College Teachers Victims of Distortion

Re: The Sept. 21 letter of Jere Robings regarding the behavior of attendees at the Ventura County Community College District board meeting of Sept. 9.

Yes, indeed, the major issue at that meeting was contract negotiations with the teachers’ union, and Robings needs to apologize to the Teamsters for his stereotyping of all Teamsters as thugs and apparently all thugs as Teamsters. The teachers’ union, the Ventura County Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1828, AFL-CIO, stood proudly with the Teamsters in their recent UPS strike. We strongly support their demands for part-time workers’ rights--a major issue in our negotiations.

Robings, in a typical anti-union, pro-management, anti-taxpayer stance, assumes that because someone is an elected official, they are incapable of lying, stealing or generally doing anything against the public good.

His letter did not once mention students--that is not unusual. What the VCCCD board of trustees is proposing in contract negotiations can do nothing but hurt students, lower faculty morale (as if it could get lower) and generally set back the district 20 years. Absolutely nothing good can come from their actions.

Facts? Robings has not contacted me to find out about the negotiations nor, to my knowledge, has he contacted any other AFT executive council member. His position is purely pro-management.

Apparently Robings is only concerned with protecting the delicate sensibilities of the chancellor and the board of trustees, not the Ventura County taxpayers or the students attending the district’s colleges--Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura--and future students.

As for dissent, Robings would still have us bowing to the Queen of England. He would still have us mired down in wars in Southeast Asia. Were the attendees at the meeting rude? Yes, but not as rude as the trustees who refuse to discuss the negotiations with us, not as rude as the chancellor who does not meet with the federation, not as rude as their hired chief negotiator from San Diego County who, as yet, has not explained the district’s contract proposal to us! I think the VCCCD faculties were remarkably restrained.

Most egregious of all, Robings does not complain about the two top managers in the district being granted their second raises in less than two years at this meeting. That’s rude! And that is their reward for overspending their district office budgets, attempting to bust the union, decimate the district, lower morale of the faculty and staff, and create an atmosphere of fear, distrust and general malaise. That is a real love fest according to Robings’ reasoning!

LARRY O. MILLER, President, Ventura County, Federation of College Teachers, AFT Local 1828, AFL-CIO, Ventura

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A recent radio ad paid for by VCCCD trustee Norm Nagel claims that a college instructor’s weekly workload comprises only 15 hours in the classroom, 15 hours prep time and five hours of “student time” (there is no mention in the ad of the requirement to serve at least five hours per week in other functions, while prep time is not an item in teachers’ contracts). The ad also implies that teachers want further workload reduction and wish to eliminate “student time.”

As an instructor, I am dismayed by this patent misrepresentation of our work. Does a lawyer only bill for the actual time spent meeting with her clients? Is an orthodontist working only when his hands are in a person’s mouth?

Hardly. Both professions require their practitioners to prepare for their meetings with clients, to keep up with the latest developments in the field and to constantly monitor their own performance. The situation is no different with teachers, who must also continually assess the progress of their clients (the students). In my own case, these combined duties not infrequently entail a workweek between 50-75 hours or more. Thus, to claim that we currently work only 35 hours a week is simply inaccurate. To suggest, as this radio ad does, that we now wish to take more while giving students less is profoundly insulting.

A trustee paid for this attack on the teachers of his district. This same trustee has twice voted pay raises and other perks for the highest administrators in our district, two of whom now earn more than Gov. [Pete] Wilson. This trustee seems to have forgotten that he was elected to serve the entire community with fairness, honesty and integrity. Instead, he seems to be beholden to the interests of a few. How unfortunate it is that instead of embodying the principles implied in the title of trustee, Nagel has revealed himself as just another politician.

JOHN BAKER, Moorpark