Michael Dreiling

“In a society fractured by adversarial and competitive hyper-individualism, unions offer our culture an opportunity to recall the values of interdependence and fairness. Public institutions of higher education — at their best — elevate those cultural principles as well, and further meld them together in a mission to create opportunities, regardless of background or income, to pursue understanding and knowledge for the betterment of our world. At a time when equality of access to that dream is lambasted, when
the ‘public’ in our public institutions corrodes in the face of hostile forces, it is fitting that educators, scholars and scientists defend and advance the public mission of our university using every institutional tool possible, including unions. I support United Academics at UO for all of the pragmatic reasons of unionizing as well as to help protect and advance the legacy of America’s system of public higher education.”