Just discovered that my union is endorsing Pritzker. This is the day when one event after another sorely tests my faith in humanity.
At my university, we have a tradition of team-teaching interdisciplinary courses. People from different disciplines come together to teach a course and show students how the same issue can be approached from different perspectives. For instance, next year I’m teaching a course on totalitarianism with a person from poli sci. A colleague in Germanic studies has taught a course on the Holocaust with a colleague from history. There is a course taught jointly by a professor of music and a professor of mathematics. These courses are wildly popular.
But now there is a new initiative that will prevent people from getting together to team-teach new courses. Instead, existing courses will be called interdisciplinary to preserve the tradition in name only while emptying it of any actual meaning.
Don’t worry about it — Rauner’s going to be re-elected, anyway.
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Who cares if the two are so identical?
I can’t believe I’m even saying this.
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From the outside (geographically) it looks like the leadership of both parties is running away from the electorate as fast as it can and that filters down to things like unions.
The US electorate really wants something different and unions are still following Clinton’s (Bill not Hill) strategy of running form the right?
I’m pretty sure there’s some structural economic reason (buried in the bureaucracy) that makes universities hate them. AFAIK it’s exceedingly hard to keep interdisciplinary things going because even if it’s successful it’s causing blimps in the bureaucracy.
The institution where I am grudgingly set up an interdisciplinary office to coordinate such things and then appointed someone to run it who hated the very idea of interdisciplinary activities…
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The union’s position is anybody but Rauner. We all know how much I detest Rauner. My spellcheck automatically puts the word “Rauner” after the word “detest” because I have written it so many times.
But I’m tired of having to follow the “anybody but” logic. I want real candidates, a real alternative. We all collectively need to stop settling. And then better candidates might appear.
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It’s probably because of Biss’s horrible record on pensions. But Pritzker is still the worst candidate in this primary.
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“Biss noted Pritzker and his wife gave $20,000 to a political committee created to fund lawmakers who were willing to take on unions.”
How the hell is Pritzker getting any union endorsements?
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Wow, I had no idea. This makes it even more preposterous.
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I think that statement may be referring to the organization “Stand for Children.” There’s also this:
https://ntknetwork.com/gubernatorial-candidate-j-b-pritzker-has-a-long-history-of-mistreating-workers/
Unions opposed Penny Pritzker’s appointment as Secretary of Commerce just a few years ago, why the sudden change? Ohio unions would never stand for this.
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