Birds-I-View: The Unions of Bloomington-Normal

In the November edition of Birds-I-View, producer Colleen Holden, and co-hosts Gavin Broderick and Ben Howell take a look at the labor market a unionization in the Bloomington-Normal.

The show opened with Gavin Broderick setting the scene of who and what the unions are on the campus of ISU (1:36-3:47). Next, Colleen Holden took a deep dive into the experience of the individual members of the Bloomington-Normal sector of the AFSCME union (4:32-7:16).

Then, John Rozny discussed the possible strike with ISU’s Grad Student Union, and what the bargaining process has looked like so far, as well as the driving force behind threatening to strike (8:14-11:28). Following John’s piece, Lauren Leisure took a look at grad student strikes on other campuses, revealing the commonalties in the academic labor market between universities (12:13-15:15).

Next, Riley Klump took a break from the unionization conversation and took a look at the status and stability of Bloomington-Normal’s labor market (16:12-18:52). Finally, the show closed with Ben Howell outlining what it looks like to organize a union (19:35-22:40).