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Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Sept. 8, 2020

Grad Student Strike at Michigan is the
First Pandemic Pushback on Campus
Plus, Louis DeJoy is in campaign finance trouble

 

The Michigan Union, at the center of campus in Ann Arbor, in March, at
the beginning of the outbreak. (Steven King/Icon Sportswire via AP
Images)

First Response

Labor Day was a working holiday for the Graduate Employees'
Organization (GEO), the union of grad student teachers and staff at the
University of Michigan (my alma mater). For months, they have been
trying to get the attention of the university leadership, who had been
implementing their plan for the return to campus for students without
their input. Meetings with various deans were either ignored or
unproductive. Last week, the union held a "die-in
" on the
Diag, the main campus square. Bargaining with the university led
nowhere.

On Monday the GEO called a strike
,
the first that I have heard about from a graduate student union, to
protest both the lack of safety for students and staff during the
pandemic and the collaboration with police as enforcers of the new
rules. It's an early spasm of dissent from a system at U.S. colleges
and universities that appears more concerned with collecting tuition
than ensuring that nobody gets sick or dies from COVID-19. And it may
kick off a trend of students, faculty, or staff throwing themselves in
front of the oncoming freight train of poorly conceived rules that have
been sparking outbreaks in college towns

across the country.

The strike action is actually illegal under GEO's contract, signed in
April, and under state law, which prohibits strikes from public
employees. The university did not hesitate
to make
these points yesterday. "It's no secret that a lot of states are
extremely hostile to organized labor and working people standing up,"
said Amir Fleischmann, secretary of the GEO union, in an interview.
"Every labor action contains a certain amount of risk. The risks of
not taking action are far greater than those incurred by doing so."

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The GEO has a set of demands that correlate with our interlocking sets
of national crises. Like many colleges that have returned, Michigan
hasn't put the safety of its students and faculty first, the union
alleges. There is no randomized testing of asymptomatic people
throughout the community. "Even our own medical school has said that
you need that to prevent a massive outbreak," Fleischmann said. The
union wants an unconditional option for its members to teach remotely;
thus far the university has pushed that decision down to individual
departments. The lost summer for research has put grad students behind,
and the union is asking for a one-year extension to finish that work.
And grad students with families are dealing with the same problem as
other working families: remote learning at public schools and the need
for childcare. The university offers subsidies but only for children
below school age; the union wants that expanded.

Of as much importance to the GEO are a group of anti-policing demands,
developed over the past couple years but given new linkages during the
current moment. The university has expanded cooperation with the Ann
Arbor Police Department to enforce social distancing on campus,
including a now-aborted plan

to have armed officers accompanying the "Michigan Ambassadors"
canvassing teams, made up of students and staff and empowered to police
congregations of people. "I've seen it described as a 'license to
Karen,'" said Fleischmann.

The university took the officers out of the patrols, though members of
the Division of Public Safety and Security, a campus security unit, will
take part. The GEO wants DPSS funding cut in half and a standard of
force for campus police, as well as a severing of ties between the
university and the AAPD.

The strike is authorized for one week, and can be reauthorized if
demands aren't met. On Monday the GEO held a virtual meeting with over
700 members, making plans for picketing. Classes started a week ago, but
discussion sections and courses taught by student instructors will be
cancelled.

With expectations for a new round of COVID infections

in the fall, including from groups of people moving indoors (such as in
a classroom setting), and with data showing that young, healthy people
are at risk of significant sickness from the virus

if not death, I'd expect more labor actions on campuses as students
file in. Lives are at stake for entire communities, and university
administrators have not handled the plans or the criticism well. This is
just the beginning.

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Straw Postman

Let's check in on our favorite Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy. When
we last left our hero, he was implementing policy changes at the post
office that were demonstrably slowing down the mail
.
It was just as clear that this was a political influence operation

to seek long-desired privatization goals, which just happened to align
with a presidential election dependent on mail-in voting

amid the pandemic.

Donald Trump has shut up about the post office

now that his plot was discovered, but the House is continuing to
investigate
.
And they were fed a gem about DeJoy's origins as a postmaster fixer.
According to the Washington Post
,
DeJoy engaged in a straw donor operation. He would force employees to
give to Republicans and then reimburse them with bonuses later. This led
to his rise in standing within the party as a donor, and his appointment
to USPS to degrade its functions. Straw donor schemes are a felony
; the former
head of the school board in Los Angeles had to step down over something
similar, and pleaded out to avoid jail time.

The denouement of this saga comes with Trump saying he'd support an
investigation

into DeJoy's actions. Loyalty is a one-way street for Trump, so no
surprise there. The speed with which DeJoy went from unassuming
appointee, to architect of one of the fulcrum points of the election, to
persona non grata, however, is bracing.

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Today I Learned

* I was on 3 Championship Drive
,
a Detroit Pistons podcast, talking about my story

about the Pistons' owner and his profiting from prison exploitation.
Listen here
.
(Google Podcast)

* The state fiscal crises are just starting to sink in
.
(New York Times)

* Vaccine developers make a joint pledge

to not produce a vaccine until it's safe, an unprecedented thing for a
pharma company to have to say. (Wall Street Journal)

* Biden and Harris fan the flames
,
say Trump shouldn't be trusted on a vaccine decision. He probably
shouldn't. (Axios)

* Up to 52 percent of young adults

are living with their parents during COVID. (Pew Research)

* Disposable masks are a blight
and will
cause intense amounts of pollution. (BBC)

* Tenet did middling business
at the
box office, but $20 million looks like Avatar level for movie theaters
yielding nothing for months. (Financial Times)

* A look at the lobbyist for Lysol and Clorox
.
(The Hill)

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