According to the news St. Ambrose has agreed to house scab workers if Alcoa goes on strike. Being raised a Catholic, and having several friends who work at Alcoa, this makes absolutely no sense to me. On the one hand I realize Alcoa must donate a sizeable amount to the college every year, it also has students whose parents work Alcoa and are union members.
Should union members be allowed to block the exits on campus to disrupt the scab traffic flow? After the no show during illegal immigration protests, will the police get involved? Will union members pulling their children out of St. Ambrose have any effect? I sometimes wonder about an organization that pays millions of dollars a year in sexual abuse hush money but fires a teacher because she was artificially inseminated, and takes a stand against the working class. When I still went to church, they supported the worker not mangement.
Here are a couple links from the Quad City Times on the subject
Ridolfi editorial
Rogalski editorial
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2 comments:
I would have been curious to see the article talk about how many other groups stay at the campus over the summer. I know at WIU, they have all sorts of conventions, meetings, and retreats at the campus to utilize the empty dorms while school is out. The article makes it sound like this is a special deal, when it really could just be St. Ambrose trying to fill its dorms over the summer. Then it just becomes an issue of whether they should pick and choose their "customers." I can see both sides of that debate.
I think the article was slanted the way it was because it is a Catholic college, and people feel they shouldn't get involved in labor disputes. The article also made it sound as if it was going to be favor. If in fact they don't charge Alcoa, or scabs, but charge everyone else it's a different ball game.
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