November, 2015
Volume 42, Issue 11
United Professors of Marin – AFT Local 1610
P.O. Box 503, Kentfield, CA 94914 – Phone and FAX (415) 459-1524
Office Location - VS 11
PONDERINGS OF THE PRESIDENT
By Laurie Ordin
FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE
L
IKE MANY OF YOU I WAS SADDENED AND SHOCKED
to hear that Pamela Mize-Kurzman had
died.
Pamela was not just a colleague, she was a
friend. We shared a love of theatre and food, especially
tiramisu, but we hadn’t spoken to each other recently and
a couple of months had passed since we had met, so I had
no idea that she was ill.
PONDERINGS OF THE PRESIDENT –
Remembering Pamela ii
EDITORIAL –
Thanksgiving: A Day of Thanks, but for Whom?
BARGAINING UPDATE – Labor Management
Committee Update
Pamela was a pretty and very youthful woman and I
remember seeing her toward the beginning of this
semester and commenting that she looked especially
beautiful. That was the last time I saw her. Apparently
Pamela had cancer and she and her family wanted to keep
her illness closely guarded. They also want to keep her
memorial private – for family only.
FEATURE ARTICLE – Parity for Non-Credit Instructors
by Kate Hayne and Michael Kaufmann
FOR THE GOOD OF THE ORDER – Veterans Day –
Eugene V. Debs – A Pair of Pinking Shears for Kentfield
END PAGE – The Way of the Dodo
Now that she is gone I hope you will indulge me a little
space here to remember her.
what, at that time, was called an office clerk, to the
position of Dean of Enrollment Services. I got to know her
quite well when I began serving on the Academic
Standards Committee with her. Pamela served on that
committee in an advisory role.
I have been thinking about Pamela over the past couple of
weeks and I have spoken with people on various parts of
the campus. It occurs to me that some of us need a way
to express our grief, and that it could possibly be done
through this column. I have received some notes, but I
think if you were not able to get to me at this time and
would still like to share your thoughts, we can devote
some space in the next Newsletter.
Pamela was smart, analytical and tremendously well
informed about policy. But the thing that struck all of us
on the committee was her care and compassion towards
students. She would do everything she could, within the
confines of the law, to ensure that our students had every
opportunity that the college could afford them.
>>>
Pamela started working at College of Marin in 1975 while
she was a student. She moved through the ranks from
UPM Newsletter
1
November 2015
<<< Pamela shared her kindness with all who knew her.
I will always remember her sparkling smile and bell-like
laugh. And although she had physical challenges during
the time that I knew her, she would just charge
ahead. You almost never saw pain on her face. She was
always concerned with how the people around her were
feeling, never dwelling on her own physical problems.
illegal, the VP reprimanded her for obtaining legal
opinions and for trying “to cast [herself] in the role of a
whistleblower.” Pamela was ordered to bring any
questions about illegality to the VP first, not to survey her
colleagues on the official college email list-serv about legal
questions, to give the VP copies of any correspondence
she had about the lawfulness of college policies, and not
contact legal counsel in the chancellor’s office without the
VP’s permission.
When Pamela objected that the
reprimand was unwarranted, the VP responded that
further challenge to the discipline would be deemed
insubordination.
But I would be remiss if I left the impression that Pamela
was merely a lovely person who cared about others, our
students, and the college. While all of this is true, Pamela
was also one tough cookie, and she showed her toughness
during the administration immediately preceding Dr.
Coon’s tenure, (a period which I half-jokingly label as our
Reign of Terror). It was then that Pamela found herself in
the middle of some of that terror.
A few months later, Pamela questioned a new policy of
not asking students to provide citizenship and residency
information on their applications. She obtained an opinion
from the community college chancellor’s office
and told the VP that citizenship and residency
data was legally required to be transmitted to
the chancellor’s office.
It was when that former president was
hired that almost every administrator was
fired. Pamela was spared because she
had tenure with the District. It seemed to
many of us that the qualifications of many
of the new hires were that they would
say yes to anything and everything that
the new president demanded.
After this communication, Pamela received
a negative evaluation and the district
removed her from her administrative
position and placed her on leave. When her
department found out that this had happened,
they all broke down in tears. Pamela was later
reassigned to a counselor position because she had
tenure with the district.
Pamela was privy to, what seemed to
her, hiring irregularities during that time and she
challenged the legality of several college policies.
She contacted the district’s legal counsel about her belief
that a particular publicly funded grant was illegally
targeted for scholarships for Latino students. She relayed
to our then vice-president and to the new president the
counsel’s opinion that such a grant would be
unconstitutional. The grant proposal was changed, but the
VP directed Pamela not to contact legal counsel again
without her permission. Soon after this directive, the
district “reorganized” Pamela’s position and took away
duties that Pamela considered important to her job.
Pamela filed a lawsuit. It went on for years. Pamela would
not give up. It cost her a fortune (and it cost the District a
fortune, too.) The jury found against her on claims that
the district violated Labor Code and Education Code
provisions protecting whistleblowers from retaliation.
But Pamela would still not give up. She appealed and she
won on appeal. The District had to pay her court costs
and damages, but they would not give her her job as
Dean back, which is what she really wanted. To quote a
very caring colleague, “They broke her heart.”
Pamela also believed that a new district policy allowing
students who owed past fees to register for classes
without paying the current registration fees, was unlawful.
She conducted an email list-serv survey of colleagues on
the legality of the policy and questioned its lawfulness in
an email to the VP. She later forwarded to the VP an
opinion she received from the community college
chancellor’s office that indicated the district should not
continue to allow deferral of such fees.
In spite of her disappointment, Pamela so loved the
college that she continued working as a counselor and
helping students in any way she could.
Our college has lost one of its treasures. She was my
friend. I hope she knew how I felt about her. Like many of
us, I wish I could have told her one more time.
Ginny Hanna said it as well as I ever could, “I will miss her
greatly, Ginny said. She was a very special lady.” □
After she told the VP that she thought the policy was
UPM Newsletter
2
November 2015
EDITORIAL
THANKSGIVING – A DAY OF THANKS
BUT FOR WHOM?
M
OST OF US HAVE MANY THINGS for which to be
thankful, and celebrating and sharing these boons
with family and friends is laudable and should be
nurtured. So a Thanksgiving holiday can and should be a
welcome time to celebrate our fortunes and our
accomplishments.
But Thanksgiving is more than just a day of feasting and
family celebration.
It has, unfortunately, been
confounded with an historical event which is neither
benevolent nor compassionate nor benign. For some
people, rather than being celebrated as a day of joy and
sharing, Thanksgiving is regarded as a day of sorrow.
I’m speaking, of course, of those who observe
Thanksgiving as a “Day of Mourning” – mourning for the
murder of their ancestors, the destruction of their culture
and for the economic and social horrors that befell (and
continue to befall) them and their kin. Not a day that they
can be very “thankful” for.
And for those of us who are aware of the historical record
and mindful of the sensibilities of Native Americans,
there can be justifiable hesitation in joyously celebrating
the Thanksgiving holiday as it is traditionally defined and
observed.
How then should those of us who want to be respectful of
the facts of history and Native American sensibilities,
celebrate on November 26th?
Perhaps one way to resolve our unease is for us to
decouple the Thanksgiving that we joyfully celebrate with
friends and feasting and football, from the Thanksgiving of
historical and cultural truth.
If we can decouple this disparity, it would be easier for
many of us to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday – enjoy what
we are thankful for – while still honoring and condemning
a regrettable past that has committed genocide on the
original inhabitants of this country.
If we can decouple, and fight to correct and improve
conditions for native peoples – perhaps we can still enjoy
our Thanksgiving turkey. □
COMMENTS BY NATIVE AMERICANS CONCERNING THANKSGIVING
(Posts from the Internet)
“In our family we don’t call it Thanksgiving
– we call it the ‘Last Supper.’”
“In my family, Thanksgiving was celebrated for murder
and slavery, rather than for friendship and harvest.”
“When I went to school, my mother raised hell with the principal.
There would be no fake headbands and feathers for us.”
“The American Indians of New England meet each year
at Plymouth Rock on Cole’s Hill for a Day of Mourning.
They gather at the feet of a statue of Grand Sachem
Massasoit of the Wampanoag to remember and
reflect, in the hope that America will never forget.”
“The Plymouth dinner was not the first time that Native
Americans saved the Europeans and were in turn
punished. There were so many examples where natives
gave the Europeans food and the Europeans returned
the favor by killing and displacing them. This is why we
should take time at the European’s Thanksgiving
celebration to remind them over and over again that
they give Native Americans no reason to celebrate.”
“In our house it is a day we grieve."
UPM Newsletter
3
November 2015
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING UPDATE
John Sutherland
UPM Chief Negotiator
O
As for PAC funding, you’ll recall that our new contract
upped the yearly dollar amount from $1000 to $1500
per person (the total PAC amount increasing from
$30,000 to $45,000), yet because of auditing issues, so
far we have not agreed on reimbursement for those
unit members who requested more than $1000
before ratification of the contract on September 15.
The best the District can tell us is that all unit
members will be eligible to receive $1500
between the ratification date and the end of the
fiscal year. In other words, if you requested
above $1000 before ratification, you still have
the remainder of your individual allotment
ahead of you for other conference funding. We are still
in conversation on this topic.
VER THE PAST WEEKS, UPM HAS BEEN WORKING
with the District in the newly formed Labor
Management Committee (LMC) to “update and clarify
the contract.”
We have broached many topics so far, among
them PAC reimbursement, Part-time Non-Credit
summer pay, P-T N-C placement, and a new
Library Coordinator position. Though we are
still working on most of these items, we have
reached agreement on the Library Coordinator.
With the departure of the library Director, the
LMC found it necessary to create a new Library
Coordinator position. The sidebar for a Library
Coordinator has been signed, retro to the beginning of
the fall 2015 semester, and we (UPM and MCCD) have
committed to return to the table in spring to discuss
Librarians’ concerns regarding evaluation and hours on
duty.
UPM Newsletter
Discussions on other issues remain on-going, and we’ll
report to you once we have cemented language on any
of them. □
4
November 2015
Student Equity and Instructor Pay Parity
Kate Hayne and Michael Kaufmann
P/T Non-Credit ESL Instructors
Y
OU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE: “Teachers’ Working
Conditions are Students’ Learning Conditions,” and
there is no better place to locate the truth in this cliché
than right here at COM, where the two issues intersect,
namely, office hours access with instructors for non-credit
ESL students, and pay parity for Non-Credit ESL
instructors.
Student equity is in the air, and rightly so, but student
equity must be complemented by instructor equity. Just
as ALL students need access to the services that promote
their success, so too do NC ESL students need to be taken
into the fold and provided with the tools they need. But
to make this happen, there is no escaping the urgent need
to remove the second class status suffered by PT NC ESL
instructors. And taking us into the fold means removing
the last great disparity among PT instructors and raising
our rate of parity.
Despite significant advances made in the last contract
concerning workload issues and the welcome addition of
two full time instructors to the non-credit ESL program,
the parallel issues of lack of access to services for NonCredit students, and lack of pay parity for Non-Credit ESL
instructors, continue to point to important (some would
say glaring) disparities.
What we propose is simple and doable: Increase PT NC
ESL parity to 95% and include instructor office hours for all
NC ESL students as part of our duties. □
As things stand now, the only NC ESL students who are
entitled to office hours with their instructors are those
who, by luck of the draw, have managed to enroll in a NC
ESL class taught by a Full-Time instructor. That leaves the
overwhelming majority of NC ESL students without this
vital component to their success. Where’s the equity in
that?
Comment by UPM President Laurie Ordin:
Our UPM Bargaining Team and Executive Council agree
wholeheartedly with Kate and Michael regarding the issue
of pay parity for PT NC ESL instructors. We will be taking
this issue to our newly formed Labor Management
Committee and supporting it at the bargaining table
during our next round of negotiations.
This untenable situation also places the dedicated NC ESL
coterie of PT instructors in an impossible position: they
must either provide office hours for students on a
voluntary, uncompensated basis (a practice rightly
frowned upon by UPM as working for free,) or watch
many talented, motivated students go without this critical
component to their success. Instructors shouldn’t have to
face this sort of dilemma.
The ethos of equal pay for equal work has always been a
guiding principle in our negotiations, and while we are not
quite at parity for all our faculty yet, we have achieved the
most equitable Community College contract in the state, if
not the country.
The pay inequity for PT NC ESL instructors that Kate and
Michael identify and its impact on students, make this an
even more compelling issue at COM where we pride
ourselves as supporting “students first.”
Confronted with these hard choices, we would venture a
guess that the majority of PT NC ESL instructors will
understandably opt to not meet with students after class
hours, not only because we are not paid to do so, but also
because of another glaring disparity—that of the
significantly lower rate of pay parity endured by PT NonCredit ESL faculty—80% vs. the 95% that PT Credit
instructors receive. This disparity not only depresses our
take home pay, but also has detrimental lifelong effects on
our retirement benefits. (Some numbers we looked at
had an average PT NC instructor losing $500/month in
retirement benefits because of the lower pay parity
figure).
UPM Newsletter
UPM is committed to keeping up our demand for pay
equity for all our faculty -- and educational equity for all
our students.
In solidarity,
Laurie
5
November 2015
FOR THE GOOD OF THE ORDER
VETERANS DAY - 2015
A HOLIDAY BOOK SUGGESTION
B
W
EDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11th was Veterans Day: a
day to honor the men and women who served in
America’s armed forces.
UILDING THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE – A Workers’
Oral History: a new book by labor historian Harvey
Schwartz features the voices of workers who built the
Golden Gate Bridge. In the tradition of Studs Terkel, it is
an account of the grueling physical
conditions that the workers endured,
the gruesome accidents that some
suffered and the small pleasures they
enjoyed. Moving beyond the accounts
of the achievements of the celebrity
engineers and designers, it primarily features the voices of
the bridge workers themselves; recollections of the 1930s
that evoke working class life and the culture of a bygone
era. © 2015 by the University of Washington Press.
Perhaps some of the wars in which they served were
justified, but all had their costs, both in spilled blood and
in the diversion of treasure that could have been used for
economic and social services.
“Every gun that was made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft
from those who hungered and were not fed, from those
who were cold and not clothed.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
We should honor those who have fought to preserve our
freedom but we also can honor those who work for peace,
so that needless additional lives are not sacrificed and
needless additional treasure squandered. □
On Sunday, December 13, Harvey Schwartz will be
appearing at Book Passage in Corte Madera, at 1:00 pm. □
MEET AND GREET
(And query?)
I
N A RECENT EMAIL MESSAGE TO OUR FACULTY and
staff, The Follett Corporation, who runs our COM
Bookstore, has invited us to stop in between November
30th and December 4th and meet Bookstore
Manager Alex Hunt, (and take advantage of
some discounts that the store is offering).
Maybe this would be a good time to ask Mr.
Hunt why the bookstore continues to sell apparel that is
manufactured under sweatshop conditions around the
world, despite repeated appeals by COM’s Students for
Social Justice.
For further formation, please contact Susan Rahman,
faculty advisor to Students for Social Justice.□
NEW SCULPTURE ON THE QUAD
A
SCULPTURE TITLED “RENAISSANCE,” created in 1988
by former COM art instructor Robert Ellison has
been installed on the quad between our
Fine Arts Building and the new Academic
Center. Resembling a giant pair of
pinking shears, the work is a colorful
addition to the campus.
Ellison, who taught at COM in the late
1970s, died in 2012 of ALS. He was 65.
W
E WELCOME YOUR LETTERS and suggestions
concerning articles that appear, or that you would
like to contribute to our Newsletter. Please send
your comments or submissions to:
Those of us who knew Robert remember him as a
wonderful teacher and recall his sense of whimsy that
carried over into all his many monumental sculptures.
[email protected] □
And he was a great welder. □
UPM Newsletter
6
November 2015
“FOR THE GOOD OF THE ORDER” (2)
NOVEMBER LABOR HISTORY
A ‘THANK-YOU’ FOR OUR GENEROSITY
I
N SEPTEMBER, UPM MADE A DONATION to the North
Bay Labor Council Emergency Relief Fund to assist
union members and retirees who lost their homes in the
Lake County Valley Fire.
We received the following letter from the President of the
NBLC:
O
“Thank you for your donation to the NBLC Union
Member’s Emergency Relief Fund… It is sadly the
2nd worst fire in California History and many
union members lived in its devastating path.
With your help we were able to make a difference
in the lives of these union members. That’s what
solidarity is all about.”
NE OF OUR GREAT AMERICAN LABOR LEADERS,
Eugene Victor Debs, was born in November, 1855.
Debs was President of the American Railway Union, a
founder of the American Socialist Party, and a founding
member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
He opposed U.S. entry into World War I, for which he was
convicted of sedition under the Espionage Act of 1917 and
in 1919 sentenced to 10 years in prison, (later commuted
to time served). While there he ran for President of the
United States on the Socialist ticket and received one
million votes.
Jack A. Buckhorn
President NBLC, AFL-CIO
VERGARA
Always passionate and outspoken, Debs wrote:
A
RE YOU AWARE OF VERGARA? I’m not referring to
Sofia Vergara the Columbian-American actress. I’m
speaking of the Vergara v. California lawsuit that, in 2014,
overturned long established tenure protections for California
teachers – a decision that is currently being appealed in the
CA Court of Appeals.
"If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who
were not satisfied with their conditions, we would all still be
living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of
civilization. Progress is born of agitation. IT IS AGITATION
OR STAGNATION."
Eugene Debs died in 1926 at the age of 70. 50,000 people
attended his funeral. □
The Vergara plaintiffs who prevailed in lower court argued
that tenure entitlements for teachers deprived students of
their constitutional right to an education, and
disproportionately hurt poor and minority students.
“THE UPRISING OF THE 20,000”
O
n November 22nd 1909, 20,000 female garment
workers went on strike in New York City. Many of
them were arrested and were told by the judge, “You are
on strike against God.” The walkout was the first major
successful strike by female workers in American history. It
ended the following February with union contracts
bringing better pay and working conditions.
Teacher advocates responded that the ruling scapegoated
teachers for the failures of the educational system, and that
in fact, studies show that students who are taught by
tenured and tenure-track instructors have better learning
outcomes, higher graduation rates and were more likely to
continue their education at four-year institutions than
students taught by non-tenured faculty.
Evidently ‘God’ did not agree with the judge. □
Tenure is the chief guarantor of the intellectual freedom
necessary for faculty to pursue new ideas and teaching
methods that can benefit all students. Without tenure there
is no assurance of academic freedom in the classroom.
ERRATUM
IN THE OCTOBER “PONDERINGS OF THE PRESIDENT”
reference was made to Friedrichs v. CFT, (the case
before the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the right of
unions to collect Agency Fees from members.
It should have read Friedrichs v. CTA (not CFT). □
If Vergara is upheld, it will be a serious blow to academic
freedom and due process protections for teachers. And
student success will suffer. □
UPM Newsletter
7
November 2015
DON’T LET OUR UNION BECOME A DYING BREED
JOIN UPM AND GET INVOLVED
UPM NEWSLETTER
8
NOVEMBER 2015