Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, January 22, 1981
Plan is all washed up
A proposal that would give the University of Kansas administrative control over Washburn University is nothing more than a zany attempt to save money.
Rep. William W. Buntan, R-Topeka, is entertaining the thought of helping Washburn avoid financial losses by making it part of the Regens system. As a Regents school, Washburn—the only municipally controlled University in the country—would be entitled to more state money.
Joining the Regents system is one thing, but granting administrative control is another complete set of problems. KU would have an awesome, painstaking task if it were to run Washubm—more students, more classes and more salary troubles.
simply put, KU doesn't need the hassle. This is not to mention that Washburn is a fine educational institution and lowering it to an "extension" school would be an insult to the University's students, faculty, administrators and alumni.
Bunten would be wise to drop the proposal and the Regents likewise. KU officials would be much better off if they just turned their heads and looked the other way.
Return of the U.S. hostages becomes almost anti-climactic
Following standard Monday morning procedure, Alarm Clock consciously buzzed at 7 a.m. Conditioned Response lifted Sleep Hand to the off switch and rolled first over, then up, in motion toward Hot Show, great bruffer of awareness.
But Stereophonic Morning News intercepted Weary Body, leading it astray with two fleeting words, "Hostages Released." Conditioned Response instantly grabbed Weary Body and issued A Shout, A Shout of unknown origin or genre that had been waiting months inside Weary Body for liberation. Or so Weary Body thought.
For just a moment Monday morning a liberation of sorts seemed finally to have
AMY HOLLOWELL
free Weary Body's shout, along with the $2 American hostages in Iran. After all, it had waited, they had waited, we had waited, the staff had waited. This independence day. And when it arrived, this independence day. And when it arrived.
The shower was hot Monday morning, followed by hot coffee and cold orange juice and a scattered morning paper. There was a little chill in the room and the brisk hope I was not hardy led to class.
Monday was generally Monday as usual. Weary Body was its usual Monday weary, running to classes from 9:30 to 3:30, chatting with professors and friends, taking notes and thinking; contrary to Conditioned Response, however, Weary Body's thoughts were not with the 52 hostages on the verge of long-awaited freedom.
And they really haven't been with those unfortunate few for quite some time. Half a world away, somewhere across mountains and seas and time zones, a handful of humans called American to hold for months by an embroidered band of humans called Iranian. That's all.
Of course, there were at first principles and ideologies and egos involved, but they were
long ago dashed; Tuesday when two 727s lifted off from Tehran into the chilly Iranian night, they carried a group of weary bodies bound for Algiers, for Weisband, for Washington. That's all. American pride, Iranian shame, Western might, democratic freedoms, none were on board those planes, none were on the minds of those weary bodies.
After 444 days, the issue was no longer one of international law or of American imperialism. The old calls for justice simply couldn't muster a chorus among more weary voices in both nations, and as the months dragged on, it became evident that an ailing Khomeini and a lame-duck Carter simply wanted to be rid of the whole mess.
The statements from the State Department had become traditional, bland, evening newsfare, as had the "crisis day" tallies and the name-calling spewing from both America and Iran. We were Satan and they were barbarians and the Shah was a pig and a thief.
Families of hostages were dragged into it, as were Christmas and Easter and the Fourth of July, the CIA, the U.S. Army, Navy and Marines, elcermgyen and academics, school officials, who were all concerned if of it really concerned any of us anymore, we all were dragged into it daily, as we had been into the Vietnam War. And as in that war, whatever happened in Iran really didn't or wouldn't make a difference to all the heavy weapons simply following standard procedure.
And Tuesday, as in the very beginning, as on Nov. 4, 1979, it was politics as usual. How appropriate for the embassy siege to begin early, he said, is that they end exactly minutes after Jimmy Carter became a private citizen. Visions of a master Iranian timekeeper, calculating zone differences and holidays and ceremonious occasions, and a clockmaker, come to this weary body's mind.
Weary Body issued A Shout, however brief, on Monday morning because Conditioned Response had been planning to do so for so very long. But Weary Body's shout quickly grew weary and by Tuesday, Weary Body was more weary than ever. And following standard weary procedure, Weary Body issued the first of many weary yawns.
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affirmed by the University, they should include the writer's class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan reserves the right to edit letters for publication.
Letters Policy
Landlord-tenant woes have answers
Rv EDWARD C. WALLACE
BY EDWARD C. WALLACE
New York Times Special Features
NEW YORK-To any New York City tenant, the need to regulate landlord-tenant relations is self-evident. Without regulation, tenants—who lack real bargaining power—would be forced to pay unconsonciable rent increases, or to move. Although the present rent regulations here do stabilize tenancies, they are often arbitrary. A creative solution is long overdue.
All traditional rent-regulation programs involve two basic concepts: limitations on rent increases, and guarantee tenure for tenants. One without the other renders regulation meaningless. In New York City, regulatory agencies set across-the-board increases and limits on rent as well as most other terms of tenancy. Tenants have little say.
The result is that rents are completely arbitrary. For example, all rent-controllable tenants must pay a 7.5 percent annual fuel pass-along increase regardless of a landlord's actual fuel costs, in addition to 7.5 percent annual rent increase. In effect, government has imposed landlords a "take-off-leave" it deal. The result is unhappy tenants and unhappy landlords.
Landlords claim that the solution is a free-market system in which rents are governed by supply and demand. According to this theory, shortages would disappear, and tenants would benefit, as entrepreneurs built new rental units to meet demand.
This is no solution at all. New housing takes years to develop. In the interim, tenants—senior citizens particularly—would see their savings wiped out and their homes stolen out from under them. In the long run, moreover, a free-market system would not provide affordable housing.
Housing is an essential commodity. It is neither socially desirable, nor feasible, to suggest that when the rent on one's longtime family home gets too high, one should simply find another. Who wouldn't pay an extra 10 percent or 20 percent more in rent? You could move out! The inequality of bargaining positions between a homebound tenant and an entrepreneurial landlord is too great.
The root problem is inequality of bargaining power between landlord and tenant. The solution does not lie in more across-the-board government rent regulation or in a frontier-style market system. Rather, to complete the regulation, governments must give power. Let the parties, not the government, set the terms of the rental agreement, while government sets outside limits.
Imagine a National Tenant-Landlord Relations Act, analogous to the National Labor Relations Act, that authorizes tenants to organize their buildings, requires landlords to recognize tenant associations as collective-bargaining agents, and requires both parties to bargain in good faith over the terms of tenancy. Governance function is also be related to a backup function: Maximum rents per square foot would be set by government, just as the minimum wage is set. Otherwise, the relationship between landlord and tenant could be governed by the parties themselves.
The best way to correct a bargaining imbalance is to empower individuals to bargain collectively. Labor unions, for example, have equalized the bargaining relationship between individual workers and large employers. The need to give tenants collective power is increased. Increased tenant-bargaining power would mean less arbitrary regulation and reduced government expense.
A landlord could request rent increases, based
on need, directly from the people who pay the rent and who benefit from maintaining standards despite rising fuel costs and inflation. Middle, middle-class tenants might willingly pay an increase for improved maintenance. Similarly, poor tenants who wished to hold the line on rents could bargain effectively for cost-saving improvements such as storm windows.
Collective-bargaining agreements could include no-rent-strike and no-eviction clauses, inhouse grievance procedures and other self-enforcement provisions to keep the parties out of
At present, when landlords want more rent, or tenants need repairs, they often wind up in court. Under a collective-bargaining system, if tenants did go on a rent strike, landlords would not be permitted to lock out tenants and replace them, but would be permitted to sue them for the tenant's salary demands to the striking tenant association, so that only profit would be withheld.
As long as government control is the only substitute for market control, the results will be arbitrary and unfair. By giving the parties of the landlord-tenant agreement more voice, and tenancy rights to workers, the government lifted itself" off the backs of the people" and yet become a better enforcer of tenant rights.
Senator C. waitane, a senior staff attorney in the neighborhood office of the Legal Aid Society.
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