PSLM Overlooks Facts In B-School Protest

Daniel R. Morgan's '99 malicious assault on my mother, McPherson Professor of Business Administration Regina E. Herzlinger, characterizes the witch hunt which the so-called Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) has agitated against her (Nov. 13).

Morgan complains that his group has been denied their "right" to distribute posters which depict a man holding an assault rifle at the ready and encourage students to organize and demonstrate against my mother. Morgan continues this practice of unsubstantiated propoganda as he buries his call for free speech among a series of wild, unsupported statements about my mother's integrity.

Morgan brazenly asserts that my mother, as a member of the Board of Directors of Cardinal Health Company, a pharmeceutical company with more than 140,000 employees, "is engaged in an activity outside the University that causes severe economic hardship to hundreds of people." He bases this degradation on the fact that the local Teamsters union of a Massachusetts distributor of Cardinal products has walked off the job, and the distributor has brought in replacement workers. Morgan and the PSLM pamphlets overlook several crucial facts of the situation.

Fact: The Teamsters chose to strike; they were not forced out of their jobs.

Fact: The National Labor Relations Board an independent government agency that regulates and arbitrates all labor-management disputes, has thrown out four separate Teamsters' claims against Cardinal in this matter. Not once has the government held that the Teamsters have sufficient cause to warrant a judgment.

Fact: The Directors of a 140,000 employee company do not make the decisions regarding 170 striking workers. It is preposterous to implicate on Board member in the hiring of security to guard the distributor against the striking workers, as Morgan does.

Besides the explicit ignorance of the facts, additionally aspect is Morgan's revelation that the group which has initiated the propoganda is a "Phillips Brooks House Association-affiliate." Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) is a self-described "student-run public service organization"; PSLM's engagement in political agitation and personal attacks against professors clearly violate its mission and status as a service group.

Morgan and PSLM have decided to use the Teamsters as their cause-celebre to advocate their own brand of political warfare. They have clearly demonstrated their willingness to ignore facts and common decency in exchange for headlines. Morgan, PLSM and PBHA should all hang their heads in shame for the campaign of malicious propoganda and personal attacks which they have directed against my mother. --Alex Herzlinger '00