College District Negotiations

I want to commend Times Staff Writer Steve Chawkins for his article, “Teachers Cut Out Extras in Work Load,” (March 15) regarding the labor / management discord in the Ventura County Community College District and the evenhandedness of the editorial in the same edition, on the same topic.

Negotiations involve give and take and coming to a center ground for agreement. The district is proposing major take-backs from the current contract. These provisions have already been bargained for by the union and concessions were given by the faculty to obtain them--some as long as 20 years ago. The district is now attempting to take back these provisions and is offering nothing in return. In addition, they are offering no rationale for the take-backs except that they just want them. That is called bad-faith negotiations.

Administrators do not teach nor do they generate one dollar of income from the state--faculty do! This faculty is angry, demoralized, distrustful of the current board and administration and has no confidence in Chancellor Phil Westin to run the district. How can any organization long survive or successfully complete its mission in such an atmosphere? Students are being affected by what is happening!

The district administration and college board are the ones who need to get their priorities right. Even if they win this war or impose a contract, they will have won nothing because they will have an unwilling, demoralized and angry faculty.

The solution is called good-faith negotiations, and I think that the district board and administration had better get on with it.

LARRY O. MILLER

President, Ventura County

Federation of College Teachers

Local 1828, AFL-CIO

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I can empathize with the bitter emotions of frustration, anger and despair the instructors of the Ventura County Community College District are feeling. Although my teaching position with the Moorpark Unified School District (K-12) is technically unrelated to the college district, my past experience as a president for the Moorpark Educators Assn. (MEA, K-12) creates an unfortunate common bond.

For more than 10 years, negotiations with my school district were always contentious, inevitably leading to mediation. The Times has reported how we were also forced to resort to tactics such as picketing, demonstrating at board meetings, enlisting the help of parents and community and work-to-rule, where teachers decline to do the extras and perform only the absolute mandatory job requirements as specified in our contract.

The common denominator that links our past experience with that of the college district is their chief negotiator and spokesperson, Richard J. Currier. This high-priced attorney from El Cajon used to represent our district administration, practicing that special style of union busting for which his firm is noted.

While his firm continues to represent our district, Mr. Currier did not take direct part in our most recent negotiations. And for the first time in recent memory, we renegotiated our contract with a minimum of difficulty and without the usual rancor. Coincidence?

If the trustees of the college district are truly interested in coming to a fair agreement with its instructors, it should consider dismissing its chief negotiator and sending his firm packing back to El Cajon. In the meantime, leaders for the teachers of the three community colleges can call me or any of the other MEA past presidents who served from 1985 until today. Have we got some stories for you!

RICHARD H. GILLIS

Moorpark