIONS: Clarifies the purpose of the continuation of the
sit-in as well as the rationale behind our actions.

We are also sending an open invitation to all students to join us for an
open forum on Tuesday at 7pm in the Quad to address questions, comments,
and concerns.

I. CLARIFICATION
This past Saturday we met with the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor John
Klein four times between the hours of 6 and 11pm. During the first
meeting, it was made clear to us that compromises favorable to both
parties could be made to end the sit-in. With this knowledge, the four
representatives that met with the Chancellor regrouped with the larger
body and composed a document that incorporated the concessions of the
Administration as well as the points that the group felt were still
important. At the second meeting, clarifications of language were made
as well as negotiations addressing the points that SWA requested. The
Chancellor agreed to set up meetings for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
of this week to clarify these agreements.

We saw these efforts towards good faith negotiations, and effectively
ended the hunger strike immediately and notified the Administration of
that fact. The second meeting ended with the understanding that if both
parties could reach an agreement, that the sit-in would end and
clarifications of the terms of the agreement would happen at the
successive meetings throughout the week. At that time the
representatives left the meeting to inform the group of the agreements
that had been made and began to draw up a finalized version of the
verbal agreements that had been made.

During the third meeting of the evening, the students presented the
Chancellor with the written documentation of the verbal agreements made
during the second meeting. At this time, Vice Chancellor Canon joined
the group of administrators acting as a lawyer. When presented with the
final document, the Chancellor verbally stated that he would be able to
sign off on all points, except the point relating to freedom of
association and employer neutrality concerning unions. This point had
not been addressed during the previous meetings so was brought up as a
point of contention to the surprise of the SWA representatives. The
students at this time requested time to rejoin the group to discuss
whether or not they felt comfortable ending the sit-in. Later on that
evening, the Chancellor entered the lobby of South Brookings and asked
the students to vacate the premises. We refused, reasserting the fact
that we had no written confirmation of the previously reached agreements.

Today the Chancellor has reneged not only on the verbal agreements that
had been reached on Saturday, but also on his willingness to meet with
us on Wednesday. The end of the hunger strike was contingent upon the
commencement of negotiation; his refusal now to meet on Wednesday
represents a breach of faith on his part. In addition, he has decided
to move forward on the Administration's proposal that does not include
the right to card check neutrality (to ensure that workers have the
freedom to form a union in an environment that is free of fear and
intimidation) nor a living wage for these workers. We must reiterate
that we did not make a "commitment to cease [our] sit-in." When the
Chancellor refused to sign the agreement, we could not in good
conscience consider things settled and end the sit-in.

II. MISCONCEPTIONS
Some people have the perception that we are sitting-in for our own
sakes, but really we are here to fight for the workers. After 18 months
of reasonable dialogue, we felt that we had no other alternatives other
than civil disobedience. None of the progress that has been made would
have happened without our sit-in.

We are not unreasonable, as some might have us portrayed. The requests
that we presented to the Chancellor in our Code of Conduct simply
represent an ideal. That being said, our primary request has been our
desire to reach a mutual agreement, to sit down with the Chancellor and
discuss our Code of Conduct. We expected the dialogue to begin on
Monday afternoon, after the Chancellor met with the University Council.
At that meeting, he gave us
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~tjzander/Documents. The Chancellor refused
to address the actual Code, however. Nevertheless, we were still
willing to work within this framework, and once again requested the
beginning of dialogue. Though his offer was generous, the Chancellor
presented it as a final offer, without acknowledging or further
consulting the voice of the students.

The purpose of the hunger strike was simply an attempt to begin the
process of real negotiations and affirm our commitment to the cause.
Several times before the hunger strike began, we informed the
Administration that without the commencement of good faith productive
dialogue, we would begin a hunger strike. The fact that the hunger
strike even had to last five days speaks to the lack of willingness on
the part of the Administration to enter into dialogue with students.


Anyone who wants a more detailed accounting of the sit-in, including all
our communications with the administration, should visit our newly
updated website at http://artsci.wustl.edu/~tjzander. (The main page has
a day-by-day account of the sit-in, while the link "correspondence with
the administration" on the left includes just that)