(another) open letter to NCA members

Dear Colleagues,

Like the rest of you, we are looking forward to the upcoming NCA convention in San Francisco. We anticipate many excellent opportunities to reconnect with colleagues and friends. It will also be a chance to engage in the kind of intellectual work that keeps our discipline vibrant and relevant. And all of this will take place in one of America’s great, historically progressive cities.

However, as many of you are no doubt aware, a labor dispute threatens to compromise the ability of many NCA members to attend this year’s conference. As NCA First Vice President Lynn Turner recently informed us, one of this year’s conference hotels, the Hilton San Francisco Union Square, is the target of a labor-related boycott that may soon give way to a strike. The hotel is a frequent target of rallies and pickets that NCA members will be forced to cross if a resolution does not take place by November (for a video of these pickets, see http://is.gd/av7oH). The other conference hotel, the Parc 55 San Francisco, also faces a potential boycott. This situation is due to the failure of hotel management to negotiate a mutually satisfactory labor contract with the hotel workers’ union UNITE HERE. A particularly acute matter of concern is the status of health and retirement benefits under the new contract. As a result, UNITE HERE is asking sympathetic customers to abstain from patronizing the Hilton.

We are pleased that Professor Turner and NCA President Dawn Braithwaite have taken early steps to alert the membership of this situation. They are currently in dialogue with the hotel and union in hopes of reaching a resolution that will allow all NCA members to attend the conference without having to violate a union boycott. We also believe that there is a role for all interested NCA members to play. We recognize that the last time NCA confronted a labor boycott against its convention site in San Diego, members were faced with difficult decisions and engaged in heated debates over our institutional identity and appropriate courses of action. While those of us who participated in that year’s “UNconvention” remain proud of our efforts and cherish the experience, we have no desire to repeat 2008. NCA members will undoubtedly have differing opinions about what steps NCA should take in the face of this current controversy. We may also disagree on the merits of UNITE HERE’s positions and strategies. It is our hope, however, that we can share a desire to see all NCA members who wish to attend this year’s conference do so without choosing between their professional and ethical commitments. For this reason, we are asking our fellow NCA members to contact the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and the Parc 55 San Francisco and encourage them to arrive at a resolution with their employees. You may call the Hilton at 415-771-1400 and the Parc 55 at 415-392-8000.

For those who will not attend NCA without a resolution to the current labor dispute: We ask that you sign the petition, linked here: http://is.gd/aOKIR. This petition is intended to express the intentions of NCA members in the wake of this labor dispute. We will deliver the document to NCA membership well in advance of the conference registration deadline. We have already informed Professor Turner of our intention to collect names of members who would not attend NCA in the case of an ongoing labor dispute, and she indicated she would be pleased to learn of members’ plans. Thus, by adding your signature and expressing your intentions, you are allowing the NCA leadership to have a very clear and tangible sense of how labor disputes at site hotels affect members and conference attendance.

At last year’s NCA in Chicago, many members engaged in lively discussions about the appropriate role of politics in our organization. Indeed, these are important and enriching conversations that we should continue to have. We draft this letter in the spirit of continuing this and other important exchanges. In the interest of a spirited and well-attended conference in November, please contact our hosts and encourage them to resolve this current impasse.

Sincerely,

Adria Battaglia, University of Texas at Austin

Dana Cloud, University of Texas at Austin

Kathleen Feyh, University of Texas at Austin

Joshua Gunn, University of Texas at Austin

Michelle Hammers, Loyola Marymount University

Kristen Hoerl, Butler University

Casey Kelly, Butler University

Ashley Mack, University of Texas

Bryan McCann, Marian University

Charles Morris, III, Boston College

Jon Simons, Indiana University

Amy Young, Pacific Lutheran University