To the editor:

As a faculty retiree from the English department at the University of Kansas, I read with great interest the article in in a recent Journal-World that “KU faculty votes to form union by a large margin,” more specifically by a vote of 850 to 132.

This was not the first time KU faculty and staff tried to unionize. Back in 1986, under the leadership of professor Robert Hohn, president of the KU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, and also former AAUP president professor Grant Goodman, I was enlisted as “office staff” to help mimeograph letters, stuff envelopes and lick stamps for the movement.

If I remember correctly, we narrowly lost the struggle to unionize by just three votes, with those who defeated us writing letters to the Journal-World, arguing vociferously that forming such a union would be unfriendly and “uncollegial.” So, are we now less friendly and collegial?

Paul Stephen Lim,

Lawrence