Co-Founder Benny Tai on Hong Kong's Occupy Central

To listen to the audio of his talk as podcast on KUCI Subversity Online, click here.

Hong Kong's Occupy Central co-founder came to University of California, Irvine last Spring Quarter to speak before a graduate political science seminar taught by Prof. Dorothy Solinger.

Benny Tai at UCI seminar.  Photos © Daniel C. Tsang 2015

In his 28 April 2015 talk, Hong Kong University Law School Prof. Benny Tai explained the birth of Occupy Central and what happened when the student activists took over and turned it into the Umbrella Movement or Revolution, occupying streets in Hong Kong for weeks.

He said he had been a student activist in his university days and thought the Occupy Central actions would end after a brief period.  Instead the students led the way.

He also indicated Occupy Central was not copying the anti-capitalist stance of Occupy Movements elsewhere.

Asked if he had received funds from the U.S. for Occupy Central he said No.

After dinner another department on campus treated a small group of academics to Peking Duck dinner at Capital Seafood in Irvine's Diamond Jamboree retail mall.

There he was asked how he identified himself.  His response:  Hong Konger first, then Chinese.
Polls (notably those conducted at HKU by Dr. Robert Chung Ting-Yiu),  indicate that a majority in Hong Kong have been identifying as Hong Kongers (香港人) rather than Chinese, similar to the situation in Taiwan where the majority identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.

Subversity Show host with Prof. Tai at dinner. 

Prof. Tai is still waiting to hear what his university will do over his acceptance of protests-related donations, which he turned over to HKU.  The then-dean of the Law School, Johannes Chan, who was supportive of the protests, is now on hold to become a top administrator at the University, after those who were Beijing-allied tried to block the move and criticized Prof. Tai as well.  HKU students recently took over a HKU Council meeting; the University administration is currently considering whether to bring charges against the student protesters.

For current news on the political situation in Hong Kong, click here:  Cantonese In-Media Hong Kong site | English site of the Real Hong Kong News.

-- Daniel C. Tsang.

UC Librarians Fight for Release of Earned Merit Pay Increases

Update 9/26/2012: An online petition has been posted seeking support on this issue, especially since the UC recently paid outrageous bonuses to senior executives while still withholding merit pay raises from UC librarians who went through the peer review process successfully.

University of California librarians are protesting over the central administration's unwillingness to pay merit increases to line librarians who were awarded such increases after an arduous academic peer review process. The pay raises were supposed to go into effect on 1 July 2012.

It is perhaps not as well known that librarians, as academic employees of the university, have to undergo periodic reviews of their work performance similar to tenured faculty.

However, management is refusing to pay out the pay raises for those who were successful in their academic review. About a third of the bargaining unit of almost 350 academic librarians is affected; those librarians came up for and completed their academic reviews this past year.

Unionized librarians - members of the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers - on the UCs have now begun a postcard campaign (see graphics) to publicize the administrative intransigence. Postcards signed by unionized members are being submitted to UC President Mark Yudof and campus University Librarians. The postcards argue that the earned merits should be released now!

The UC librarians face a union contract expiration at the end of this month and have been in talks with the administration to extend the contract. This merit pay issue has hence become embroiled in bargaining, with the UC offering to release the earned pay increases only if the union agrees to cuts in the pension package.

UC Berkeley law librarian I-Wei Wang has penned a strong public appeal to the UC to release the merit pay increases.

She writes inter alia: "I, along with about one third of my librarian colleagues throughout this campus, have recently undergone the rigorous peer-review process that governs promotion and advancement in the librarian career track. Our merit increases– based on our demonstrated professional performance and contributions to the education and service missions of the library and university system over the past two to three years as well as our promise and potential for further contributions—have already been granted by the reviewers. But now the University negotiators have threatened to withhold the salary increases we have already shown we deserve until librarians agree to a contract extension and give up certain rights pertaining to planned changes in retirement benefits.

She argues that the UC actions are "deeply demoralizing" to her, adding, "The choice to become an academic librarian represented a significant economic sacrifice on my family’s part, but I willingly made that sacrifice in order to dedicate myself to the teaching and research mission of this institution." She continues:

"For the University to answer that dedication with this slap in the face is truly offensive, not to mention counterproductive. It is clearly a bullying tactic, meant to divide me and similarly situated colleagues from those of our peers who happen not to be under review at a time when our contract is under negotiation. Instead of making me want to give in to the University’s position on the collective bargaining agreement — instead of causing me to cave in to blackmail — this tactic just leaves me feeling unappreciated, undervalued, and yes, angry. It is an unsavory and utterly unfair measure aimed at precisely those librarians who, by being granted merit increases during this review cycle, have proven our extraordinary contribution to the mission of the University.

"What makes the University’s tactics all the more contemptible is that there is so little money involved. The actual amount of the merit raise that I was awarded by reviewers, and that is now being withheld from me in an effort to pressure us all to accept the University’s proposal, is a pittance compared to the kind of salary I could expect (and have commanded) in the private sector — and, more to the point, the amount at issue is meaningless to the University, even in our current budget situation. It’s not about saving money in tough economic times; it’s a blatant attempt to cut off negotiations and bind all of the academic librarians that serve this University by holding a group of us as economic hostages. Don’t get me wrong: I know I deserve a raise, and I want the money that I have earned. But I’m not going to submit to outright extortion in order to get it.

"If you care about fairness and equity, if you appreciate everything that my colleagues and I do for this University, please lend your voice in support of UC librarians. We have earned our merits. Please release them."

Bravo I-Wei! - Daniel C. Tsang.

Outsourcing Police Oversight

UCIPD officers begin arresting Irvine 17 protesters outside UCI Chancellor's Office in February 2010. Photograph copyright 2010 Daniel C. Tsang

At least two University of California police departments – UCLA and UC Irvine -- have outsourced their police policy manuals to a private company and one of them, UCIPD, astonishingly, considers the private company that handles police policy manual revisions, as its law firm.

UCI assistant police chief Jeff Hutchison, in an hour-long meeting with UCI history prof. Mark Levine and myself November 21, 2011, kept referring to the private firm, Lexipol, as "our counsel". When I asked did he mean the University Counsel, he said no, the campus counsel is out of the loop. He implied that LLC after its name meant law firm - when in fact it means limited liability company

How about the UCI Chancellor then? Is Michael Drake also out of the chain of command? Oh, he's too busy to look at every police policy, after all there are 434 pages of them was the response. Three hours after our meeting, Drake released online the same use of force, tasering and pepper spraying policies that Hutchison had shown us, and that Drake apparently also just got to see. Note the copyright on the UCI police policies is attributed to Lexipol, LLC.

Why are campus police departments at UC Irvine and UCLA relying on an outside firm – and a private business at that -- for legal advice? Is not the well-paid campus counsel sufficient? Incidentally six chief campus counsels got hefty raises at a recent Regents Meeting. UCI’s University Counsel got a 14.3 percent pay raise, while Davis’ Chief Counsel got a 21.9% raise, They can surely afford to give their police chiefs some legal advice and review their local police procedures. But Hutchison, of course, had an answer: Lexipol knows actual law enforcement practices and implied that the UC Counsel's Office does not.

Lexipol may well do, but constitutional law is what matters, and that is definitely not the domain of a cop or a business formed by former cops. In fact, a Lexipol policy recently got criticized in a federal case that was not at the time resolved. The policy was adopted by the Guadalupe, California, police department with provisions that actually apparently suppressed the police officers' own free speech rights.

In addition, the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST), which certifies police practices, in 2009 denied certification to Lexipol's Daily Training Bulletins as self-paced training, in part because Lexipol was a private business with the bulletins only accessible by paid subscribers. Lexipol appealed the decision, but there is no public record if it was reversed so I do not know if it was reversed.

Lexipol is founded by Bruce Praet, a former Laguna Beach cop turned lawyer who now has made a career defending cops accused of violating the civil rights of citizens. I'm all for giving defendants the best defense, but why should the UC chain of command be ignored and a private business be treated as as the University’s legal counsel?

There is in fact a "Universitywide Police Polices and Administrative Procedures" manual, last reviewed in 2010, with an effective date of January 7, 2011. That manual states that the Office of the UC President is responsible for coordinating certain police services functions, including "police services policies and standards."

But that system-wide policy manual was never mentioned when we met with the UCIPD officials. So the policies outlined there on pepper spray apparently have no impact on actual police work at the campus level.

It has taken some pepper-sprayed students and injured faculty for the UC administrators to realize that they risk losing control over the campus police forces. I hope a review of the state of campus policing will lead not only to more oversight but also to more public accountability. A civilian review board or some such mechanism needs to be established on each campus. An August 18, 2011 "Police Department Oversight Report" from the University of Oregon, which reviewed various models of outside oversight, can serve as a useful starting point. But no doubt the University is not interested in outside or student/faculty review of its police.

A different version of this blog entry has been submitted as a response to a call for comments from the Robinson-Edley Report on the UC police crackdown on student protesters. Deadline for comments is June 8, 2012. -- Daniel C. Tsang.