I can’t say how pleased I am that the debates over the possibility of a PLA program for our construction workers are being debated so intensely. Of course, voting down the plan without discussion of an alternative or variation was appropriate as it does keep with the University’s long and distinguished history. It isn’t our job to be worrying about Vermont workers wages and such, I mean we are only the second largest employer in the state, what change could we possibly cause?

Anyhoo, our University exalts the virtues of other nations’ workers. Hell, we even prefer to put the University of Vermont’s logo on clothing products from such familiar nations of Canada and Mexico. The fine lands of Korea and Vietnam and even Fiji supply us with their exotic ‘sweatpants’, which we could never have made in-state, much less the US.

In addition, by buying from only nations known for equitable and fair labor like Bangladesh, Taiwan, El Salvador, Haiti, Cambodia and Guatemala we ensure that we keep costs down. Madagascar, Swaziland and the United Arab Emirates supplies us with warm garments made from the extraordinary fabric “cotton,” which our shores are not blessed with. And last but not least, our favorite, though I can’t find it on a map with a magnifying glass, Lesotho.

We all know the only reason we don’t sell more VT goods in because that Vermont makes horrible products. And who would want to risk profit margins to make a statement on fair working conditions and pride in VT products? Which is most important for, as Hayley Block pointed out, by citing a Puget Sound periodical (which, though being across the country, has its fingers right on the pulse of Vermont) as tuition will go up to pay for higher wages we will degenerate in to apes and civilization with grind to a halt in the following feces tossing. I mean my tuition hasn’t gone up in at least a week, and I especially don’t want it to go up to pay some lazy unionized worker who probably can’t even afford this school for his children.

I mean, thank god no one interviewed workers about this or brought them to the meetings, they probably just would have gone on and on about how hard it is “to pay bills” and “not have money for food.” Those union boys are probably communist subversives anyway. Hasn’t the ISO, who has protested everything else this side of the Mississippi, been out in force to help improve unionized labor and wages and not rattling of dogmatic ideas of Marx while sipping $4 lattes?

I mean I would much rather continue paying $22,000 for Lord Fogel’s humble lakeside estate then have him simply live here in so-called ‘President’s House’, in the town with the commoners he employs. Just kidding, the commoners can’t afford to live in Burlington.