Hampshire College

September 22, 2005

Ben Grosscup
Students for the Freedom to Unionize
Hampshire College
Box 496

Dear Ben, Students for the Freedom to Unionize:

Thank you for your letter of 12 September as well as confirmation of our appointment to meet on 29 September. On 19 September you wrote to inform me that you would be publishing your letter of 12 September in this year’s first edition of The Climax and invited me to submit a written response. I would have thought that meeting face-to-face first would have made sense, but if you wish to meet first in the pages of the college paper, I am happy to oblige. You write in your communication of 19 September that you are “trying to get the Hampshire administration to commit to union-neutrality,” and that is the gist of your earlier communications as well as your question of me when I was a candidate for the presidency. You also wish the administration to “apologize... or make amends” for its “unacknowledged legacy of union-busting.”  Let me take these up in reverse order.

I cannot speak to the history of the 1990s, but I heartily agree with your statement that “[h]istory always plays an important role in forming the expectations and norms of the present.” I also know that dwelling on the past can obscure and even  preclude possible futures. The arrival of a new president presents Hampshire with an opportunity for a fresh start in many areas, of which labor relations is one.

While I am not so nai¨ve as to think there may not be hard feelings from past debates and disagreements, my goal is to serve Hampshire now and make it a better institution, with the support of and for the benefit of all members of our community. I know the depth, breadth, and sincerity of that commitment, but only the coming years will give you, and others, the opportunity to form your own judgment.

I would be more comfortable with a pledge of “union neutrality” if I were certain that there was a universally recognized sense of what it entails. A brief survey of its uses beyond the margins of your letters shows that it is an elastic category. For example, http://www.cleanclothesconnection.org/commsurv.htm notes that
“[u]nion neutrality provisions can also include specific directions to local plant managers to inform workers of the company’s neutrality, give union representatives equal access to talk with workers about the union as the management, and ensure that workers are able to make their decision free from any harassment, threat, or
retaliation.”  “Can” but need not.  In contrast, your communications imply that “union neutrality” entails (and is universally recognized to entail) a self-evident set of requirements. Your list includes at least one requirement that I have not found in other definitions and that in fact runs counter to the sense of the definition I have
just cited.

For these reasons, it seems more sensible for me to state publicly what I stand for. I leave it to you to judge whether my stance satisfies your particular definition of “union neutrality” and others to judge what is the more important, substance or definition.

To be clear, I absolutely “affirm” – and here I use your own language – “the exclusive rights of workers to decide whether to form a union.” I believe this is the law. Law also mandates that there be no coercion, implicit or explicit, so that those considering the question of unionization can make “their decision free from any
harassment, threat, or retaliation” (as above). I would absolutely support “the implementation of workers exercising their...rights after making a collective decision on unionization” (your language again).

I fear I fall short of your definition of “union neutrality” through my unwillingness to declare now that I (or the administration) will under no circumstance disseminate information. I have had experience with others conveying erroneous and misleading information, even rank falsehoods, and I find the practice abhorrent. I believe error and questionable information should be met with better information, not silence. Of course, this will be information as I see it. I completely understand your evocation of the subjectivity-of-truth principle, and while I agree that no one presenting information in such a context will be free of opinion, even interest, it does not follow that individual facts must therefore be tainted. Some data points, in whichever context they appear, are more susceptible of independent verification than others.

I think you underestimate, moreover, the sophistication of those who may face the choice to unionize – surely not your intent. Everyone is savvy enough to weigh the sources of information as well as to consider any and all interests that may be behind that information. You are kind enough to characterize me as “a powerful  college president,” implying, it seems to me, that to know my role is to know me. Yet you have neither experience of the way I have worked with staff in three prior institutions nor knowledge of the positions I have represented, in labor negotiations or in the hearing of grievances, at Berkeley. You might be surprised. But I don’t want to argue on my own behalf. I hope that you would agree that everyone should be judged on the basis of what he or she does and not on his or her membership in a perceived “suspect class.”

Should the question of unionization once again be put, I would guide Hampshire to respect all the rights and freedoms of individuals to weigh their options just as I would respect the outcome of a unionization election. I have stated above my unequivocal rejection of coercion of any sort. But I will not subject the College, or
myself, to a gag rule. I do not know if the administration will or will not release any statements, but if I read or hear, as Swift wrote, “the thing that is not,” I will speak “the thing that is.” It goes without saying that all statements come from a position; recipients of messages should always weigh the positionality, and interests, of the sources of those messages. But let Hampshire judge any such communications on their merits. Facts and opinions should be debated, not silenced.

I look forward to our meeting on September 29 and regret that we could not have
had a conversation before exchanging letters in the press.

Ralph Hexter
President