[URBANTH-L]Dear Wally
ebrumfiel at northwestern.edu
ebrumfiel at northwestern.edu
Wed Jan 19 15:14:58 EST 2005
Dear Wally,
Thank you for your letter of a couple of weeks ago. It clearly expresses your ongoing concern for
the well-being for the AAA, and that is heartening.
As I understand it, your letter makes four points, two of which I agree with and two of which I
disagree with.
The first is that since I am the current President of the AAA, I am the one who is responsible for
the preservation of the organization. I certainly agree with that! I assure you that I have
thought hard and worked diligently since I took office fourteen months ago to make the AAA a better
organization, one that serves the needs of all its members. This has been particularly true during
the past three months, as we faced the challenge of a lock-out of workers by the San Francisco
hotels. I am painfully aware of my responsibilities to the organization and its members.
The second point you make is that the AAA is currently in crisis, on the verge of disintegrating.
I must respectfully disagree with this assessment. Reading through the Section News of the January
2005 AN, it seemed to me that there is widespread recognition that the Executive Board operated in
good faith when it voted to move the meeting to Atlanta. This was true even of sections that went
ahead and held their own session in San Francisco. There is also widespread concern about the
information available to the Executive Board when it made its decision and the flow of information
from the EB to the membership and from the membership to the EB. These are definitely matters
requiring serious attention and reform, but they do not constitute a crisis.
The third point you make is that the AAA officers and staff ought to undertake a detailed and
public review of the events leading up to the decision to move the meeting to Atlanta. I must also
disagree with this position. Such a review would undoubtedly yield conflicting accounts, leading
to further accusations and dissention. It would also cost both the AAA officers and staff a great
deal of time and energy, time and energy that are better spent in more forward-looking efforts to
solve our problems and provide better membership services. I think we know enough about what
transpired in October to agree that in situations like this, AAA officers and staff need to begin
to react earlier and to consult more extensively with the membership. This was a very painful
lesson, but I am confident that we have learned it.
The fourth point you make is that the AAA ought to undertake reforms that will ensure that the
events of last October will not be repeated. I agree entirely! For this reason I am creating two
Commissions. The Labor Relations Commission is charged with 1) providing information to the AAA
Executive Board and staff as they negotiate contracts that promote collective bargaining and the
right to organize while protecting the Association from liability and the disruption of its
scheduled annual meetings, and (2) seeking alliances with other scholarly associations for the
above purposes. The Governance Commission will see reforms in the relationship between the AAA
Executive Board and the Sections and to facilitate communication and feedback mechanisms within the
AAA as a whole between annual meetings. Both of these Commissions come at the suggestion of
membership proposals in response to the Executive Board decision.
I think that the AAA has come though a difficult time fairly well intact. Let us strive to make
2005 a great year for the organization!
With best wishes,
Liz
==============Original message text===============
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 4:12:01 am GMT "Robert T. O'Brien" wrote:
Dear Colleagues:
I have been asked by Walter Goldschmidt, former AAA
President, to circulate the letter below (sent to
current AAA President Liz Brumfiel two weeks ago).
Dr. Goldschmidt spoke passionately about the issues
of labor relations and AAA governance at the
meetings in Atlanta. He has expanded on his thoughts
here. I think they warrant a close read.
Best,
Rob O'Brien
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:15:01 -0800 To:
ebrumfiel at northwestern.edu From: Walter Goldschmidt
<walterg at ucla.edu> Subject: crises Cc: Robert
O'Brien, Paul
Durrenberger, bdavis at aaanet.org
Dear Liz,
I am concerned that I have not had a response to my
letter of
two weeks ago. Because the matter goes far beyond
you and me, I
am having Bob O"Brien circulate it more widely.
Wally
To: ebrumfiel at northwestern.edu From: Walter
Goldschmidt
<walterg at ucla.edu> Cc: agoodman at hampshire.edu Bcc:
bdavis at aaanet.org lhorne at aaanet.org
Dr. Elizabeth Brumfiel, President American
Anthropological
Association 2200 Wilson Blvd. Arlington VA 22201
Dear Liz,
This letter is being addressed to you, Liz, as the
responsible
head of the Association, who has found herself
suddenly faced
with a crisis of major proportions in what is
generally seen as
a largely ceremonial and honorific role. You have my
sympathy,
for I am sure that you wanted to follow some agenda
of your own,
but now you have no choice. I am giving you friendly
advice with
sympathy and concern, because conscientious and
forceful action
is essential for the very preservation of the
Association. This
is not a melodramatic statement, but a sober
assessment. Though
I know from experience that it seems the other way
around, you
are the boss and Bill and the staff are your
employees; this
means that you are the fall-guy; you are where the
buck stops.
When I was inducted as an officer of the
Association, I and my
cohort were advised that as officers we had fiscal
responsibility and legal liability, if I remember
the
terminology correctly, and whether this advisory is
still
practiced, I am sure it is still the law.
The crisis has two aspects, each of which must be
addressed. The
first is damage control, for there is great anger at
both the
manner in which the situation was handled from the
outset and
the decision that was made and the way it was
arrived at. The
second is planning for the almost inevitable revisit
to the same
crisis in 2006. While this will not occur on your
watch, the
planning for this must be done by you and your
successor right
away.
1. Damage Control. Given the existence of a contract
and the
likelihood of a strike, the Association had to face
the issue of
its memberswillingness to cross the picket lines.
Though we are
not a union, we are made up largely of liberals who
are
reluctant to act in support of management. Thus the
question
was: Can the AAA meet successfully in a hotel that
is not merely
on strike, but where the workers were locked out? If
not, what
are the alternatives? The inevitability of having to
face this
issue raises further questions: Why was there no
planning for
this likely event? I called my long-term friend,
Lucille Horne,
on Oct. 12, to find out what was being planned, more
to protect
my hotel deposit than as a call to action, and was
surprised
when she blithely said she expected the strike to be
over by
then. I should have been alerted by this response
that sounded
more like Rumsfelds planning for Iraq than I like
with the same
inevitability of disaster. It is of course not
Lucilles job to
anticipate political disasters -- but what was going
on in the
administration of Association affairs? Was there no
realization
of the potential gravity of the situation? Why had
there been no
canvass of the membership to measure its commitment
to support
the strikers and its attitude toward crossing picket
lines? The
opacity of the action that was taken, the sudden and
very
limited referendum and the decision to take action
quite unlike
any proposed in the referendum all combine to
alienate the
membership and exacerbated the latent antagonism
that always
lies between authority and rank-and-file. It is this
alienation
that the leadership, both elected and employed, must
do all in
its power to dispel. It can do this only by a full
disclosure of
what was said and done leading up to the decision to
move to
Atlanta and to keep us posted on actions currently
being taken
with respect to the future. The members need to know
in detail
just how matters were handled, when was the gravity
of the
situation realized, what the initial reactions were,
what the
staff was doing about it, what voices came from the
members and
whose voices and what knowledge came to dominate the
decisions.
In short, full disclosure!
The meetings have been held; they were a travesty
for the
participants, a tragedy for those who most needed
them,
particularly the young and hungry, and an on-going
threat to the
integrity of the Association. I feel that neither
you nor Bill
appreciates the gravity of this situation, and your
round-robin
letter describing the meetings does nothing to
dispel this fear.
I had been astonished to find no call for a plenary
session to
explain and discuss the matter at the meeting, if
only to
release a little steam. Sitting in the so-called
business
meeting was like discussing the relative merits of
Evian Water
over Vichy while the house was burning. It was
surreal. There is
already an outside threat to use this situation to
break up the
Association, but nobody seems to have taken the
trouble to
recognize the presence of that elephant in the
parlor.
The only overt expression of awareness and of
negotiations was
the session called by Paul Durrenberger and Suzan
Erem. It gave
us a peek at what went on, but did not explain your
and Bills
role and the decision-making process. Apparently
outside
consultants were used but no consultation with the
membership.
There should have been a session called specifically
to discuss
the issue, with yourself presiding, Bill, Lucille
and the
President-elect there, in which you outlined for us
the history
of the action and took questions from the floor.
I urge you now to make up for this failure by
establishing a
forum in the Newsletter, in which you set forth in
painful
detail all the discussions and action, starting with
the first
recognition of the existence of a crisis and
continuing on over
the years, taking letters of condemnation and advice
as well as
describing on-going actions until the crisis of 2006
has been
resolved. Perhaps this letter could be published as
an open
letter as a kick-off for such a forum. I urge that
you and the
staff be open and frank. The crisis was not of your
making and
the solution was not self-evident, yet the one
reached was far
from ideal and the membership deserves to know just
how it was
arrived at and what other solutions were considered.
This forum
should, if necessary, replace less urgent materials.
You dont
want a call for a commission of enquiry on the
matter, which is
the last thing we need.
2. The Coming Crisis. The Faustian bargain reached
for the 2004
meeting means that we must meet the devil face to
face very
soon. You must realize that this strike/lock-out is
no mere
local conflict, but a major confrontation between
labor and
management. The union is the largest one in the
public sector
and represents not only the poorest of the working
poor but
those very people who are trying to lift themselves
out of the
poverty level, into which their un-unionized
counterparts fall.
It is, furthermore, a battle for unionization
itself, a battle
that had its first skirmish with Reagans defeat of
the flight
monitors union when he took office. I was dismayed
to hear one
of the Association officers, whose name I do not
know, dismiss
the matter as being just a house-keeping
girlsissuewhen we had
important issues like what should be done about Iraq
(about
which we can have zero influence) to discuss. I
suggest you ask
Paul Durrenberger and/or Suzan Erem do explain what
is involved,
for they are far better qualified than I am to do
so. Any
assumption that the problem will go away is just
more Rumsfeld
thinking.Indeed, management will very likely want to
chastise us
for having walked out of San Francisco.
I cannot advise you on how to solve the problem, but
I can
suggest some courses of action you should take now.
The first is
to get the best measure you can of the temper of the
Association
membership. How many would boycott a meeting that
was on strike;
how many would refuse to cross a picket line, etc.
The second is
to create an ad hoc committee made up of
knowledgeable people, I
would presume chaired by the President-elect, who is
saddled
with the issue, to explore alternatives, assay their
costs and,
for those that seem viable, get membership reaction.
Third, I
would be open about all actions taken, keeping the
membership
informed through the Forum in the Newsletter and by
email.
You have my sympathy, Liz. I have no doubt of your
good
intentions but I am not impressed with your
performance to date.
It is not an easy task and I am sure you will have
to give up
doing a lot of things with your term of office that
are more
dear to your heart. But it has fallen on your
shoulders and you
and your President-elect will have to spend long,
agonizing
hours working on it, learning as you go. But nothing
is more
important than the resolution of this internal issue
to keep our
Association intact. If you succeed, you will have
accomplished
something more important than anything on your (or
my) resume.
Happy Holidays!
Walter Goldschmidt, UCLA
****************************************
Robert T. O'Brien
AAAUnite Ad Hoc Committee
http://AAAUnite.blogspot.comhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/aaaunite/Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Anthropology
Temple University
robrien at temple.edu
215-803-5181
"Don't mourn, organize!"
-- Labor organizer Joe Hill, before being murdered in 1915 by a firing squad.
===========End of original message text===========
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