Warning to college students: Joining in solidarity with low-wage workers on your campus can be hazardous to your freedom of speech.

At Vanderbilt University, members of Vanderbilt Students of Nonviolence recently met with campus workers to talk about working conditions for the lowest-paid employees and hammer out concrete actions all could take to make Vanderbilt a safer and more just place to work and learn.

Instead, they found out what life can really be like outside the campus green and inside the U.S. workplace. In a letter to the editor signed by seven members of the student nonviolence group and those in the Living Income for Vanderbilt Employees organization, they described how university management attempted to intimidate them.

The meeting was intended to be a safe place for workers and students to meet—we had heard rumors that due to a dictatorial contract and management hostility, it’s challenging for employees to claim that space. Despite being warned, we were shocked when we got our own taste of the intimidation that workers apparently experience when they try to talk and organize among themselves.

Throughout the meeting, university management stationed people to watch who went in and out of the doors, taking notes; after the meeting, they searched the trash cans for anything we might have thrown away and talked about whether they had gotten any photos of the meeting (”no luck,” they sighed).

The eerie feeling of our own administration’s surveillance was matched by the surreally conspicuous way in which they conducted it. Marta Stinson (a Human Resources manager who removed her name tag and refused to tell us who she was, but put her ID back on as soon as our meeting ended) stood just outside the room in the space behind an open door and the wall, putting one eye up against the crack to peer through. She came into our meeting room and stood in the corner, watching us, eventually marching up to the table (interrupting a worker explaining the attitude of management toward workers) and demanded that we stop handing out fliers and surveys. In a bizarre twist, she denounced our meeting, and not her intrusion, as “inappropriate,” before storming back out of the room to make a phone call.

Generally, this type of management intimidation occurs when workers are seeking to form a union—64 percent of private-sector employers interrogate workers about union activity—and worse. The campus employees are looking for a voice at work—they’re already represented by the Laborers—but if this account is accurate, it points out the extent to which university management fears campus-wide solidarity. A lesson for us all.

Read the full letter here.

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President William George leads a discussion on tapping into economic recovery funds with union leaders from across the state.

Yael Foa, AFL-CIO senior field representative for the Northeast Region, sends us this report on union efforts in Pennsylvania to tap into federal economic recovery funds to create jobs across the state.

The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO recently sponsored two first-of-their-kind forums to provide union leaders with specifics about where and how American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dollars are being spent in our state. We also examined how union leaders can identify opportunities to access economic recovery dollars for job creation and training programs. Nearly 300 leaders from area labor federations from across the state took part.

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President William George framed the agenda this way:

Billions of dollars of federal stimulus dollars are flowing into cities and towns across Pennsylvania. We want to be sure that our unions and their members take advantage of every opportunity to put these funds to work in creating and protecting good jobs. Some of our unions have been very successful at leveraging this money on behalf of their members. These conferences provide all of our unions the opportunity to put this information and knowledge to use for their members and their communities. Our top priority is Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Now. The road to economic recovery and prosperity is good jobs that support workers and keep local economies strong and vibrant.

George strongly encouraged union leaders to work closely with their local elected officials, members of Workforce Investment Boards, state agencies and other entities to identify opportunities to access ARRA funds in their communities.

Jim Kunz, business manager for Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 66 in Pittsburgh, described the steps Local 66 takes to track funding for upcoming projects and work with signatory contractors and contractor associations to identify stimulus-funded construction jobs. Local leaders also make competitive adjustments to their collective bargaining agreements to help contractors win bids for these jobs—all of which helps to keep more union members working in these tough economic times. Said Kunz:

There are so many baskets of stimulus dollars going in so many directions that it takes a lot of time and effort to find and track these dollars, but we believe in the long run it will be worth it. Better we get them instead of the open shop companies who will use them to undermine our wages, benefits, and working conditions.

At the forum in Plymouth, union leaders highlighted a stellar example of how the recovery act works to save and create jobs. Gamesa, a wind turbine manufacturer with its headquarters in Spain, employs United Steelworkers (USW) members at its manufacturing plants in Ebensburg and Fairless Hills, Penn.

Last November, the company was forced to lay off 79 workers at their Ebensburg facility due to a drop in new orders. But because of the stimulus-funded Green Energy Works wind grant program, Gamesa turbines will be used by the three wind farm developers that received a total of $22.8 million in grants last month, which enabled Gamesa to bring back the laid-off workers and hire an additional 50. The grants also will create 257 more jobs at the three large-scale wind farms in Pennsylvania.

Rob Witherall, USW lead negotiator of Gamesa, made the case that “rebuilding our economy means rebuilding our manufacturing base.”

Every good-paying manufacturing position supports up to five other jobs. We believe the best use of our U.S. tax dollars is exactly what it is being used for here:  creating and saving good U.S. jobs.