An Offer They Can Refuse

by Chris Cumo

Chuck Whitten never expected to be in the eye of a hurricane. A 25-year broadcast journalist, he had come to the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California as an adjunct to share his passion for journalism. He enjoyed the teaching, but had neither the time nor the interest to become politically active on campus. Union activism held no appeal; Whitten had always been a conservative, anti-union man. All this changed in October 2001 when he learned that the College of the Canyons Faculty Association (COCFA), the union representing full-time faculty at the college, had enrolled him along with 380 other part-time faculty in the union. He was stunned; the COCFA had acted by fiat.

Whitten wasn’t alone in his astonishment. Michael Ward, who teaches history part-time at the college, never thought the union had any interest in adjuncts. More than at the other community colleges where he teaches, Ward is aware of class divisions between full- and part-time faculty, a divide that the college has institutionalized by issuing different color parking permits to each group, a practice that doesn’t exist at the others colleges where he teaches.

“They [COCFA] just didn’t think we were important enough,” he said.

Ray Barney, chapter services consultant for the California Teachers Association (CTA), disagrees. (COCFA is an affiliate of CTA, which in turn is a local of the National Education Association.) COCFA and CTA had informally supported part-time faculty at the college for years, he insisted. Every time the unions negotiated a raise for full-time faculty they also negotiated a pay hike for adjuncts. In addition, the unions prodded the college to establish a training program for part-time faculty. Barney call it a “career ladder program” and believes its intent is to give adjuncts the teaching skills to move from part to full-time at the college. The program pays immediate dividends in higher pay for adjuncts who complete it.

“We’ve been negotiating for part-timers for years and haven’t gotten credit for it,” Barney said. He sees the COCFA’s inclusion of part-time faculty as the natural formalization of what had been an informal relationship.

This version of events doesn’t convince American Federation of Teachers national representative Linda Cushing. Since its inception in 1977, COCFA has never shown the slightest interest in part-time faculty, she asserted. For more than 20 years, adjuncts have sought admission to the union, but in each instance union leaders rebuffed them. According to transcripts from a hearing held in 1999 before California’s Public Employment Relations Board, political science adjunct Michelle Harris asked COCFA president Bradley Reynolds to incorporate part-time faculty [into the local], but Reynolds replied that the union had never included them in the past and he saw no reason to do so now.

Cushing dismisses Ray Barney’s claim that COCFA and CTA have negotiated pay raises for part-time faculty. She countered that the state legislature had mandated the raises; the union had had nothing to do with them. Cushing also pointed out that since 1997 the legislature has offered to pay half the cost of medical insurance and office hours for adjunct faculty if public community colleges would agree to pay the other half. If COCFA and CTA had truly been intent on helping part-time faculty, Cushing contended, they should have asked the college to fund the other half of the cost to pay for office hours and medical insurance. Yet the union did nothing, charged Cushing, and so part-time faculty remain without medical coverage or pay for office hours.

“COCFA keeps saying how they’re representing us,” said Whitten. “But if they’ve been representing us all these years, they’ve sure done a terrible job.”

COCFA’s lack of initiative doesn’t surprise Whitten. He fears that Diane Van Hook, COC President and Superintendent of the Santa Clarita Community College District of which COC is part, controls the union and has no desire to empower part-time faculty. Linda Cushing believes Van Hook would have preferred that adjuncts remain non-unionionized. Cushing also believes that, for years, Van Hook opposed the inclusion of part-time faculty in the COCFA but changed course when adjuncts began meeting with the AFT in September 2001. It would be easier to control adjuncts as junior members of COCFA than as stewards of their own independent AFT affiliate.

“The district saw COCFA as the lesser of two evils,” explained Cushing.

She also alleges that the District colluded with COCFA in incorporating part-time faculty, thereby hoping to remove the threat that the AFT would become a militant presence on campus.

College Vice President and District Assistant Superintendent Philip Hartley denies the charge, insisting that the college neither supports nor opposes the efforts of any union to represent part-time faculty.

“We are mandated both by law and by desire to remain neutral,” he said.

When Lea Templer, then COCFA president, told Vice President Hartley of her desire to add part-time faculty to the union he did not immediately favor the idea but instead consulted PERB labor relations specialist Jerilyn Gelt. COCFA, it turned out, had the right to add new members with or without their consent. Hartley then agreed that the college would recognize COCFA as the bargaining unit for both full- and part-time faculty. Had he resisted, the union could have charged the College with unfair labor practice.

But Whitten doesn’t buy the argument that scrupulous adherence to law motivated the college or union. Instead, he suspects both of greed. In 2002, the state legislature appropriated $57 million to increase the pay of adjuncts at California’s public community colleges, some $470,000 of which should go to COC 380 adjuncts according to Cushing. Whitten fears that both the college and union may divert some of the money, perhaps to beef up the salaries of full-time faculty or to fund the training program for part-time faculty.

“I don’t think we’d see all of it,” he said, “if COCFA were to represent adjuncts.”

Cushing believes the AFT has already identified “at least $275,000” that should have gone to increase adjunct pay but hasn’t. For months she has asked Van Hook and Hartley for an explanation of how the college has spent this money, but can’t get an answer.

Hartley denies that the college has misspent any money, saying that it spent all the money that the legislature voted for adjuncts on adjuncts. Ray Barney said that COCFA and CTA couldn’t divert the money even if that were their objective. The legislature earmarked this money for increasing adjunct pay, and no one can spend it on anything else, he insisted.

“Right now the money is in limbo,” said Ray Barney, who fears that the legislature might withdraw it in order to trim expenses in the midst of a recession.

He blames AFT for the fact that part-time faculty haven’t received their raise, pointing to its filing of an unfair labor practice charge against the District.

This accusation mystifies Ward and Whitten. They and other part-time faculty had asked AFT to help them fight a hostile take over by COCFA. At issue is whether adjuncts have the right to choose who represents them.

“In some ways this is really simple,” said Cushing. “It’s about democracy; it’s about freedom of choice. I don’t understand why COCFA won’t back down, why they are keeping their foot on the [neck] of part-time faculty.”

Ray Barney acknowledges that adjuncts want to elect their own representation but considers the issue irrelevant.

“We’re the bargaining unit,” he said. “There’s no need for an election.”

But COCFA and CTA may not be the bargaining unit. In March 2002 the Los Angeles Superior Court prohibited the Santa Clarita Community College District from recognizing COCFA and CTA as the bargaining unit for COC part-time faculty. The fact that they may not negotiate with the District on behalf of part-time faculty makes meaningless their claim to represent them despite this ruling.

“Right now no one has the right to negotiate for us,” said Whitten. PERB should fill this vacuum by ruling later this year whether adjuncts may elect their own representation. Ward expects PERB to permit an election, but even this action may not be enough. Should PERB grant an election Ray Barney hopes CTA will appeal the decision, further sinking adjuncts into the morass of litigation. The possibility of a protracted legal battle frightens Whitten, who believes CTA can outspend AFT, in effect buying a verdict by attrition.

Should COCFA and CTA win, Ray Barney promises to fight for “100 percent parity” in pay between part- and full-time faculty. But this might be a Pyrrhic victory, for it would negate the right of adjuncts to choose their own representation, a principal at the core of our democracy. It would validate the premise that full-time faculty and college administrators know what is best for adjuncts, and that those who wield power can usurp the will of people who lack power. This sort of paternalism worked for Henry Ford, but a community college is not an auto plant, adjuncts are not the proletariat, and the managerial ethos of the early 20th century has no appeal 100 years later. Part-time faculty may not be able to choose their textbooks or their courses, only time will tell if they’ll be able to choose their own labor union.