SCOTUS leak and the FSU

5/5/2022

Dear Colleagues, 

In this busiest time of the academic year, the Executive Committee of the Faculty Staff Union feels called upon to respond to the news from the Supreme Court that is on so many of our minds. At this time, we write you with a few basic affirmations:  

• We affirm that the membership of the FSU holds a diversity of positions with respect to the right to safe, free, and accessible abortion care.  As your elected representatives we remain resolutely committed to your right to hold and express those opinions in all protected spheres.   
• We affirm, along with labor unions around the country (and our own parent union), that abortion rights and workers’ rights are inextricably tied together. As one labor journalist puts it the “right to control our bodies is part and parcel of our centuries-old battle to control our labor, and they cannot be separated from one another.”  
• We affirm that we must protect the rights of our most vulnerable faculty and staff colleagues and students.  On a campus committing itself to antiracism and health promotion we join a wide coalition of union leaders who understand this rollback of rights as particularly endangering to people of color, low-income people, and queer and transgender people.   
• We affirm that this current rollback of rights is, as our colleagues in the Los Angeles Teachers’ Union have articulated, an “act of extremism,” related to “the systematic attack” on privacy and speech including but not limited to “voting rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, immigrant rights, and the right of educators to teach the truth about our nation’s history.” 
• We affirm that we will carefully monitor any fallout from this pending Supreme Court decision that puts our enumerated contractual rights into question and to impact bargain around new concerns (e.g. travel allowances for unit members and their families who might be negatively impacted by changes in state laws outside of Massachusetts). 

From the Faculty Staff Union Executive Committee

For information on the FSU, links to our contract and bargaining updates, and a calendar of events, see the FSU webpage