[NHCOLL-L:2722] Re: Collections managers question

[Barry Oconnor]

Before we start a firestorm of protest, the University of Michigan HR 
people agreed yesterday to meet with the individual museum directors to 
review this issue in the near future. Our staff members were just 
looking for information on job titles and descriptions in "peer 
institutions" (the HR people told us they got their "templates" from 
one very large, prestigious private university and one small regional 
state institution, neither of which has a natural science research 
museum.) - Barry OConnor

On Jun 21, 2005, at 10:48 PM, Doug Yanega wrote:

>> Ah, but here is the problem: our job descriptions did align with FLSA 
>> exempt
>> status, but the description has been conveniently (or through a simple
>> oversight) changed so that there is no longer any reference to 
>> research,
>> science or even the handling of specimens.
>
> That's insane. You ought to stage a walk-in protest where a group of 
> you bring a pile of bones, shells, pine cones, unpinned scarabs, and 
> other such objects (maybe even a stuffed rat), and drop them on the 
> desk of the HR head, and ask them: "Do those honestly look like 
> *documents* to you?" (and then ask if they could explain how, exactly, 
> someone with no scientific training would know how to file them). It 
> might also be time to start talking to the local media, in case the 
> administrators prove unresponsive.
>
> Is there anywhere that *we* can send letters of protest?
>
> Sincerely,
> -- 
>
> Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research 
> Museum
> Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521-0314
> phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not 
> UCR's)
>              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
>   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
>
>
>
>
Barry M. OConnor				phone: 734-763-4354
Curator & Professor				fax: 734-763-4080
Museum of Zoology				e-mail: bmoc at umich.edu
University of Michigan
1109 Geddes Ave
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079