Dissent 53
October 9, 2000
The Return of Red Emma (with an appearance by Mrs. Red Emma)
by Red Emma
“A spectre is haunting South Orange County Community College District—the spectre of regular correspondence. The history of all hitherto existing F.A. actions is the history of anonymous fake newsletters, a president in bed with management, and yes, pants droppings during meetings.”
So begins the letter I received last
week from Comrade Lee Haggerty, President of my local, on pleasantly official
union letterhead. I’d never, in two years of union membership, ever gotten a
letter from the F.A. I especially appreciated Haggerty’s inspiring closing
remarks:
“We have nothing to lose but Dorothy Fortune. We have a world to gain. Teachers of the district, unite!”
—Well, not quite. But that I
actually received such an epistle at all (“Dear Faculty Association Member,”
indeed) thanking me, Red Emma, for my continuing membership, acknowledging
“attempts to make the association more democratic, open and representative,”
inviting Red Emma and everybody else to attend scheduled Rep Council meetings,
and announcing the PAC endorsements of the four “Clean Slate” candidates seemed
to me like a manifesto announcing a new era in Faculty Association deportment.
Of course, at this point, Red Emma is willing to see manifestos in memos, faxes
or post-its.
My only complaint is the letterhead,
which puzzles Red Emma much like those indecipherable phonetically-constructed
personalized license plates which don’t, no matter how long you follow the car
they’re on, seem to make sense. Let’s all say it out loud together, friends:
“SOCCCDFA” See what I mean?
A Miraculous Occurrence
Happily, Red is back in the pedagogical saddle at IVC, albeit at 7
a.m., this assignment due to either clumsy political retaliation or
incompetence or perhaps both—you choose. As a result, he’s noticed a few
things, jolly and whistling his way to the photocopy machine (I’ve used 3% of
my allotment, Howard) at sun-up. First, there’s nobody on campus except Brenda
(with fresh coffee abrewin’), the leaf blower guy, and a couple of tired
looking rabbits. Yet, happily, friends, this is the very best time of day for
concerted viewing of the President’s Chair.
The morning light catches the rich
sheen of its genuine leather, sparkling on the polished brass tacks and, yes,
staring at it through the window in A-100, you can just make out the slight
impression made on the plush headrest by the swollen skull of the Chief
Executive himself. No doubt he’s been sitting there all night, thinking about
how what he does affects students. Just think of it. Perhaps the Great Man’s
imprint on the Chair may yet be warm. I proceed with my teaching day, renewed
in my mission to bring hope to the hopeless, joy to the joyless, and clues to
the clueless.
This sobering early morning miracle
ranks among Red’s most personally moving spiritual experiences: seeing the
famous Chartres cathedral, the image of the Virgin on a garage door in Santa
Ana, and the face of Richard Nixon on a Twinkie. Or maybe I’m just still
asleep.
Speaking of Raghu Mathur, I am
reminded of Oscar Wilde’s famous line about him: “He has fought a good fight
and has had to face every difficulty except popularity.”
An Unfair Occurrence
At the September meeting, the new, letter-writin’ local agreed to file
an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) regarding the district’s fairly shameless
disregard for the contract and its subsequent purposeful bungling of the hiring
procedure surrounding a recent full-time hiring at Saddleback. It seems that
there was dismay aplenty at Personnel for ignoring its contractual obligation
to give Adjunct Faculty with 10 semesters of service an automatic job
interview. Curiously, Red Emma’s name did not quite make it to the committee.
Oh, well, always a bridesmaid, never the Bride of Frankenstein.
This particular vote was just
another example of unanimous plebiscitary at the F.A. meeting, the PAC’s
recommendation having been similarly met with all ayes. Ironically, the only
real example of dissent was from Red himself, who voted against giving Bob the
K a bag of cash to take down to Mexican orphans. Why? Because Emma would prefer
to establish a BUDGET ITEM for such charitable contributions, put the intended
money in an interest earning account, and do something more than symbolic
improvisational charity work on behalf of Bob’s Kids. Red’s funny that way.
Also, I fully expect the orphans to organize before November as a project of
the “Conservative Faculty Association” (SOCCCCFA) and come out against same sex
marriage benefits.
An “Unusual” Occurrence
Has anybody else at IVC noticed the recent arrival of four or five
closed-circuit television monitors over at the cafeteria? Their installation
has transformed our benign little commons into an unpleasant, loud ER Waiting
Room, with non-stop closed-circuit “satellite” television meant for mental
defectives. You know what I’m talking about: misogynist music videos, action
film promotions, and fake news for somebody’s imagined College Demographic.
Eating my bagel, I watched, horrified, a 3 minute top of the hour “news” piece
which outlined the two (sic) presidential candidates’ positions on public
education (astonishingly, they’re both for it—though one wants to take out the
“public” part), followed by a story about a hapless skunk with a 32 oz. Taco
Bell cup stuck on its snout. I assume the segment’s corporate underwriter was
Taco Bell. (The skunk was a Nader supporter.)
So, why would a public education
institution surrender its scholarly community’s singular gathering place to
Turner Communications, Inc.? Why, you say, Red Emma (you Commie Anarchist
bastard!), because by pimping for a major media corporation, we’ll secure
hundreds of thousands in cash, computers, television sets and Taco Bell
promotional merchandise for the college, right?
Wrong. Sources tell Red Emma that
the college got just plain squat for its big public education sell-out. The
service is “free” to college subscribers, which include, according to ex-IVC
PIO Joyce Kirk, 1,800 institutions. Wow.
Joyce, it’s like Mom used to ask me.
Mom: “Li’1 Red Emma, if those
colleges have a Nazi on their board, TVs in their cafeteria and if they jump
off a cliff, are you gonna join ‘em?”
Red Emma: (sighing) “Oh, Mom!”
But
now that I think about it, Mom (a registered Republican) didn’t let us kids eat
Taco Bell or other junk food, god bless her.
And we were told never, ever to sit
so close to four or five television sets (or Holocaust deniers). It’ll rot your
brain, she said. Mom was right. And how long, you ask, is the college bound to
play this endless crap on the TV? Sources tell Red it’s a 2-year contract.
Apparently Kirk imagined a big payoff which she’d then cleverly apply to her
own Public Affairs budget instead of giving it, say, to the students or the
Foundation.
In loving tribute to Mom, Red Emma walked
into the cafeteria one morning last week, reached up and just turned off the
closest TV set. (There’s a little button marked, oddly, “power.”) Perhaps if
observed by administration, he might have merited a write-up by
administration—an “Unusual Occurrence”?—and a teaching assignment for next
semester of, say, 6 a.m. With a few more of these modest acts of resistance,
Red may end up teaching class at three in the morning. Fine. It’ll just be me
and Brenda and Raghu’s phantom head. Meantime, I suggest that concerned
students, faculty, and staff join Red’s anti-corporate media campaign. If
enough of us turn off the monitors, the occurrence will no longer be unusual.
A Part-Time Occurrence
Yes, folks, it’s
time for the new, democratic local to start assembling its list of demands
toward negotiating the next contract. Never too early, especially with a five
(!) year contract. Catalina D., the new S’back Adjunct Rep, mentioned
“seniority” for part-timers. Thoughtfully corrected by Full-Timers on the illegality
of such a scheme, the spirit of her suggestion was nonetheless vigorously
applauded. The leadership of the local and its “majority” full-time members (we
part-timers outnumber them 2.5 to 1) must prioritize the issue of justice for
part time faculty. In addition to instituting some kind of district-wide policy
regarding whatever you want to call the right of first refusal policy accorded
full-timers, this district needs to pay us for an office hour, as mandated by
the California Legislature. We’d also like a computer of our own, please, and a
real office, a part-time bulletin board, and paid “flex” time. And while we’re
at it, how come the adjunct mail boxes are below the full-timers’? Huh?
Red Emma plans to hold his first
paid office hour at 6 am, drinking a cup of Brenda’s fine coffee and selling
tickets to pilgrims wanting to see the “Miracle Chair.”
A “Conservative” Occurrence
Responding to a press release sent out by the South Orange County
Community College Conservative Faculty Association, a part-time IVC faculty
member recently sent his own release. In a shameless effort to mollify one of
his favorite contributors, your editor has agreed, despite his best instincts
and the high journalistic standards of this publication, to reprint it, below. —R.E.
[PRESS
RELEASE—TONKOVICH]
THE SOUTH ORANGE
COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT
Saddleback College
Irvine Valley College
THE ONE, TRUE,
CONSERVATIVE
FACULTY ASSOCIATION
#1
Our mission: “TRUTH”
Our motto: “ONENESS”
Our constituency:
the really, really truly conservative faculty members of the South
Orange County
Community College District.
Our enrollment numbers: wouldn’t
you like to know?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
* The
One, True, Conservative Faculty Association Challenges SOCCCD Faculty Association
* Membership
Announces Endorsement of Tom Fuentes—for ALL FOUR TRUSTEE positions
* Affiliate
Faculty Associations endorse Fuentes
Contact: Andrew Tonkovich, Chair, OTCFA (949) xxx-xxxx
Today, Friday September 22, the Chairperson of the SOCCCD-OTCFA
denounced the SOCCCD Faculty Association as “a small rogue group of faculty
members made up of the majority of faculty in the two-campus district.”
Comments attacking the legitimacy of the faculty labor union and its PAC were
made by OTCFA Chair Andrew Tonkovich, an Adjunct Faculty member at Irvine
Valley College, one of the district’s two colleges.
“Who do they think they are? A union?” sniffed One True Conservative
Chair Tonkovich. “Just because they negotiate our contracts and we elect them
to office doesn’t mean that they represent us.” He went on to declare, “So what
if their membership is at an all-time high. Who cares that the state California
Teachers Association (CTA) recognized this remarkable growth with an award? It
doesn’t mean that the SOCCCD Faculty Association represents anyone other than
the people behind them—the faculty.”
The un-elected, un-appointed, unofficial spokesperson of the One, True
Conservative Faculty Association touted the credentials of his own newly-formed
organization: “We’re NOT like those other faculty associations you read about
in the papers. We’re NOT recognized as a collective bargaining unit by the
state. We DON’T collect dues. We DON’T hold meetings. We DON’T negotiate
teachers’ contracts.”
“In fact,” offered Tonkovich, “we DON’T have any legal or political
standing at all. No, not a lick! Still, we offer the ONE, TRUE CONSERVATIVE
VISION: Oneness. Truth.”
Tonkovich added that his organization “put the ‘con’ in “conservative.”
Tonkovich then announced his Faculty Association’s endorsement of
Orange County Republican Party Chair Tom Fuentes for not one, but all four district Trustee positions in
November. “He’s our candidate. If he’s not on your ballot, just write in his
name or ‘GOP guy.’ They’ll know who you mean.”
Fuentes is currently a candidate in
only one district, but has raised an unheard of $100,000 to fund his race, more
than four times the average amount of other candidates.
Fuentes was recently appointed by
the Board of Trustees to replace the retiring Steven Frogue, an alleged
Holocaust revisionist, who was the subject of a community recall effort. “We
believe Tom Fuentes plans to use this position as a stepping stone toward a
Supervisorial run,” said Tonkovich. “That’s fine with true conservatives like us.”
OTCFA’s position follows the
SOCCCD-FA’s recent endorsement of four “Clean Slate” candidates for the Board
of Trustees’ race. “Their endorsement means diddly squat,” said Tonkovich.
“Look, all the Faculty Association did was put together a democratic process
allowing all faculty to develop questions about important issues facing the
district, interview candidates in an open forum, and then vote their choices.
Just because the vote was unanimous doesn’t mean a thing. I mean, this is
America, isn’t it?”
Tonkovich cautioned reporters to
“Listen to us! Not THEM!”
He also announced the formation of
affiliate One, True Conservative groups, each offering individual F.A.
endorsements of Trustee Tom Fuentes for all four positions. These affiliate
groups include:
The One, True, Conservative Nudist
Faculty Association (OTCNFA)
The One, True, Conservative Buddhist Nudist Faculty Association
(OTCBNFA)
Friends of the Tom Fuentes Urban Park (FTFUP)
The One, True, Free, Faux Conservative Faculty Association ( 1234CFA)
Tonkovich’s remarks were met by
complete indifference. He is, nonetheless, available for comment. (949)
xxx-xxxx.
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