Dear Commons Community,

The Huffington Post is reporting that the Netherlands’ biggest pension fund, Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds (APB), with more than $300 billion in assets, announced that it was blacklisting the largest retailer in the world for noncompliance with the United Nations’ Global Compact principles. The article cites poor labor practices and the company’s anti-union stance as the driving forces behind APB’s decision.

“On Tuesday, the Netherlands’ biggest pension fund, Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds, with more than $300 billion in assets, announced that it was blacklisting the largest retailer in the world for noncompliance with the United Nations’ Global Compact principles. The Global Compact presents a set of core values relating to human rights, labor standards, the environment and anti-corruption efforts. ..ABP said on Wednesday that the decision to pull its investment from Walmart was not hasty. The fund declined to say how much money is involved, but according to ABP records, it had invested some 95 million euros, worth $121 million today, in U.S. Walmart stores as of June 30, 2011. The fund first sent a letter to Walmart executives in 2008, a year after ABP formalized its responsible-investing policy. Four years later, after many meetings with employees and all levels of management, ABP concluded the retail giant was still falling short.”

APB’s action might be something that American labor unions might push for in this country.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

As a follow-up to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s state of the state address on Wednesday, Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver gave a brief response. Manfred Philipp, University Faculty Senate, posted yesterday on the UFS LISTSERV (see below) that Silver has specifically mentioned proposing an increase in state aid for community colleges.  This would surely help CUNY and SUNY.

Tony

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Text of Email Message from Manfred Philipp

The Governor’s State of the State speech yesterday was well-reported, but Sheldon Silver’s State of the State Presentation, given the same day, was perhaps eclipsed.  What NYS Assembly Speaker Silver said is perhaps important for CUNYs’ community colleges:

“Education, it is said, is the great equalizer and for this reason the Assembly Majority has been a longtime champion of educational investment. To strengthen the third rung of the ladder, we are proposing to increase the state’s support for our community colleges.

With high unemployment and widespread under employment, more and more of our citizens are looking to community colleges for a new path to a better life. By law, this state is obligated to fund up to 40-percent of the operational budgets of our community colleges, but only once in four decades has the state fully met that obligation. Now, when these learning centers are so important to our economy, to our companies and to our workers, we must increase our investment in them.”

Dear Commons Community,

Governor Andrew Cuomo delivered the state of the state address yesterday.  After reviewing the accomplishments of last year much of which involved establishing a more stable financial foundation for the state, he outlined several major new initiatives most of which would result in job creation including:

• Development of a new convention center in Queens at the old Aqueduct Raceway.
• Development of additional mixed-use projects in the land adjacent to the present Javits Center on Manhattan’s west side.
• $1 billion economic development project for Buffalo.
• Infrastructure improvements especially bridges, parks and roads.
• Hydraulic fracturing (gas-drilling) in the southern tier.
• Expanding casino operations throughout the state.
• Establishment of a bipartisan education commission to examine public school reform issues especially teacher evaluation and student performance.

Several of the initiatives such as hydraulic drilling and the bipartisan education commission will draw lots of attention and political fighting among various constituencies.

We wish him luck!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an article today on how not to implement a large-scale technology initiative  in a state using Idaho as its case study.   The initiative was undertaken:

“Last year, when the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law that requires all high school students to take some online classes to graduate, and that the students and their teachers be given laptops or tablets. The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard.”

To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators. And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.

This change is part of a broader shift that is creating tension — a tension that is especially visible in Idaho but is playing out across the country. Some teachers, even though they may embrace classroom technology, feel policy makers are thrusting computers into classrooms without their input or proper training. And some say they are opposed to shifting money to online classes and other teaching methods whose benefits remain unproved.”

It is the classic case of buying the hardware and software but neglecting the support services and training required to use the technology.  The teachers are in open revolt against the initiative with a number of students supporting the teachers.  They have held protests at the state capitol and having successfully collected 75,000 signatures for statewide referendum to repeal the initiative that will be held next November.

Idaho State Senator Dean L. Cameron, a Republican, is supporting the teachers.  As co-chairman of the senate budget committee, he said there was no proof that the technology improved learning and felt the legislature was “dazzled” by presentations given by lobbyists for high-tech companies.

To be fair, some teachers and school administrators support the initiative but they appear to be in the minority.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

In the first Republican contest of the season, Mitt Romney being was declared the winner by eight ballots over Rick Santorum.  Candidate Ron Paul was a close third in the race.  Other candidates Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann were way behind the leaders.

The outcome offered Santorum a chance to emerge as the alternative to Mr. Romney as the race moves to New Hampshire and South Carolina.  Gingrich, Perry and Bachmann will have to assess the viability of their candidacies given their poor showings and it is likely that Perry and Bachmann may end their candidacies soon.

The Iowa caucus is just a beginning and its results are non-binding when it comes to picking Iowa’s 25 delegates to the GOP convention next summer in Tampa. However, it does make for good political theater for the start of the New Year!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has a review of The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattn, 1811-2011, an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York.  The exhibit celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, the foundational document that established Manhattan’s famous street grid. Featuring an original hand-drawn map of New York’s planned streets and avenues prepared by the Commission in 1811, as well as other rare historic maps, photographs and prints of the evolution of the city’s streets, and original manuscripts and publications that document the city’s physical growth, the exhibition examines the grid’s initial design, implementation, and evolution. The Greatest Grid traces the enduring influence of the 1811 plan as the grid has become a defining feature of the city, shaping its institutions and public life.

The review quotes Hilary Ballon, a professor of urban studies and architecture at New York University who organized the exhibition who

“adds that it even affects our daily behavior. ‘We cross at corners with the grid,’ is her example. That’s not quite the New York I know, but it’s true that when we jaywalk or take shortcuts across plazas or stroll down Broadway, we are aware of violating the grid. The grid is the ego to our id.

And for the same reason we’re conscious of the street wall, the regular line of building facades, so that when one building is set back and breaks that line, our equilibrium is disturbed. (See the erratic sidewalk of 57th Street.) Like the neighborhoods it circumscribes, the grid has its integrity.”

Those of us who have lived and worked in New York and who walk as much as possible to enjoy its streets and avenues understand well the beauty of “The Grid”.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

This is the eve of the Iowa Caucus.   Republican presidential nominees Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are leading in the polls but unheralded candidate, Rick Santorum, appears to be moving up considerably in the minds of Iowans. Of all the candidates,   Santorum has received the least coverage of any other candidate in the 2012 race, according to a study by Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.  According to an article in the Huffington Post, Santorum’s surge  has become the topic du jour among political reporters.    The article states:

“It remains to be seen whether the “surge” is real or whether it’s simply media hype and the pack mentality of reporters and pundits — having already moved on from previous Iowa frontrunners — to seek out a new narrative. But for now, Santorum seems confident enough that the surge is real to put on his media critic hat and knock those pundits who wrote off his campaign in exchange for the non-Romney flavor of the moment.”

One statement Santorum made that is sure to appeal to the extreme conservative wing of the Republican Party is his support for a federal ban on gay marriage, saying on Saturday and that he would push for a constitutional amendment to render same-sex marriages invalid.

“In an interview at his campaign headquarters in Iowa, Santorum said there needs to be one marriage law for all 50 states. When asked if he would make same-sex couples get divorced, he responded, “Well their marriage would be invalid. If the constitution says ‘marriage is this,’ then people whose marriages are not consistent with the constitution … I’d love to think that there was another way of doing it… [but]gay marriage could doom the U.S.  unless we protect it with the institution of marriage, our country will fail.”

The only things that will fail will be Santorum’s extreme view and pandering to the ultra right.

Tony