Division of Labor Studies in danger

The Division of Labor Studies needs a new home and time is running out. The issue dates back to the spring of 2005 when the Indiana General Assembly voted to eliminate the $358,000 per year it provided the small program, which spans six campuses but is mainly based at IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis. In addition to that cut, the DLS was also hit from the 5 percent cut that all IU departments endured from the legislature. This left the DLS in a budgetary crisis, close to $500,000 in the red and in a desperate need of a new source of funding. \nIn response, IUPUI Chancellor Charles R. Bantz created a new Labor Studies budget committee which resolved the crisis and established a five-year balanced budget. But despite the new budget plan it appears the DLS still faces closure as new problems arose when the DLS director resigned last fall due to inappropriate use of funds. Despite the DLS' new financial health, the IUPUI administration demanded that the DLS find a partner to merge with or it would face a radical layoff of all non-tenured faculty, which composes about half of the entire faculty.\n"Many other Labor Studies programs around the country -- Berkeley, UMass Amherst, Florida International University, etc. -- have been under political attack in recent years, with Republican state governments attacking the programs because they teach issues impacting workers and support the legal right of workers to organize into unions, we cannot help but feel that we are under a similar political assault," said DLS professor Steven Ashbry in an e-mail. \nCurrently, the DLS is in discussion with IU Northwest to stay alive as a statewide program, but be effectively based in Gary. If the DLS is unable to find a home, the IUPUI administration is expected to move quickly in January to radically restructure and reduce the program, fire the non-tenured faculty and most of the support staff. \n"We cannot help but feel that we have been set up -- that IUPUI never intended for us to move from a reporting line to a regional campus," Ashbry said. "The plan all along, it appears to us, was to destroy the program. While IUPUI officials always state that this is not the case, actions speak louder than words." \nWhile relatively small in size, by addressing labor issues such as workers, workplace and worker organizations, the DLS includes faculty and courses covering academic fields like economics, history, political science, law and sociology, as well as other related backgrounds and disciplines. \nFaculty officials said the DLS is also the country's largest and oldest university program of its kind. Beginning in 1946 with the acceptance of the Industrial Relations Programs as part of what was then the Bureau of Adult Education and Public Service, the DLS has changed names and positions. \n"The Kelley School of Business is a 100 times the size of Labor Studies -- shouldn't there be at least one small statewide academic program that speaks to the issues facing 90 percent of Indiana and the U.S. population -- our working people," Ashbry said. "Shouldn't IU have at least one small program dedicated to addressing workers' viewpoints on issues such as globalization, plant closings, the role of the growing retail and service sectors in the economy including such corporations as Wal-Mart, issues of race and gender in the workplace and other such pressing issues"