Belden with farmworker leader Cesar Chavez, 1987
I worked closely with Belden in the Union of Professional Employees (UPE) and later in the Campus Faculty Association (CFA). UPE voted to change its name to CFA in 2007. This article is an attempt to reconstruct Belden’s work in these University of Illinois labor organizations for the period when Belden and I worked together on their executive committees. Although neither ever achieved official bargaining-unit status, they nevertheless had an impact on campus policies by issuing statements, holding demonstrations, and allying with other official campus unions around various issues. UPE and CFA also had a union caucus in the University of Illinois Academic Senate, which I was pleased to chair for many years, and had a significant influence on what happened there. Belden was a cofounding member of UPE, and an active member of the Senate for a long time. He served on the Senate’s Equal Opportunity Committee, and also represented UPE on the Champaign County AFL-CIO for over two decades, during which time he was both treasurer and recording secretary. And of course UPE and the county AFL-CIO supported numerous campus and other union contract campaigns over the years, and especially the right of academic professionals and graduate students to form unions. UPE/CFA membership hovered around 200 to 250 members for the years I am covering in this article, 1998 to 2007. Hopefully others will be able to fill in more around his earlier union activities. Belden retired in 2000, and gradually reduced his involvement in campus affairs to concentrate more on issues in the larger community.
Fortunately, I compiled a list of UPE/CFA accomplishments and actions for this period in January 2012. Using my memory and by cross-checking Belden’s articles in the Public i with my list, I am able to say something about his union accomplishments.
Belden was co-chair of the local Living Wage Campaign in the 1990s and a founding member of Central Illinois Jobs with Justice, which was an outgrowth of the Living Wage Campaign. With Belden’s encouragement, UPE endorsed the campaign in 1999, and advocated for it at the Champaign City Council in 2002; the Champaign County Board did pass a living-wage ordinance that year. UPE was itself a founding member of the Central Illinois Jobs with Justice chapter.
Belden was a lifelong scholar of and advocate for human rights, for which he eventually received the ACLU’s Victor I. Stone Bill of Rights Award in 2013. In response to the events of 9/11, Belden helped UPE issue a statement on tolerance and civil liberties, which was printed in the Daily Illini. Belden was active in the campaign to get the university’s Board of Trustees to retire the racist mascot, Chief Illiniwek. I remember him testifying at a large town hall-type meeting in Foellinger Hall. UPE issued statements on retiring the Chief and ending the licensing of Native American symbols in 2002 and 2003, and supported successful Academic Senate resolutions on the issue in 2004 and 2005. Belden was a fierce opponent of plans to privatize the Champaign County Nursing Home, and UPE went on record to that effect in 2002.
Belden and UPE helped pass a resolution in the Academic Senate against the Iraq War in 2003. As UPE delegates, Belden and I traveled to Chicago that year to participate in the National Labor Assembly for Peace, which resulted in the formation of the organization US Labor Against the War (USLAW). It developed quite a large local and national union membership over the next few years.
In 2007, Belden and CFA strongly opposed the establishment of a campus Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government, an attempt to subvert shared governance via the Academic Senate by administrative fiat to promote extreme libertarianism. This was part of a national right-wing campaign to establish similar “academies” at other prominent universities. The project ultimately failed. Regarding the corporate orientation of the University’s Board of Trustees, in 2007 Belden and CFA advocated an alternative method for selecting the members of the board. It is very unfortunate that nothing came of this initiative.
Belden at U of I’s Center for Cultural Values in Ethics, 1991
As you can see, Belden was involved in a wide variety of issues through his work in UPE and CFA, and through the Champaign County AFL-CIO, the University’s Academic Senate, and wider community campaigns. He had enormous energy for this work. He had a rare ability to relate to, speak with, and influence all kinds of people. We continue to miss his presence.
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