<p>Bill Clinton bailed out of his scheduled commencement speech at UCLA apparently because a union negotiating a contract asked him to. It seems that Clinton values the wishes of the union more than the commitment he made to the graduating students. It also seems that the union cares little about the actual students since they’d like all the UC commencement speakers to bail on the students. I hope the others don’t follow suit.</p>
<p>Clinton told them more than a month ago that he wouldn’t attend if the dispute hadn’t been resolved. This has happened at other UC campuses, with other speakers, in previous years due to labor disputes. It would seem that the UC system needs to get a handle on their labor relations.</p>
<p>The union represents UCLA custodians and cafeteria workers whose contract has expired and who may not be able to strike as effectively in the summer as they can during the fall and spring semesters. (I’m assuming the academic calendar is irrelevant to the medical technicians.) I don’t see how not disrupting the work of the university and the education of the students, but then asking for a show of solidarity from graduation speakers, indicates a lack of caring about students. Prioritizing its members’ economic interests above students’ interest in hearing particular speakers doesn’t seem to me to be unreasonable for a union.</p>
<p>According to the AP, “Contract talks have sputtered for months” and Clinton’s office says it notified UCLA last month that he wouldn’t be appearing unless the two sides came to terms. I’ve only read a couple of news stories and I haven’t looked at the core of the disagreements between the union and the state, so perhaps if I were better informed I would agree that the union was behaving badly, but so far I haven’t seen evidence that it is.</p>
<p>That’s alright. After being branded a Lee Atwater racist by his own party, I’m sure Bill won’t mind if New Democrats across the country shun him for supporting labor unions.</p>
<p>Well it was presented with the tone of ‘shock horror look at what that nasty man Clinton did to those poor students.’ I’m just saying high profile speakers pulling out of an event because something else comes up is not really a big deal and happens all the time. On a VIPs schedule, a speaking engagement is generally quite low on the priority list in terms of what goes first if other issues come up…</p>
<p>Well, so far as I can see, UCSD-UCLA Dad is the only one who has expressed dismay that Clinton chose to side with the union. There’s been no shunning of Clinton expressed on this thread by Democrats. So I don’t see the point of your post #4. If you want to vent against those who did not support Hillary in the primaries, this was not the thread to do so. </p>
<p>Clinton bailing out must have been a disappointment to graduating students and their families, but it was not unexpected. Clinton gave plenty of notice. I’ll bet the Chancellor had enough time to write a speech.</p>
<p>Politics aside, these disputes are ongoing at lots of places. Years ago post undergrad I worked at Yale University. The unions came in and unionized the cafeteria and service workers…somehow all of the lower level office people got in the same union…there was a strike which negatively effected almost everyone involved: the students, the professors, the cafeteria and service workers, etc.
This was back in the day and I was even on the Phil Donahue show (for those of you who remember Phil :))<br>
It is unfortunate for those students who were looking forward to his speech but as marite says, he gave plenty of notice.</p>
<p>Shouldn’t the students, parents, and faculty also have boycotted the graduation? It seems to me their participation could be construed as anti-American and anti-union.</p>
<p>The point of the post is that I don’t think that the students and others who were looking forward to Bill Clinton giving the commencement speech should be disappointed due to the politics of union contract talks that the students have no control over. This appears to make the commencement speech more about politics than a speech to graduating students. I suppose this is a downside to inviting politicians to perform commencement speeches.</p>
<p>Lots of commencement speeches ARE political. The most memorable one was, of course, the 1947 Commencement speech at Harvard where the Secretary of State George Marshall announced the Marshall Plan.</p>
<p>But I hope Commencement was enjoyable, even without Bill Clinton.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the other Bill was also part of the festivities at Harvard in 2007. While his Harvard’s speech was far from being memorable, it is obvious that the UCLA students will be shortchanged this year. The former President, in spite of … being a Clinton, does indeed deliver fantastic lines. Of course, he has always been an expert in the delivery of … *fantastic *lines, especially under oath. </p>
<p>For what it is worth, has there ever been an union that cared for students? I don’t think so! :)</p>
Sure but with this one there’s no speech at all (by Clinton) due to the politics.</p>
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Regardless of the speech I’m sure there’ll be plenty of disappointed students who were looking forward to having a famous person like Bill Clinton speaking at the ceremony rather than a member of the staff.</p>
<p>I hadn’t realized that 6 speakers had canceled. The only one you hear about is Bill Clinton and UCLA.</p>
<p>If I were Bill Clinton, I wouldn’t have agreed to speak at UCLA in the first place until the labor woes were cleared up. Then he wouldn’t have been put in the position of having to disappoint all of the graduates and their families.</p>