Tue Jan 31, 2006
Back to California
January 30, 2006 Southern California
Last Friday I got on a plane to go from Chicago to LA., which is a pretty good assignment in the middle of winter. I was invited by the California Faculty Association’s Lecturers’ Council to speak to one of their periodic planning meetings. One of the greatest pleasures of these events has been the returning to unions and instriutions I had been part of. I am both an alum and a former pt lecturer of San Francisco State U, and was a member of CFA as well in the early 90’s. As one of the largest faculty unions in the US, representing all teachers, tenure track and contingent, in the massive California State University system, CFA is a major player in setting the terms for the struggle for rights and conditions for “temporary” faculty. They have made major gains recently and the Lecturers’ Council is perhaps the strongest and liveliest group in the union. They have actually begun to exercise real leadership by example for the entire union, a major feat. Being affiliated with the American Association of University Professors, National Educational Association and Service Employees International Union, CFA is in a position to push contingent faculty issues to the front burner nationally, which they have begin to do more actively.
The Council, with reps from all 23 campuses, is led by Long Beach State English teacher Elizabeth Hoffman, with staff support from John Hess, himself a long-time former lecturer leader as a film teacher at San Francisco State. They have a union associate vice presidential slot and two other lecturers sit on the Board of Directors. I was their after dinner speaker, certainly preferable to the before dinner slot. While the Manhattan Beach Marriott is a unionized hotel, it still seemed a bit bizarre to be meeting there given the Marriott chain’s long history of militant union avoidance. The hotel was filled with attendees at a California Democratic Party conference, where the mood was upbeat in the wake of the defeat of Governor Schwarzeneggar’s defeat on all of his pet ballot propositions last November. All of the potential Democratic candidates for his seat were heavily in evidence.
Besides the great pleasure of being received as a long lost son bringing news and advice from the broader movement, the high point for me was the demonstration that this council had solved a major problem so many contingent faculty groups face. This lecturer leadership has succeeded in building and training a secondary leadership that was much in evidence at this conference. It is clear that this is one group that would not die if John or Elizabeth withdrew from activity and neither of them are so overextended as to be close to burnout. The secret seems to be very serious attention to training, delegating, and giving people support for initiatives they conceive for their own campuses. Serious adherence to democratic process and transparency of decision making is also a big factor. The result is that the leadership layer is deep and even relations with outside organizations, like California Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (CA COCAL) and North American Alliance for Fair Employment (NAFFE) can be largely handled by people other than the chair or staffer themselves, namely reps Craig Flanery, Steve Wilson and others. Neither Hoffman nor Hess, despite their obvious competence and long experience, dominated the educational or decision making meetings, though they probably could if they desired to. I was able to stay for their meeting all day Saturday and it was one of the best day long “precarious” faculty sessions I have been in. The morning was mostly a training by a member of the direct action group, the Ruckus Society, who put people through a series of exercises on direct action and civil disobedience, but also very much on listening and group building. “Ruckus” are the folks who trained people for the 1999 Seattle WTO demonstrations and for many events since and they are clearly pro’s. Most impressive was that this group of mostly middle aged college teachers were willing to go through the training, with physical role playing, and take it seriously. As was remarked later, most tenure track faculty leaders probably would not be willing to put themselves in this position. The afternoon was an informational and strategy session on their contract campaign where a lot preparation by many activists for this valuable and expensive time together was in evidence.
After a day’s break on Sunday and a move from the hotel to the home of my step son Jake,and his new spouse, Caterina, Monday I then had an interview on Los Angeles’ progressive listener sponsored Pacifica radio, KPFK, 90.7 FM (www.KPFK.org on the web). It went OK, but people can judge for themselves soon as it will get put up on this website. The program was a PM drive time magazine show co-hosted by Eric Mann, who for many years has led the Labor and Community Strategy Center in LA and is a leader in many innovative organizing efforts here, including the Bus Riders Union. It turns out that his daughter is one of the striking grad employees at New York University right now, so he was very familiar with the issues of contingent faculty.
Now two more days off and then to Victor Valley outside LA on Thursday for events at Barnes and Noble and at Victor Valley Community College, and then, Friday, to the Part-timers Summit sponsored by the CA Part-time Faculty Assoc. (CPFA), but including all of the groups that represent pt faculty in the 90 odd campus CA community college system. Another homecoming for me as well.
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Sun Jan 08, 2006
A Bookstore Discovery in Chicago.
January 8, 2006
On January 5 I did my first bookstore event, at the Left of Center Bookstore on Chicago’s North Side, near the campus of Loyola University and just over the border from Evanston, home of Northwestern University. As one of the shrinking number independent, progressive bookshops nationally, Left of Center is struggling to find its place, but I for one certainly hope they survive. Arlene Levey, the owner, has clearly invested a lot of love and attention, as well as money, in this little storefront shop at 1043 W Granville.
Mort of the crowd were, or had been, part-time college teachers, and the discussion was quite active. One was directly involved in a still under the radar attempt to start an organizing committee at a downtown private university with some of the worst conditions in the area. Example: adjunct faculty only get paid twice during the term, after they turn in their mid-term and final grades. Even in this place, pay has gone up recently, after years of no raises, perhaps to avoid unionization and because the average pay in the area has risen in recent years due to organizing. It was gratifiying beyond words to hear the colleague there say that he was using RIT as a guide in his work. He also asked me, and the group, how best to deal with the fear that people felt and the fact that it was so hard to get people to actually come to a meeting. I suggested that, while meetings were important, they are not the only way to organize and are much harder for us to put together than for other workers. Small meetings do not mean little support, but we need to find other ways for people to get involved.
Two people had taught, or were teaching in the newly unionized (for credit adjuncts) City Colleges of Chicago (City Colleges Contingent Labor Organizing Committee, CCCLOC, IEA/NEA) and we had some discussion of the recent fallout from the full-timers (an different union, AFT 1600) strike last year. Some part-timer, including some retired full-timers respected picket lines and were not rehired for the following semester as a result. A grievance arbitration under the Local 1600 “no reprisals” clause, was lost despite a campaign by some faculty that included street demonstations and student petitions. Some have been rehired on a college by college and department by department basis. A painful lesson on the dangers of separate unions and separate contracts for faculty in the same school. City Colleges teachers have three unions, affiliated with three different national unions, on for FT faculty, one for PT credit faculty, and one for PT non-credit adult educators. Contact dates vary and all have no-strike clauses. There are historical and political reasons for this sate of affairs, of course, (mainly the FT union not wanting the PT’ers) but the resulting lack of good feeling and cooperation among the unions has allowed Chicago City Colleges to degrade teaching and learning conditions, increase FT teaching load, and cut the full-time faculty numbers radically over the years. This administration has also privatized the entire business office (payroll, purchasing, accounting, etc.), an act recognized on the cover of Chronicle of Higher Education as unprecedented in public higher education. Additionally, years of higher than inflation tuition increases have cut enrollment, this year by double digits. The wages of the sin of lack of solidarity over the years are now being paid both by faculty (and other staff) and students as well.
Another bookstore event is scheduled Jan. 19 at Seminary Co-op Books, the historic independent store near the University of Chicago on the Southside. Since there is a nascent organizing effort among contingent faculty there, I hope for a crowd. The committee has already invited me to speak to a conference they are organizing for later in April. Combined with a whole series of other conference speaking engagements (CA, NY, MO, FL and others this spring, I am glad I am teaching one less class than last term. (See calendar on this site for details.) I hope to se some of the readers of the book, and of this blog, at some of those events, including the AFT-NEA joint higher education conference in Orlando, FL March 2-5.
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Mon Nov 07, 2005
Roosevelt: Returning to Chicago
Upon returning to Chicago late Halloween evening, besides getting back to my classes to teach, I had two Campus Equity Week events locally. The first was at one of my own workplaces, Roosevelt University, sponsored by my own union, the Roosevelt Adjunct Faculty Association, IEA/NEA. There is something about being invited by ones own colleagues (thanks to President Beverly Stewart, Secretary Frank Brooks and VP Luann Swartzlander) that makes it special. Like most of the other events, it was small, but nearly everyone there bought a book and lots of good conversation ensued. I even met a colleague from my own department, where I am the union rep, whom I had never met before (and who has a problem to discuss, of course). Our schedules had never overlapped even though we sit in the same gang office. Also, our sister union at Columbia College put out a flyer and a few of their folks came too. It was billed as a CEW event and both I and English Dept. RAFO colleague Elizabeth Marino read. She has a new book of poetry and memoir, called Debris, just out which I recommend. Available from Moon Journal Press at 2015 Woodland Lane, Arlington Heights, IL 60004. We also had the privilege of imbibing from the leftover wine and beer from the COCAL VI (Conference on Contingent Academic Labor) over a year ago. It was still excellent. More...
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Sat Oct 29, 2005
Boston, Waiting on Philly and NYC
Yesterday the whirlwind began again. As an adjunct I have never been either so well “serviced” nor so well appreciated. The contrast with the disrespect we get on the job (not from our students, of course) is so constantly startling that I have taken to smiling even when alone. It is like I am living in a warm bubble where I go from one appreciative group to another, who thank me for writing the book even before they have read it. More...
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Thu Oct 27, 2005
Boston
After arriving in Boston 10/26 and sleeping for a full 12 hours, it felt good to get to the offices of the North American Alliance for Fair Employment (NAFFE), the co-publisher of RIT and the folks (Suren Moodliar and Kim Foltz) arranging all my travel, publicity, media etc. There is no substitute for having a friendly base when on the road. It always feels different to be anywhere in the Boston-DC coastal strip, where increasing people treat it all like they are in the same place. Still very strange for us Midwesterners or Westerners. More...
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Mon Oct 24, 2005
First Trip - Visiting the University of Western Ontario
At the start of my first trip speaking about Reclaiming the Ivory Tower (RIT) to the university of Western Ontario (UWO) in London, I may have set a small record for book tour problems. Trip itself was uneventful, though it included a plane, train, bus and car for 9 hours each way from Chicago. (Skillfully arrange by UWOFA administrative office Jane LaForge). More...
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