One of the few coherent complaints coming out of the Occupy movement, is that today’s college students are graduating with too much college debt. But as Inside Higher Ed reports, University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is doing all they can to make it harder for the state to lower tuition by blocking the development of online courses:
“We believe that if courses are moved online, they will most likely be the classes currently taught by lecturers,” reads a brief declaration against online education on the website of UC-AFT, the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, “and so we will use our collective bargaining power to make sure that this move to distance education is done in a fair and just way for our members.”
Now the California lecturers, who make up nearly half of the system’s undergraduate teaching teachers, believe they have used that bargaining power to score a rare coup. The University of California last week tentatively agreed to a deal with UC-AFT that included a new provision barring the system and its campuses from creating online courses or programs that would result in “a change to a term or condition of employment” of any lecturer without first dealing with the union.
Now the California lecturers, who make up nearly half of the system’s undergraduate teaching teachers, believe they have used that bargaining power to score a rare coup. The University of California last week tentatively agreed to a deal with UC-AFT that included a new provision barring the system and its campuses from creating online courses or programs that would result in “a change to a term or condition of employment” of any lecturer without first dealing with the union.
The AFT has fully endorsed the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Maybe while they are there they can explain why they want to make everyone’s college degree even more expensive.
