Pics *are* amusing, though:
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/images/made/archives/upload/2017/05/Markeshia/YF1_720_480_88_sha-100.jpg

There is exactly zero point to all this “activism.” Trump has narrowed his list of candidates to fill the two open seats on the five-member National Labor Relations Board to Marvin Kaplan, William Emanuel, and Douglas Seaton.

As Workforce Policy Counsel on the House Education and Workforce Committee from January 2012 to September 2015, Kaplan “led efforts to fight DOL overtime and 2012 unconstitutional NLRB recess appointments” and “[d]rafted … the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act,” legislation that sought to overturn the Board’s 2012 Specialty Healthcare bargaining unit decision and “quickie election” rulemaking by amending the National Labor Relations Act.

Emanuel describes himself as having “extensive experience representing employers in traditional labor matters….”

Seaton is a professional “persuader” (“union buster”) who told Bloomberg that “the board [sic] has gone very, very far to the left or to the pro-union side of things, and I’d be happy and honored if I could help bring it back to the middle.”

But Local 33’s problems by no means end with the NLRB and the Trump administration, Congress is fuming over key issues in the Yale controversy. For example, a group of 47 House Republican lawmakers is urging the heads of Congress’ appropriations committee to restrain the NLRB from implementing several of former President Barack Obama’s changes to labor regulations. Among other things, their letter criticizes the board’s decision to allow unions to organize subgroups of workers rather than all employees at once, exactly the trick Local 33 used in its Department-by-Department election.

It is not even clear that any of the recent NLRB actions on which Local 33 relies will even survive action under the Congressional Review Act. The CRA provides Congress with an opportunity to invalidate an agency rule while satisfying the Article I Bicameralism and Presentment requirements. A joint resolution of disapproval signed into law by the President invalidates the rule and bars an agency from thereafter adopting a substantially similar one absent a new act of Congress. As the text of the act shows, Congress intended that the CRA apply broadly to whatever type of document an agency could use to strong-arm a regulated party into complying with the agency’s views.

Both regulations and interpretive rules fit under the umbrella of “rules” that Congress used to define the substantive scope of agency action. At the same time, Congress was precise in stating exactly when its opportunity to review and overturn a rule would commence: at the later of the date when the Federal Register publishes the rule or when the agency properly submits it to Congress. Together, those provisions enable Congress to reach back and review agency legislative and interpretive regulations that were never properly submitted to Congress under the CRA. The Obama NLRB was so sloppy that it may not have properly reported its later actions to Congress. The main incentive for Congress not to use the CRA is that they don’t have to: The new NLRB will repeal all he rules and interpretations on which Local 33 depends.

I *was* moved by those immortal words (was it MLK?) re:the perpetual struggle: “I faced low blood sugar and low blood pressure” and “I’ve lost … 15 to 20 pounds.”

I also like the reportage (and oh-so-serious pics) over at NH Independent:
“Earlier Tuesday, the outgoing chair of Yale’s Graduate Student Assembly… argued that [grads] are ‘apprentices,’ not traditional ‘workers’ … ‘trainees’ who wouldn’t yet be able to obtain permanent employment … [GSAS also] noted that only 228 of Yale’s 2,600 Ph.D students got to vote in the elections.”

Also, despite the general risibility of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies prof. Jennifer Klein’s NYTimes article (that, tellingly, does not allow for comments), I find her observations on the oversupply of graddies worth re-posting (versus riposting):

“Tenured and tenured-track jobs have declined significantly… There are also a lot fewer job openings. In 2015, for example, 1,183 English Ph.D.s graduated, but there were only 361 openings for assistant English professors in all of academia. Job postings with the American Historical Association — the nexus for history professor job listings — declined by 45 percent over the past five years…
This has created a perpetual backlog of aspiring assistant professors, all competing for fewer jobs.”

Could one solution be to, I dunno, reduce supply (most esp. in the, um… less-in-demand depts such as, say, WGSS)?

Played it by the book? Aside from ignoring the university’s right to appeal the NLRB’s decision, that is.