NEWS & EVENTS (BenOrtiz.com)
Negotiations fail today, as the Board refuses compromise...
No more negotiations until Monday...
The strike goes on for at least another week...
The picket line reminds me at times of the front in George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, his narrative of fighting fascists in the Spanish Civil War. What seemed romantic at a distance – the sentimentality of volunteering to combat fascism with the international brigades – proved firsthand to be a protracted, pitiful struggle along the trenchlines.
Orwell’s experience of a somewhat poorly disciplined and ill-equipped people’s militia brought him down to earth on the front, where neither fascist nor Republican forces could hope to shoot each other, with rifles likely to jam or explode, from across ravines too distant for anything but verbal warfare. And so, from vermin-infested trenches smelling of human excrement and trash, Orwell spent his time enduring physical extremes of cold, every now and then yelling over a megaphone to taunt the fascists with a litany of epithets.
The strike office is starting to get a little stinky.
So we might not be fighting a fascist axis of Franco and Mussolini, but senior faculty tell me that this strike is getting pretty dirty. And smelly.
From the Rumor File: I’ve heard from at least one social sciences teacher that a student had her CTA U-Pass cancelled by admin. Full-time students receive a pass for unlimited access to public transit, but it sounds like admin is demoting full-time students to part-time if they have any teachers on strike, retroactively disqualifying them for a valuable transit pass. I hope someone out there in the blogosphere can help me verify this one, because I have no idea what admin is thinking if they’re punishing students in this way over the strike. FLASH: I just stepped out for dinner and ran into a student who looked into the U-Pass deal. He describes it as an honest administrative error in eliminating students from the U-Pass roll if they dropped classes, i.e. any U-Pass cancellation has nothing to do with the strike.
If there’s ever another strike, I should declare myself a journalist non-combatant and spend my time covering events, because there’s so much nonsense to sift through on the picket line.
For example, at the end of my shift today a student came running by with flyers announcing the arrest of a Wright College student for passing out student-authorized info about the strike. Dated 10/25/04, the flyer reads: “He was simply exercising his first amendment right to free speech. … If you want the administration’s violence to end, if you want your education to get back to normal, please refuse to attend classes during this strike.”
On another note, I’m tired of receiving these district-authored memos that the Chancellor is probably forcing City College Presidents to mail out, further using school resources and money inappropriately to wage psychological warfare against faculty with xeroxed screeds alleging shameful behavior on our part. I’m tired also of mailing these notes back to Truman. Maybe someone can help me turn them into origami scabs that admin might hang from campus trees like twisted Christmas ornaments.
Time to take down the Halloween deco and forget about a holiday break this season, because admin wants to see who blinks first before they finally surrender a fight they cannot win.
FLASH: Union files unfair labor practice against CCC administration. From a CCCTU bulletin: “Chancellor Wayne Watson yesterday approached professionals on several picket lines and made threats and promises to our members. He is attempting to negotiate directly with picketing strikers [which is illegal]. … [The Union] also cites college presidents and other administrators for accosting members on the line with propaganda and an offer of negotiations.” And so the writ has been wrote, with a legal filing against Watson et al.
I wonder if I should use Orwell’s tactics in the trenches, alternating curses over the megaphone with promises of better food on our side of the line for fascist deserters. I’m not sure, though, if a diet of donuts and coffee would be a safer bet than Truman cafeteria food. Lots more aerobic exercise out here, though, folks.
FLASH –
NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE: THE STRIKE CONTINUES
My instant messenger just alerted me to the following info from Union Chapter Chair Anthony Johnston.
Along with all other proposals, the Union suggested a split class load for all faculty that would be a compromise on the 15-credit-hour/week demand, offering a 15/12 load over the two semesters of a school year. Anthony reports, “After a 5 hour wait, the Board came back and countered that those teaching the 12-12 would be delayed two years before they would start to teach 15-15, and the salary increases for everyone (not just the 12-12 faculty) would be 3.2 for the first year and not the 4.2% that was on the table. They rejected all of our other proposals outright (including health insurance, nurses’ clinical credits, union release time for professionals, part-time professional salaries, etc.).”
And with that, the picket line is bound to feel and smell afoul tomorrow, as negotiations once again cease until Monday and the strike continues for what might be another week.
Rally at City Hall: Thursday, Oct. 28, 11am – Buses leave Truman on Wilson Avenue at 10am.
Since the media are sticking to the Board order of the day, I’d like to end this post with excerpts from various letters to the Sun-Times editor, in response to yesterday's "Back to Work" editorial. I’m glad for this web space at least to crank out our side, if with a much smaller megaphone than admin has at its disposal.
Letter from Wright College Faculty
Dear Editors:
The media's job should be to question and analyze the statements and policies of those who have the power to affect our lives. Instead, much of the media has chosen to blindly accept the outlandish claims of the City Colleges of Chicago Administration, and in the process some in the media have endorsed a corrupt bureaucracy while blaming rank and file labor. The statistics the CCC give are simply not true.
The CCC has stated that average teacher salaries are $80,000. A starting salary for a full-time teacher is often below $40,000. Only after nearly 30 years of service might a teacher earn $80,000, and by that time he or she would be at or near retirement.
… Many CCC administrators, on the other hand, make over $150,000 and receive free family health insurance for life. The teachers and professionals in CCCTU Local 1600 are being asked to more than quadruple their contribution to health insurance costs, costs that would far exceed any raises that we have been offered. In the end, according to the administration's demands, we would lose salary while teaching more courses and with more students in each class. We at City Colleges teach far more students per class than instructors at the other community colleges in Illinois. The CCC Administration says our average class size is twenty-one. This is simply not true. By contract, 35-39 students are enrolled in the majority of our classes.
Finally, the message of the CCC administration is that we do not care about students. We are insulted and outraged. We have dedicated our lives to guiding students to be well prepared citizens. But there is another story here. The real work of the CCC happens at the individual campuses, yet nearly one-third of the total CCC budget is used for Central Administration, clearly an obscene waste of public funding. If the central administration at 226 W. Jackson disappeared tomorrow, it would never be missed. The City Colleges is a public educational institution, yet our administrators' salaries and lifestyles reflect those of Enron executives. In other words, the administration, in its efforts to balance its budget on teachers' backs, has proposed measures that HARM students.
We ask the people of Chicago: Do you want your children in an over-stuffed classroom with a teacher who is forced to work under such unproductive conditions? … Critics of the teachers should redirect their anger at the sixty bureaucrats in the CCC Central Administration whose total pay is over $16,000,000 and who are undermining the integrity of the educational process. They are the ones who harm students.
Letter from Foreign Language/ESL Department Chair Peggy Shapiro, Harold Washington College
… First of all, the administration demands include increasing class size even though the City Colleges of Chicago already have the largest class sizes in the State of Illinois. Students are now sitting shoulder to shoulder during classes, sometimes in classrooms with too few seats. Where other colleges have caps of 25 students to a class, we have 39. We can't afford to increase it. Just imagine teaching a speech class in which students get just one minute to speak. Larger classes are very unfair to our students, many of whom need more individual attention than students from more privileged backgrounds.
I realize that "every government agency " is "strapped for cash." I now run my department for less than one third of what it cost to run it five years ago. The professors have become amazingly creative at saving money. We don't complain about buying our supplies on sales and with coupons and frequently at our own expense. In the past years, we have accepted increased work and increased deductions because we are committed to educating our students.
… If your editorial staff had looked into some of the economic realities of the Chicago City Colleges, they would have discovered an incredibly top-heavy system, which has one administrator for every two educators. That's like having a school with forty teachers and twenty principals or a newspaper with fifty reporters and twenty five editors. Look at other State of Illinois colleges and you will find ratios closer to 1:15. The shortage of funds may well be attributable to the fact that of every $100 in payroll $33.33 goes to administration. This figure does not include benefits such as free lifetime health insurance for top administrators and their families, limousines, and $500 a month travel expense allowances.
With a little more research, you would also have found other outrageous Board demands made during negotiations. For example, Central Administration wants administrators, not faculty, to be in charge of new hires. Of course, that move would make my job as department chair easier as I would not have to pour over dozens of resumes, conduct in-depth interviews, and observe mini-lessons before recommending candidates to the college president for hire. On the other hand, I doubt that most administrators have the credentials in every discipline (French, Chemistry, Art, Calculus, Literature) to hire candidates with the best credentials and most creative teaching skills. Such hiring is a recipe for patronage scandals and educational disaster.
I want to make the dream come true. To do so, I need to be able to hire the best and the brightest and keep them once they are here. The Board demands may well deprive me of the ability to hire or hold on to fine educators. How can I keep the talented young teacher whom I just hired at a salary of $38,000 if we require that he spend $5,000 a year for additional graduate courses, pay close to $3,000 in health insurance premiums, and increase his class size at the same time?
I understand my students' dreams; I wish you would as well.
Letter from Anthony Johnston, Coordinator of Truman Tutoring Services and Chair, Cook County College Teachers Union (Local 1600)
Dear Sun-Times Editors:
Your editorial against the City Colleges striking employees (“Back to Work,” October 26) is a misrepresentation of the issues being negotiated. This is understandable since your information is taken almost verbatim from the City College Board's press releases with obviously no intent to verify if it is correct. Salary and course load are only two of many issues that are being negotiated.
For example, our nursing faculty are working clinical classes where they provide hands-on training in essential skills such as checking vital signs and administering IVs. For this work they are paid one hour for every two hours work they do. … This policy drives away many qualified teachers who rightly want to be paid for every hour of work they do. The Board refuses to accede to our basic and ethical demand that our teachers get paid for every hour they work.
Most of our part-time professionals who are tutors, lab and computer technicians, and child care workers make $7-$10 an hour. These are people with Bachelor Degrees and many years of experience. These are people who believe in the American dream that you refer to in your editorial. They earned their degrees in higher education, many from the City Colleges. Unfortunately, their dreams aren't realized because the latest Board pay proposals for these workers is $0.25 increase in hourly pay for the first year and $0.35 for the second year.
Among faculty salaries across the state, the City Colleges is the third highest. Given that Chicago's cost-of-living is certainly the highest in the state, these salaries are not excessive. In fact, faculty salaries make up just 12% of the total City College budget.
On Sunday, our union's negotiating team had every intention of staying at the table until we reached a settlement. Unfortunately, the Board had no such intention. They walked out of those negotiations because they would not negotiate any issue but course load. This is no way to bargain in good faith. Let's get a thorough look at both sides' proposals so the public can be informed about this vital school system in Chicago.
Posted by Benjamin at October 27, 2004 08:58 PMLetter to the Tribune Editor:
Right now 60,000 predominately Black and Latino City College students are being robbed of an education by the City College administration's refusal to negotiate in good faith with striking City College faculty. The strike is at the completion of its second week, a third seems inevitable, and the administration is threatening to call the entire semester a loss. The administration has chosen to repeatedly cease negotiating for days at a time, as though time is of no consequence. Anyone with a sense of justice should be appalled at the level of disrespect for these hard-working students, for whom a college education is a hardship financially.
Today, hundreds of students traveled long distances (bus passes had been cancelled by the administration) to get down to city hall to be heard about their desire to continue their education. Students demanded that a fair contract be negotiated which would put their teachers back in the classroom. Did anyone hear their demand? Did Mayor Daley conveniently unavailable to speak with student delegates at his office? Did the media who felt it wasn't important enough to cover the hardships undergone by thousands of non-white, working class City college students?
Did Wayne Watson and his henchman, who weren't found at the negotiating table Thursday, but rather, were out, per usual, intimidating teachers and students at the picket line?
The truth is that City College full-time instructors teach four classes a semester; that requires staggering preparation, grading, and making themselves available to students. Class size hovers near 39. The City Colleges want to increase the workload 25%. Very few instructors make the $80,000 so often repeated by the media. Can it be that the City College administration doesn't care whether urban, non-white students get a decent education, taught by energetic, creative faculty? How can you stand for the principles of equal opportunity and education and deliberately engage in an attempt to sabotage young people's education by literally burning out their teachers. It's grotesque.
The City College budget is overloaded with non-teaching bureaucrats, making $16,000,000 per year. Chancellor Wayne Watson makes $220,000 with a excessively questionable expense account. Rather than fund a decent education for non-whites, however, the administration is trying to break the union.
The City College administration is literally jeopardizing the lives of this city's already marginalized young people. Would this treatment of faculty and students ever happen if the students were white and privileged? Anyone with a sense of justice should be outraged.
Erica Thompson (Truman student) and Michael E. Deutsch
People's Law Office
Aaron, you're a good student. How do you think I got to where I am, except by denying immediate fun for hard work over the years, especially when I was in college? I'm a teacher, so of course I believe in attending classes and working hard as the best advice for my students in normal circumstances.
It's also the case, though, that I could have continued teaching, as a scab, and said nothing in support of the strike, or maybe parroted the admin line. There are various new faculty like me who will be in the unenviable position of having to work toward tenure, which is looking less and less secure as each day goes by.
What I'm trying to say is that it's not in my immediate self-interest to walk the picket line or to write what I've been writing. In fact, it could well work against me very soon, especially if my tenure portfolio gets lost downtown or ends up refused for missing a tab or divider in the right place.
By the way, have you seen the news? It makes me look like a greedy, lazy ogre who sucks the blood of my students.
Anyway, I hope something good eventually comes from all of this, and I know we'll figure out ways to get back on track with classes.
Looking forward to and terrified of Election Day,
B
Just thought I'd post what Mayor Daley said in today's Sun-Times in case anyone missed it.
Meanwhile, Mayor Daley, speaking as he served as principal for a day at Orr High School, ridiculed the full-time City Colleges professors who did not want to increase their workload from 12 credit hours per semester to 15, as the district administration has pushed for.
"I wish I could work 15 hours per week,'' Daley said, referring only to professors' classroom time. "It would be a great job.''
He also criticized faculty for intimidating students who want to cross picket line, but he declined to broker talks.
I only have one class that is being effected by this strike. Unfortunately, it's the most interesting class I have. I believe in going to class and trying to get good grades. I'm going to continue to do that. Yes, I'm being selfish. If I were in the teachers shoes I would probably be doing the same thing as you are now. I wouldn't want benefits that I've worked hard for taken away either. As it is though, I have to vote for me right now.
This whole thing may not be effecting admin directly but it's all over the news. I'm sure this has nothing to do with elections coming up.... right??
AARON SAID:
>>>This whole thing needs to be settled as soon as possible. Everybody is suffering.
I agree wholeheartedly. No disagrement there. EXCEPT I fail to see how admin and the Board are suffering, because they continue to enjoy their salaries and benefits, while mine are both being cut off, Aaron.
AARON AGAIN:
>>One thing that I know is that we, the students, have no obligation to either side
That's true also, just as you have no obligation to do any homework ever, no obligation to take interest in your city and neighborhood, no obligation to vote, no obligation to do anything except what's your own basic obvious self-interest without respect to anyone else's, that's true.
>> but are being taken advantage of by both.
Please explain specifically how. Give examples. Because you know, Aaron, I used NO CLASS TIME whatsoever to push the Union side. Is that what's happening now when you're being ordered to class, when admin is checking attendance to enforce their side? You're wrong, Aaron. I personally have used no one, but I'm glad that there are students who find their interests on the teachers' side, because it's really not a hard one to figure out -- support the teachers' just demands, or side with bureaucrats who literally are using you and taking your tuition dollars for their own benefits without teaching you a single thing.
Do you really think we wanted a strike? We tried to avoid it and have been asking for negotiations for months now, but the Board came back with such proposals as eliminating benefits for retirees. Aaron: Some day you'll have to take a job where your boss will have such powers, to play with your retirement benefits and pensions, etc. I pray you have the right to bargain with a Union instead of taking workplace abuse alone, like most of the country.
>>My opinion is that both sides are at fault. Both sides say they care about the students but if that were the case we would all be in class right now.
What do you think about the teachers' salary, benefits, and workload demands? What do you think about the points in the letters to the editor in my original post? What is your specific stand on resolving this right now?
>>>Weeding through the lies and truths would be more work than most of us have time for.
Yes, I agree. That's why I've spent as much time as I can trying to verify what's going on. Do you have a specific lie I've spread? Can you please nail me on one lie, one instance in which I've used you for my benefit, one concrete example of my misdeeds?
>>>I understand fighting for what you believe in. I just wish this would end.
I don't think you understand what fighting means. Because it requires taking a stand, not saying you want this to end as you shuffle on to class because admin ordered you to. There are many students who are fighting and risking a lot, in the same boat as you, but who believe as I do that taking a stand means getting your hands dirty and doing it in the light of day where everyone can see you and challenge you directly, just as I've done.
I'm curious, Aaron. You want this over, so what have you done? Have you written to admin or the Board? Have you called the Mayor? Have you just continued to walk into the building to do your own work? Have you talked to students who are marching with teachers? Have you marched against teachers and admin, since you're on neither side? Have you marched against other students, since it seems you're not on their side either?
I mean, you're not under obligation to do any of that. Unless of course you want this strike over soon, I guess.
--B
Posted by: ORTIZ at October 29, 2004 08:02 AMFrom what the cashier is telling me the U-Pass problem is trying to be fixed. She took down my information and told me to check back with her next week around Tues. or Weds. Whether this is true or not is yet to be seen. I suggest that if anyone is having a problem they should see the cashier RM 2400. This whole thing needs to be settled as soon as possible. Everybody is suffering. One thing that I know is that we, the students, have no obligation to either side but are being taken advantage of by both. My opinion is that both sides are at fault. Both sides say they care about the students but if that were the case we would all be in class right now. I have two jobs; full time student and part time worker. Weeding through the lies and truths would be more work than most of us have time for. I understand fighting for what you believe in. I just wish this would end. I am not trying to get anybody upset. Mr. Ortiz encourages comments and this is mine.
On a positive note the Red Sox won and I was in St. Louis to see the sweep. It's nice to be the World Champions in two sports as I am a New England native. Hope to see everyone in class sooner than later.
I am so angry about all of this, and I feel as a student, helpless... I do not believe that this picket line idea is really worth the trouble... they have been picketing outside of Congress Plaza Hotel on Michigan for over a year and gotten no where... I just wish there was a way to convey to everyone how the students feel....
I am not trying to be a teacher-basher... but I am angry that no one is budging... and in the end the students will suffer the most... I don't think the students even realize the impact of all of this missed school...
Does everyone realize there will most likely be no break inbetween semesters... and if there is then the spring semester will be cutting into your summer...
What can we do besides march... what do I have to do to get the majors attention... who do I have to sleep with to end this strike...
JD
Posted by: Jane Doe(s) at October 28, 2004 06:52 PMREGARDING STUDENT WORK AND MISSING PART-TIME CLASSES:
Jessica:
I am the union representative at Truman. I can assure you that while you honor our picket line there will be no penalties or reprisals. Students are covered in our contract language during a strike. Once the strike is settled, if you have any problems with adjunct professors you should see your department chair and me and we will resolve them. They will give you the opportunity to make up that work.
Feel free to contact me at this email address or by phone at (773) 387-4031.
Anthony Johnston
Chair, Truman College
CCCTU Local 1600
Jane Doe said:
>>>Just teach one more class... take a little smaller raise... we are talking one less percent... big deal...
It's not as simple as you're making it sound here, and this is a variation on what the Board is saying. Please read the letters to the editor at the end of my original post to gain a full appreciation of what's on the table. There is no raise and there will in fact be a significant decrease with what the Board wants, and the load issues are not just about teaching "one more class." Do you even care about the quality of your education and the Colleges' ability to hire good teachers? To accomodate students?
>>>and make yourself some money... some of us are waiting to finish this semester and the next to move on with our lives...
We're all waiting to finish the semester, your teachers too, and if this were about money I would never have decided to be a teacher. We like what we do and really want to get past the strike, but what the Board asks is regressive, especially in a context of obscene budget disparities between campuses and the district.
>>>if you don't like your contract go teach somewhere else... just get the "paying your salary" students back in school...
We've been trying to negotiate a fair contract for teachers and others (including part-time professionals and nursing faculty) since the spring. Do you even care that your tuition goes to a Chancellor who makes 6-digits and teaches no one? That downtown admin salaries go into the millions? Are you at all interested in what the Board is doing to undermine your education?
>>>you guys make a lot more than the part time faculty....
Then you'll support the part-time faculty when they negotiate their contracts next? And do you think they'll get any increase whatsoever (or maybe decreases in pay with increased load) if full-time faculty lose?
Please keep reading, Jane Doe.
Posted by: ORTIZ at October 28, 2004 01:46 PMJust teach one more class... take a little smaller raise... we are talking one less percent... big deal...
get us back in school... and make yourself some money... some of us are waiting to finish this semester and the next to move on with our lives...
if you don't like your contract go teach somewhere else... just get the "paying your salary" students back in school...
you guys make a lot more than the part time faculty....
Posted by: Jane Doe at October 28, 2004 09:44 AMBen--I'm sad to hear that you're sounding so disheartened, but honestly, I really think you're gonna beat this thing. We just had a total lunar eclipse here in Texas. And that along with the Red Sox winning, plus you speaking Spanish on Telemundo last week can only bode for revolution. Adelante con animo!--
Posted by: Lisa at October 28, 2004 12:10 AMI am completley outraged that the negotiations will not resume until Monday. I would love to know what the admin. could possibly be so preoccupied with that they dont have time to continue talks with the union until Monday. As a student, I find myself getting more and more frustrated every day, and, unfortunatley, beginning to lose hope that the end is in sight. I feel like my hands are tied, I want to take some action, actually DO something that I feel would make a significant difference, but am at a loss as to what I can actually do. I suppose the best thing is to continue to make a presence at the school and rallys whenever I can, and try to stay positive despite all that is happening. I also find myself a bit torn, being a student and the student groups say we aren't on the teachers side anymore, only our own side. I think that the teachers have been nothing but 100% supportive of the students through this time, and that the students can band with the teachers while continuing to look out for their own interests. If I march with the teachers, am I taking away from my soildarity with the student group? And I am now expected to enter the school and break the teacher's picket line as I see many from the student group doing? I'm sorry, I'm rambling, but like I said before, I'm very frustrated. At least the Red Sox are winning.
Posted by: Caroline Hamilton at October 27, 2004 09:53 PM