Correspondence Between President Hexter and the Students for the Freedom to Unionize
In Features
Letter to Ralph Hexter from Students for the Freedom to Unionize
Date: September 12, 2005
Since Fall 2004, Students for the Freedom to Unionize (SFU) has been working to educate the Hampshire community about the history of union-busting at Hampshire, in an effort to make Hampshire a place that more explicitly affirms workers rights, particularly the right to unionize.
The mid 1990s saw two successive union campaigns at Hampshire, both of which were defeated due to the administration's pressure on union organizers and workers. While the staff as a whole has never spoken in one voice on the question of unionization, the administration has not historically affirmed that the decision to unionize lies exclusively with those who work here. History always plays an important role in forming the expectations and norms of the present, which is why our group has been doing Hampshire-history education. Part of this history is the Hampshire administration hiring the well-known union-busting law firm Skoler, Abbott, and Presser to advise them on how best to dissuade workers from voting for a union. The administration has never apologized or made amends for these injustices. This unacknowledged legacy of union-busting has helped create the condition at Hampshire that many different levels of the administration are very anti-union.
Our group wants to see Hampshire publicly declare its administration to be "union neutral." By committing to union-neutrality as president means that you would affirm the exclusive rights of workers to decide whether to form a union. Practically, that means that you would actively ensure that no administrator at any level of the college was trying to influence the choice of workers in a decision on forming a union in any way. Union neutrality further means that by respecting workers rights to unionize, you would assume the administrative responsibility of supporting the implementation of workers exercising their sovereign rights after making a collective decision on unionization.
Last Spring, when Hampshire held a series of public meetings for students, staff, and faculty to question the candidates for Hampshire's presidency, SFU members asked each of the 4 candidates about their positions on union-neutrality. After the meetings, SFU published an analysis of each candidate's response to our questions. Based on the public transcript of the "All Community Meeting" where you spoke last February, we present here what we know about your position on union-neutrality:
Connor Clarke (member of SFU): I'm Connor from Students for the Freedom to Unionize. I just wanted to clarify the answer you gave to the question yesterday with a brief scenario [paraphrased: part of the staff wants to unionize. The Board says they don't want a union at the college and they want the president to send out anti-union fact sheets and for the president to write a letter expressing anti-union sentiments] Would you participate in the distribution of such literature? What do see your role as?
Ralph Hexter: One of the things I've learned form politicians being grilled is one can always say I'm not going to respond to hypothetical questions. But let me slightly move backwards in that scenario but still work with that scenario. The president is a member ex officio of the board of trustees.
So instead let me tell you what I would be saying in the meeting of the board of trustees if such an idea came up. One is that I don't think that the president or the administration should be involved in any way in coercing any of its employees into voting any way whatsoever. That I believe that it should be a completely unconstrained decision. What I read in your literature about the important of treating the staff with respect; that these are individuals – members of our community who can completely do the research and study on their own and can make up their own mind. I think that's something that cuts all ways. What I would insist on the president's office doing is providing any information both that's requested or if it is called for, in my judgment, if there are information sheets that are going about that don't appear to me to reflect the truth, I might even say what I personally think, but I don't think that constitutes coercion. And I would certainly argue with the board that we should do no more than that, and maybe not even that.
Here is Students for Freedom to Unionize's response to your comments (excerpted from our analysis of all the other candidates), which was Published in Spring 2005 Issue #3, March 10 of Hampshire's Student Newspaper, The Climax:
Ralph Hexter, said, "I don't think that the president or the administration should be involved in any way in coercing any of its employees into voting any way whatsoever." While we appreciate the explicit affirmation that "coercion" has no place in the labor practices of Hampshire, we found a positive commitment to support worker's rights lacking in Mr. Hexter's comments. During the staff forum, Mr. Hexter said that, while he would respect the rights of the workers to unionize, he would need to make sure that they were getting the correct information, and he might help in this process by, for example, sending out "fact-sheets." The use of the language of "fact sheets" is disturbing to us, because we know that distribution of such sheets is a common union-busting tactic that has been used before by the law firm Skolar, Abbott, and Presser, which Hampshire hired to disrupt the two union drives that occurred at Hampshire during the mid-nineties. Although as students, we had to rely on getting this information from staff who had attended the meeting (see previous footnote), we found that Mr. Hexter's idea of possibly sending out "fact sheets" is consistent with his comments at the student and all-community meetings where he said, "If it is called for, in my judgment, if there are information sheets that are going about that don't appear to me to reflect the truth, I might even say what I personally think, but I don't think that constitutes coercion." Unfortunately, information is never presented in a neutral way, and truth is cannot be objectively determined by a powerful college president. A president would only be union-neutral by entirely abstaining from taking a position on whether workers should form a union and simply affirming the right of workers to form one should they choose to do so.
We need some clarification of your position on union-neutrality. Since we were unable to contact you directly during the midst of the presidential search to clarify your position on fact sheets, we paraphrased your comments in the published piece as best as we could. We learned about your comments regarding "fact sheets" second hand so we would like to hear it from you directly. Just to emphasize, we are not only asking you to refrain from coercion. While we are glad to agree with you on this point, this is only a starting place.
We ask to meet with you as a group at your earliest convenience. When we meet, we will ask you to publicly commit to union neutrality as defined above.
Sincerely,
The Students for the Freedom to Unionize
Signed,Ben Grosscup
President Hexter's Response to the SFU's
Date: September 21, 2005
Dear Ben, Students for the Freedom to Unionize:
Thank you for your letter of 12 September as well as confirmation of our appointment to meet on 29 September. On 19 September you wrote to inform me that you would be publishing your letter of 12 September in this year's first edition of The Climax and invited me to submit a written response. I would have thought that meeting face-to-face first would have made sense, but if you wish to meet first in the pages of the college paper, I am happy to oblige.
You write in your communication of 19 September that you are "trying to get the Hampshire administration to commit to union-neutrality," and that is the gist of your earlier communications as well as your question of me when I was a candidate for the presidency. You also wish the administration to "apologize… or make amends" for its "unacknowledged legacy of union-busting." Let me take these up in reverse order.
I cannot speak to the history of the 1990s, but I heartily agree with your statement that "[h]istory always plays an important role in forming the expectations and norms of the present." I also know that dwelling on the past can obscure and even preclude possible futures. The arrival of a new president presents Hampshire with an opportunity for a fresh start in many areas, of which labor relations is one. While I am not so naïve as to think there may not be hard feelings from past debates and disagreements, my goal is to serve Hampshire now and make it a better institution, with the support of and for the benefit of all members of our community. I know the depth, breadth, and sincerity of that commitment, but only the coming years will give you, and others, the opportunity to form your own judgment.
I would be more comfortable with a pledge of "union neutrality" if I were certain that there was a universally recognized sense of what it entails. A brief survey of its uses beyond the margins of your letters shows that it is an elastic category. For example, http://www.cleanclothesconnection.org/commsurv.htm notes that "[u]nion neutrality provisions can also include specific directions to local plant managers to inform workers of the company's neutrality, give union representatives equal access to talk with workers about the union as the management, and ensure that workers are able to make their decision free from any harassment, threat, or retaliation." "Can" but need not. In contrast, your communications imply that "union neutrality" entails (and is universally recognized to entail) a self-evident set of requirements. Your list includes at least one requirement that I have not found in other definitions and that in fact runs counter to the sense of the definition I have just cited.
For these reasons, it seems more sensible for me to state publicly what I stand for. I leave it to you to judge whether my stance satisfies your particular definition of "union neutrality" and others to judge what is the more important, substance or definition.
To be clear, I absolutely "affirm" – and here I use your own language – "the exclusive rights of workers to decide whether to form a union." I believe this is the law. Law also mandates that there be no coercion, implicit or explicit, so that those considering the question of unionization can make "their decision free from any harassment, threat, or retaliation" (as above). I would absolutely support "the implementation of workers exercising their…rights after making a collective decision on unionization" (your language again).
I fear I fall short of your definition of "union neutrality" through my unwillingness to declare now that I (or the administration) will under no circumstance disseminate information. I have had experience with others conveying erroneous and misleading information, even rank falsehoods, and I find the practice abhorrent. I believe error and questionable information should be met with better information, not silence. Of course, this will be information as I see it. I completely understand your evocation of the subjectivity-of-truth principle, and while I agree that no one presenting information in such a context will be free of opinion, even interest, it does not follow that individual facts must therefore be tainted. Some data points, in whichever context they appear, are more susceptible of independent verification than others.
I think you underestimate, moreover, the sophistication of those who may face the choice to unionize – surely not your intent. Everyone is savvy enough to weigh the sources of information as well as to consider any and all interests that may be behind that information. You are kind enough to characterize me as "a powerful college president," implying, it seems to me, that to know my role is to know me. Yet you have neither experience of the way I have worked with staff in three prior institutions nor knowledge of the positions I have represented, in labor negotiations or in the hearing of grievances, at Berkeley. You might be surprised. But I don't want to argue on my own behalf. I hope that you would agree that everyone should be judged on the basis of what he or she does and not on his or her membership in a perceived "suspect class."
Should the question of unionization once again be put, I would guide Hampshire to respect all the rights and freedoms of individuals to weigh their options just as I would respect the outcome of a unionization election. I have stated above my unequivocal rejection of coercion of any sort. But I will not subject the College, or myself, to a gag rule. I do not know if the administration will or will not release any statements, but if I read or hear, as Swift wrote, "the thing that is not," I will speak "the thing that is." It goes without saying that all statements come from a position; recipients of messages should always weigh the positionality, and interests, of the sources of those messages. But let Hampshire judge any such communications on their merits. Facts and opinions should be debated, not silenced.
I look forward to our meeting on September 29 and regret that we could not have had a conversation before exchanging letters in the press.
Ralph Hexter
President