The Faculty Association (union) luncheon

.....Well, I attended the Faculty Association luncheon today at the Cheesecake Factory (at the Irvine Spectrum), and, without a doubt, it was a big cheesy success.
.....The Cheesecake people located us in a kind of cul-de-sac at the west end of the place—cozy, yet festive—and, near as I could tell, every seat was taken. Every mouth was moving and every voice was squawking, too, cuz it was LOUD in there. When Bill B banged on a glass to get everybody’s attention, you could see it, but you couldn’t hear it. Finally somebody shot off their 44 Magnum 629 classic. Boom!
.....Lee H—the new FA Prez—started things up the way he does, introducing practically everybody in the room. Pretty soon, though, he presented retired Saddleback prof Bob Bliss, our area 6 candidate. He’s going up against Tom Fuentes, OC’s own Prince of Darkness. (Bob better have a good liver, cuz Tom just got himself a new one.)
.....Somehow, I expected Bob to be this quiet and retiring old guy sans edge, but boy was I wrong. His presentation was damned good. Intense, too. His vision, he said, is our being the “finest community college district in the country.” The first thing he’d do, he said, is get rid of Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur. “Raghu has got to go,” he said. Naturally, that inspired orgasmic screams, though that coulda been the cheescake, which was very rich.
.....I smiled. Even though we were at the friggin’ Cheesecake Factory, we had attained a community feeling—plus unmistakable carnivalitude. Right at the start of the campaign!
.....Amid the din and flapping hands my head bobbed left and, to my horror, I spotted two infamous former FA presidents, including one who, after all these years, still looks like a traffic cone, what with her orange, monogogo, stretch-elastic, knit slacks and orbiting Day-Glo Isadora-Duncanesque scarf. Quickly recovering, I kissed her a big wet hello. Well, no, but I did manage to look at her. She’s got big hair.
.....Bliss ‘splained that his second concern, after the Goo, is accreditation. How, he asked, could these people—Mathur, the board—screw up so badly that we might lose accreditation?
.....—‘Cause they're assholes? Bob didn’t say that, of course, but he did say that he’d been endorsed by some Republican group. He seemed proud that he beat out Fuentes for that. It all sounded pretty good. I smiled at the Reb, who kicked me to the curb with her disapproving look. Fool! Don't be smilin'!
.....Bliss was pretty steamed about deteriorating facilities at the colleges, what with toxic mold, leaky buildings, and buzzing friggin' bees. Gotta hire professionals! he said.
.....“I can’t promise you perfection,” he said finally. “I can only promise you Bliss.” That went over pretty big, even if it was enough to puke a dog off of a gut wagon.
.....(Did you know that Bob Bliss is a novelist? Yep. Back in ’98, he published a well-received book entitled A.N.G.E.L.S. Inc. He’s a futurist or something. Don’t bring it up, though.)



.....Next came Carolyn Inmon, Dave Lang's competition in Irvine, who, in her own way, was just as impressive. She’s been a teacher since 1964, she said, and she’s been a “teacher advocate” for the last 25 years. So she knows her way around, boy.
.....Pretty soon, she zeroed in on salaries. We (i.e., the SOCCCD) used to have the highest salaries in the state, she reminded us, but now we’re, like, tenth. Out of the four community college districts in this county, ours is ranked dead last, salary-wise.
.....That got everybody’s attention. People muttered bitterly, at least in my imagination.
.....“Faculty working conditions are student learning conditions!” she roared.
.....She blamed the accreditation problem on “failing and flawed leadership at the top of the district.” The Inmon solution? —Change the goddam board.
.....She’s a speech teacher, so she ended by saying that she plans to help make SOCCCD the best community college district in the state. That seemed to sound pretty good to everybody in the room. Even the waiters liked it.

.....Next, Lee introduced contract negotiator Lewis Long, who, said Lee, “cleans up real good.” Indeed, Lewis looked particularly sharp for Lewis, who often shows up looking like Howdy Doody.
.....Lewis was loaded for bear. A year ago, he said, the chancellor declared that the negotiation process would be “quick.” In fact, said Lewis, from the start, the district’s favorite word has been “no.” He tried it out a few times. “No, no, no.” He was on a roll. “Ha! No!” he shouted. We shrunk back in horror.
.....Essentially, said Lewis, the union has asked to keep faculty salaries on a par with the past. We want a COLA. We’ve proposed how to pay for that. The district’s answer is always, “No.”
.....Lewis described a recent exchange with district negotiators in which Lewis noted the curious fact that the district is sitting on $190 million in reserves! This inspired districtular snortage. No way is it $190 million! they squawked.
.....OK. How much then?
.....Um, uh. $173 milllion, muttered the district.
.....Damn! That’s enough to run the colleges for years! People whooped and hollered. A food fight broke out but was quickly suppressed.
.....Anyway, recently, the union presented yet another perfectly reasonable proposal. The district keeps saying that they’ve not had a chance to consider it. Evidently, even though this process started, like, a friggin' year ago, the district didn’t start figuring out costs until last month! They’re doggin’ it!
.....The most important thing, said Lewis, is changing the board. He made a plea for everyone doing their part in that effort. Our biggest advantage, he said, is “human power.” “Please give your money, effort, and time to round up votes,” he said.

.....Next came a lively but brief Q & A. What about labs? What about benefits? What about the 50% law? And SLOs?
.....What about the media? Why should I help with the move back to BGS? Yeah, what about that?!
.....It was fun.

.....We ended with the idea that we’d all see each other soon at commencement, which is our time with the students. It’s not the trustees’ time. They might sit up there like it’s theirs, but, nope, it’s ours.
.....And the students’.
.....Yep.