Part-Timers Knock Out Pasadena Union Board Incumbants

by TAA Staff

FRIDAY MAY 11, 2001 marked a changing of the guard as four
new officers were installed on the Executive Board of Pasadena
City College’s local chapter of the faculty union, one replacing
a president who had held his position for more than two decades.
The fourth position, a directorship, was a virtual tie between
two members of the same slate, one of whom was a part-time
faculty member.

“It’s a very important moment to put a part-timer on the
union,” said Preston Rose, the newly elected director. “Now
we’re going to be able to focus more clearly on part-timer
needs.”

That, ironically, was the original intent of events leading
to the elections. The platform and slate, which were the outgrowth
of action initiated by members of the college’s part- time
faculty, won by a margin of better than 65 percent in each
office up for election.

Two years ago, Lynn Woods and Tina Chambers, part-time instructors
in the Los Angeles area, along with other part-time volunteers,
began conducting surveys and assembling informational sheets
to present to both the union and the district. The group was
also able to establish a seat on the college’s Academic Senate
for a fully voting member who would regularly report on part-time
faculty issues.

However, as they worked toward the event, Woods said they
became “frustrated” by the lack of cooperation they received
from the union leadership on the campus of PCC. The part-time
faculty group soon realized that to make changes on the campus,
the union problems would have to be addressed first.

It was then that the ad hoc group, now known as the
Part- Time Faculty Committee (PTFC), formed with the intention
of both pursuing part-timer issues and putting pressure on
a union that was seen as largely unresponsive. Over the summer,
members of the Committee split their time between gathering
information on both the inequities practiced by the Pasadena
Area City College District, as well as the college’s chapter
of the California Teachers Association. Collecting data, procuring
records, and recording information, the group wrote and presented
a report on the district’s inequitable practices.

In spite of these efforts, the union officials did not respond.
Subsequent meetings left the committee members angered and
frustrated with the people who had occupied the union leadership
positions for over twenty years.

One of the first steps they took was to increase the membership
of the union itself, working under the assumption that only
by having active and interested members could they accomplish
anything. At the start of the new academic year, members of
the PTFC formed the Faculty Coalition, thereby joining forces
with full-time faculty members on the PCC campus who were
similarly dissatisfied with CTA leadership.

“Our small committee has been able to light a fire,” Woods
noted of the efforts that the part time instructors made in
forming a coalition with full-time faculty and even students.

The group’s first real action was to force an initiative
in order to lower the chapter’s local dues, dues that were
at least twice the amount of other area colleges for the part-
time members. The union responded by lowering the dues and
then circulated fliers meant to persuade members that the
vote was unnecessary. The initiative did not pass. However,
the Coalition organized a slate of candidates for the May
elections. Immediately after the initiative vote was held,
the Coalition presented its candidates and their ideas.

Working under the title of a “Pro Faculty” platform, the
incoming officers include John Jacobs of as president, Karen
Carlisi as vice president, and Suzanne Anderson as secretary.
The fourth elected position, that of director, ended in a
close vote between full-time faculty member Mike Riherd and
part-timer Preston Rose, both of the English department. To
avoid a run-off vote, Riherd deferred the position to Rose,
saying he “was satisfied” with the fact that the slate had
taken the vote. In doing so, Riherd helped place a part-time
instructor on the local’s Executive Board for the first time
in its history.

“It was quite a feat, and we had considerable full time faculty
support,” said Rose, observing that while he plans to “expand
the scope of part timers, in and out of PCC,” he wants to
see faculty “work as a single force.”

“We finally did it,” Lynn Woods said. “Two years of work
has paid off. Now we have a receptive union and the real work
[can begin].”