The Public Employees Organizing Committee

Abstract

In May 1971, Lionel C. Skaggs, director of personnel services at UAB, issued a memorandum regarding the grievance procedure for nonacademic employees. The memo recommended that the university speed up the timetable for proposed revisions to those procedures, noting that such changes had “been under consideration for some time.”¹ Skaggs urged his fellow administrators “to move with some dispatch,” requesting feedback in less than a week’s time. Skaggs’ sense of urgency was not the product of frustration with bureaucratic delays. Nor was he motivated by concern for ensuring that university employees received due consideration of their on-the-job complaints. Rather, Skaggs’ recommendation was a direct response to what he termed “recent evidence of employee unrest.”² His hope was that, by expediting the implementation of new grievance procedures, he could prevent this unrest from spreading.