Dean Dobranski intimidates Ave Maria Law staff from organizing; claims it is contrary to mission of the school

Update VI:

Approximately two weeks ago, an Ave Maria School of Law employee ,who is also an alumnus and licensed attorney, informed Dean Dobranski in a letter of her intention to organize along with other employees at the law school. Tuesday morning, the Dean called a meeting of the staff on short notice. Neither the organizing employee, nor any other attorney employee, were present at the meeting, which happened to occur one day before the first scheduled organizing meeting. The Dean warned the staff at this morning's meeting that they should not attempt to form, support, or join any sort of collective bargaining unit/union, as that would be against the mission of the school. After the staff meeting, the Dean had a meeting with faculty where he told them not to get any ideas in regards to the proposed organizing of the staff.

The Dean actually gave NO notice of this meeting and actually pulled staff members out of their proctoring duties IN THE MIDDLE OF AN EXAM and had the meeting in THE DEAN'S OWN CONFERENCE ROOM.
Apparently, the organizing employee was not at school that morning as she had jury duty and so it is believed that the Dean called this meeting as soon as he found out that this employee would not be able to attend.

The Dean informed all staff at this meeting that if they committed any actions that were contrary to the mission of the school, there would be disciplinary consequences. Note that because the Dean said that union organizing went against the mission of the school, the threat was that anyone who joined a union would face disciplinary measures.

The Dean was asked afterwards for a copy of the minutes of the meeting. This request has been denied.

The dean is denying the meeting was called for or called about the proposed union.

Some of the recent events at AMSL might shed more information as to why some AMSL staff have thought about organizing:

-Charlie's Rice's administrative assistant was given strict orders to NO LONGER send any emails on his behalf

-A meeting was called by the Dean's office to explore implementing an electronic mail and internet monitoring program on its employees.

- Members of the IT department were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement that appears to be the precursor to this electronic monitoring program.

-There are simliar efforts underway at AMU to unionize

-A harsh letter from an outgoing AMU professor was sent around last week (was posted briefly on Fumare but then removed at professor's request)

A climate of fear now pervades the law school at all levels, and comparisons are being drawn to the ruthless tactics used during the AMC breakup and move to AMU...

Developing hard...

See the post below for an analysis of Catholic Social Teaching on the subject of organizing and unions.