Monday, October 9, 2000

Teachers of the district, unite! (Red Emma)

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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