AAAUnite demands full refunds - with option to donate $$$ to workers

AAAUnite urges the AAA to immediately refund registration fees to any and all members who request the return of these funds. Members who are unable (either because of logistics or conscience) to go to Atlanta should not be penalized because of the AAA EB and staff decision to move the meeting across the country, during an extremely inconvenient week of most academic years.

Further, we urge the AAA staff to streamline the process by which individual members, if they choose, may donate their refund directly to the UNITE HERE Local 2 Solidarity Fund or the AAA Scholarship Fund.

Many of us called on the AAA to outright break the contract with the Hilton Corporation (in fact 56% of those in the AAA poll did so). As members and sections, many of us also pledged to defray the cost of such a move by making financial contributions. According to a widely circulated email, AAA EB member William Beeman calculated the per capita cost of the $1.2 million estimated cost at $150 per member.

The least that the AAA staff can do, barring a direct AAA donation to the Local 2 Solidarity Fund, is facilitate giving by setting up an electronic process for individuals to donate their registration fee directly.

Robert O'Brien and Kerim Friedman
AAAUnite Ad Hoc Committee