Teachers Cut Out Extras in Workload

When computers broke down in the math lab at Oxnard College, Alan Hayashi sometimes came in on weekends to repair them. But no longer. If Hayashi can’t fit the repairs into his teaching day, students itching for a machine will just have to wait.

At Moorpark College, Jan Andriese was thinking about sticking around for the next few years to run the center for disabled students that she founded in 1973. But now she isn’t sure. Andriese, 60, might retire next year.

“If things keep going the way they are, I won’t stay,” she said. “I’ve had 25 wonderful years at the college and to end it on a bitter note is very sad for me.”

Teachers are engaged not so much in a work slowdown--most students have not been affected--as in a morale shutdown.

Talks between the Ventura County Community College District and teachers on its three campuses have stalled over issues, including job protection for part-timers, raises, benefits and evaluations. In protest, some have decided to limit what they do on campus to teaching and teaching only.

At Ventura College, angry teachers canceled the seminars and speakers that comprise the campus’ observance of Women’s History Month. At Oxnard College, a mentoring program has been slowed down. At Moorpark College, teachers scrapped a popular multicultural day that drew participants from across the county.

Last week, Moorpark’s communications department voted to cancel an April program that attracted more than 100 high school journalists last year.

“I was very angry to have to make a decision like that,” said journalism instructor Bona Dillon. “But the biggest thing was the board’s insults, the lack of respect for the faculty’s professionalism and our commitment to our students.”

For their part, some administrators don’t blame faculty members for withholding extra hours during a period of labor turmoil. However, they do fault them for refusing to budge from what they view as irrational demands.

“The faculty hasn’t been willing to even talk about things the district wants,” said Diane Moore, a Ventura College dean who is on the district’s negotiating team. “It’s always been giving in the other direction.”

Predictably, the union makes much the same charge about the administration. But wherever the truth lies, teaching veterans like Andriese find little consolation in the fray.

“I suddenly feel as if my work doesn’t make any difference to the people in charge,” said Andriese, whose center provides aid to 750 students with disabilities. “I don’t think they care.”

Others, like Hayashi, simply teach their classes, confer with their students--and go home.

“I’ve chosen to not put in the effort that I would have in the past,” he said.

A Year of Anger

Morale will not improve soon. Without celebration, faculty members and administrators this week will mark the first anniversary of what has become Ventura County’s most bitter current labor dispute. Angry and frustrated, both sides report no substantial progress since talks began March 20, 1997.

Blame follows the traditional lines of labor battles everywhere. District officials fume about a greedy union; union leaders complain of an arrogant and overpaid administration. Talks have been anything but collegial.

Last week, a state-appointed mediator gave up after 10 months of trying to forge an agreement. His withdrawal throws the issue into fact-finding, a process that pushes the district a step closer to imposing a contract and the teachers a step closer to striking.

At this point, nobody says that is likely. Community college teachers in California last went on strike when Compton teachers walked off the job 20 years ago, according to the California Federation of Teachers. Even so, the statewide union is especially concerned with the deadlock in Ventura County, said Mary Valentine, an assistant to the union’s president.

“It would be a very bad sign for collective bargaining in California if this were the cornerstone of some trend,” she said. “We’re monitoring it very closely, and we’re prepared to send in whatever resources are needed.”

As exceptional as a strike would be in a county that has been no haven to organized labor, it would follow an equally exceptional year. In the 12 months since negotiations started:

* The faculty voted, with 99% in favor, to declare no confidence in Philip Westin, the new chancellor who had pledged harmony with a faculty pleased to have an ex-music teacher as the new boss. Today nobody is singing a happy tune. “There is a cancer in the district office,” warns the union’s Web page in a comment inspired by Watergate.

* The district took out full-page newspaper ads and board member Norm Nagel sponsored a radio commercial attacking teachers as greedy.

* Teachers picketed the workplaces of several board members as campus security guards photographed them. The union’s anger was aggravated by the refusal of Westin and the board to comment on the negotiations. Instead, Richard J. Currier, an El Cajon attorney hired as their chief negotiator, speaks for them.

* While teachers had been working since June without a contract, board members in September gave Westin and deputy chancellor Michael Gregoryk raises of nearly 6%. Westin now makes $142,800 a year and Gregoryk is paid $127,550.

* In November, one-day sickouts at all three campuses canceled dozens of classes.

Many Issues

All that has added up to a deep bitterness.

“Morale is at an all-time low,” said Michael Strumpf, one of two teachers who has worked at Moorpark College since it opened 31 years ago. “I remember when teachers laughed and joked and talked among themselves. The board has now made a morgue of this place.”

Like a number of other teachers, Strumpf sees the district as eager to kill the union. Some two-thirds of the faculty now are part-timers, he pointed out--an arrangement that is cheaper for the district and one that is less likely to result in a strong, united front against management.

“It’s nefarious, it’s Machiavellian, it’s vicious, it’s dastardly, it’s unpardonable--but it’s happening,” said Strumpf, a nationally known grammar expert.

Job protection for part-timers is a crucial point of contention.

The union wants to preserve a seniority system that guarantees work for long-term part-timers. Without it, they will find work elsewhere--and the college will replace them with cheaper, less experienced help, said Elton Hall, a Moorpark philosophy teacher who is the union’s chief negotiator.

“We’ve had this for 17 years and suddenly the district wants to dump it,” he said.

Administrators don’t see part-time seniority as a blessing.

“What the system does in some cases is to hamper the ability of the institution to get the best-qualified person to teach a particular class,” said Moore, dean of liberal arts and learning resources at Ventura College.

Other key sticking points include:

* Raises. Teachers make an average of $58,000 annually, according to union officials, although many earn more with extra classes and summer sessions. The union’s current proposal would yield raises of 4% to 5% this year, while management is offering less than 1%, according to Hall.

* Benefits. Management wants to eliminate retirement health insurance for teachers hired in the future. “The board feels this will eventually bankrupt the district,” Moore said.

* Evaluations. For 10 years, faculty members have been evaluated primarily by their peers. Administrators want to regain that right.

“Teaching is a very specialized set of skills,” argued Hall. “My supervisor, who is a very nice guy, is a former basketball coach. I teach philosophy. What on earth can he evaluate about either the content of what I’m teaching or how I’m teaching it?”

Hall’s supervisor didn’t entirely agree. Al Nordquist, dean of physical education, athletics and social sciences, pointed out that a teacher’s skill may be gauged by the ability to convey a subject to someone who knows nothing about it.

The district’s chief negotiator was more pointed.

“I find it unbelievable that any instructor would believe that deans--who have been teachers and instructors themselves--can’t evaluate people,” Currier said. “We can’t have accountability when management is not allowed to evaluate employees.”

Both sides must present their case to a fact-finder chosen from a list provided by the state. If either rejects the fact-finder’s report, the district may impose its own work rules and the teachers may legally strike.

The fact-finder, whose report will not likely be issued before the summer, will uncover little agreement.

“It’s been an absolute stonewall,” said Steve Doyle, a speech teacher at Moorpark. “They’re saying, ‘We want the power--period.’ ”

Currier echoed those comments--in reverse. “The union is taking a power position,” he said. “It’s not going to agree to anything, even if it helps employees. It’s a bizarre approach.”