I’ve seen quite a few union-busting tactics in my time but the latest one used by Montgomery College against its adjunct professors ranks as one of the most creative.
A couple weeks ago, we ran a four-part series on Montgomery College’s efforts to break a union organizing campaign by its adjunct professors. The college’s adjuncts earn maximum pay of $10,560 per semester and do not have health insurance. When they told the college they wanted to vote on representation by SEIU Local 500, the college reacted by hiring an expensive “union-avoidance” attorney and sending out misleading propaganda to the adjuncts. But as we predicted, Montgomery College’s union-busting campaign had only begun.
It’s common practice for a union-busting employer to argue about the definition of the bargaining unit – that is, the group of workers who would be covered by a collective bargaining agreement. Some employers want to shrink the unit. Others want to subtract employees that they believe to be pro-union or add employees that they think are anti-union. But Montgomery College’s definition of the bargaining unit is simple: there isn’t one.
In a letter to SEIU shown below, Montgomery College’s union-avoidance lawyer Darrell VanDeusen states, “The College has determined that the employees named in the SEIU’s petition are not considered public employees for the purposes of collective bargaining.” So since there are no eligible employees, there should be no election.
Section 16-412(a)(14) of Maryland law states, “Public employee means an employee employed by the public employer except: (i) Employees involved directly in the determination of policy; (ii) Supervisory or confidential employees; and (iii) Student assistants.” Which one of these exceptions applies to the adjunct professors? Conveniently, VanDeusen does not say. Perhaps a further exchange of letters will smoke him out.
But that would play into the college’s hands because the clock is ticking. SEIU Local 500 wants to hold an election before the semester ends and the adjuncts leave campus. And who knows if the college will allow the pro-union rank-and-file leaders among the adjuncts to return next year? After all, it’s hardly unknown for union supporters to suddenly receive unfavorable performance evaluations after many years of sterling service.
Now that its public employees are not really public employees, we should expect Montgomery College to say that it’s not a college. Or maybe that Montgomery County is not a county. Or maybe even that the institution does not actually exist on Planet Earth in contrast to the mistaken beliefs of some. Clearly, they will say anything to avoid a free and fair election for their adjunct professors.
So here’s our question for the County Executive and County Council: why are you allowing this deplorable farce to continue? And how much of our property tax increase will go to pay for all this union busting?
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
More Union Busting at Montgomery College
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Montgomery College’s Union Busting Campaign: Part Four of Four
In Part Three, we began examining the FAQ sheet that Montgomery College sent to its adjunct faculty to spread propaganda about unions. We demonstrated how the administration tried to make SEIU Local 500 look like an intimidating, coercive organization and how they tried to attach questionable generalizations about unions to the local. Now, we expose how their questions and answers serve a third tactical objective:
3. Scare the workers and make them think the union is not worth it.Q. How long does it take for a union to negotiate a contract?
The FAQ sheet neglects to mention that many first contracts are not reached because of “union avoidance” programs of the kind that Montgomery College is now running. And the SEIU action at Carlyle, a troubled company by any measure, involved a campaign at nursing home chain Manor Care. Local 500 does not organize nursing homes and did not participate in the picket action against Carlyle. And Local 500 does not require picket duty of its members because most of its employers are in the public sector and in Maryland are are not subject to strikes. Montgomery College is well aware of this but nevertheless tries to smear Local 500 by talking about the actions of a different SEIU group on a different campaign.
A. Recent studies show that contract negotiations usually take more than one year when employees are represented by a union, and that unions are successful in negotiating an agreement within a year only 25% of the time.
Q. Will I have to walk a picket line?
A. That is a possibility. Although there is a “no strike” provision in the law, a union may require members to picket in an effort to get its point across. Many unions also require their members to serve picket duty at other companies where they have a strike. The SEIU is known for its frequent picketing of businesses that it is trying to get to accept its positions.
For example, look at the article in the Washington Post on February 18, 2008 titled “A Stubborn Union Storms the Gates at Carlyle Group,” which reported on the SEIU’s picketing on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Post noted that picketers “swarmed through the Carlyle building, jumping on and off elevators, running up stairways and trying to get into Carlyle offices in an effort to confront [a] Carlyle co-founder… After some heated moments, security and D.C. police escorted the union from the premises.”
As someone who has been fighting law-breaking employers for more than 13 years, I’m accustomed to this sort of misleading propaganda from private-sector employers. But now a public institution has hired a “union avoidance” attorney to apply these same tactics to county employees – all through our tax dollars. How many thousands of dollars is Montgomery College spending on its union-busting campaign? How many students could be educated with that money? And why is Montgomery College being allowed to pay a “union avoidance” lawyer hundreds of dollars an hour at a time when the county is projecting a $297 million budget deficit and is raising property taxes to pay for it?
What will Montgomery College do next? Union-busting campaigns usually do not end with FAQ sheets. Common tactics include captive audience meetings, one-on-one interrogations by supervisors, promised improvements (which may or may not actually materialize), threats of job cuts and even firing union supporters. Is this what the college’s adjunct professors have to look forward to?
Montgomery College’s union busting campaign is an absolute abomination in a progressive county like Montgomery. Adjunct professors and any other public employees should be free to choose, or not choose, union representation without being subjected to taxpayer-subsidized propaganda and fear. The County Executive and the County Council should immediately take measures to terminate Montgomery College’s “union avoidance” attorney and compel the school to let its employees make their own labor decisions in peace.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Montgomery College’s Union Busting Campaign: Part Three of Four
When Montgomery College administrators sent a memo to adjunct faculty warning them against joining SEIU Local 500, they attached a document called “Typical Questions That Are Asked During a Union Organizing Campaign.” An FAQ document is a typical opening shot in any union busting program. Provided by the “union avoidance consultant,” the FAQ sheet spins the labor law, spreads misleading propaganda and scares the workforce. Montgomery College’s document is no different and seeks to accomplish the following tactical objectives:
1. Make the union look like an intimidating, coercive organization. Here are a few questions and answers in the FAQ sheet designed to do that:Q. Do I have to let a union representative into my house?
So union representatives are “paid salespersons” who threaten, coerce, pressure, bother and needle workers. And management is the voice of reason merely informing workers of their right to be left alone.
A. No. A union representative has no more right to enter your house than any other paid salesperson.
Q. Do I have to sign a union authorization card?
A. No. You don’t have to sign such a card to teach at Montgomery College. Under the law you have the right not to join a union and no one can threaten or coerce you into joining.
Q. What difference does it make if I sign a union authorization card?
A. If you and other part time faculty feel pressured to sign a card and actually do so, it increases the chances that the union will be able to file a petition for an election. If that should happen, you should expect even more pressure from the union to vote for it if an election is held.
Q. The union organizers say that everyone else is joining the union. Why shouldn’t I join too?
A. It is a common organizing tactic of unions to claim that “nearly everyone has signed” union membership application cards and they want only a few more employees’ signatures to make it 100 percent. Actually, they may have very few people signed up and they use a “don’t be last” approach to get enough signatures to legally petition for an election. Many employees sign to keep from being bothered and needled by the organizers. This is why the law relies on the secret ballot vote as the true test of employee’s choice.
2. Make questionable generalizations about other unions and insinuate the specific local union in the organizing campaign is guilty of them. Here are a few examples from the FAQ sheet:Q. Will it cost me anything to belong to this union?
The FAQ sheet does not mention that the federal Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 guarantees union members the right to vote by secret ballot on local dues and assessments. Union members also have rights to free speech, due process in any disciplinary procedures and to sue their unions in court.
A. In all likelihood, yes. Unions collect monthly dues, and besides that there are a lot of other charges such as initiation fees, assessments and contributions to organizations and causes a union may sponsor or support. Unions also fine and suspend members who violate any of the union’s many by-laws and rules forbidding any “disloyalty” to the union.
Q. What can the union fine its members for?
A. It depends on the union’s internal rules. Most union constitutions and by-laws provide that the union can fine you for almost anything – for not attending union meetings, for trying to come into work if there is a strike, or for talking back to an officer of the union.
Q. Is it true that a union may require its members to pay more than dues each month?
A. Yes. The union may require a member to contribute to the international union, as well as to pay charges for political contributions, informational clinics, building funds and other special project funds. If a member refuses to pay these special assessments, your union membership may be suspended or you may be fined by the union or even expelled by the union.
SEIU Local 500’s bylaws specifically guarantee all members the right “to receive a fair and open hearing in accordance with the provisions of these bylaws on any charge brought by him/her or against him/her.” Furthermore, SEIU Local 500’s bylaws do not require political contributions (which are voluntary) and specifically allow member votes before raising dues or assessments. But of course, Montgomery College is not going to tell its workforce these facts.
We’ll finish looking at the FAQ sheet in Part Four.
Correction: An adjunct professor wrote me to state that not all adjuncts receive $880 per credit hour as the Gazette reported and I cited in Part One. According to this adjunct:Please take note of the fact that $880 per ESH (estimated semester hour) is the MAXIMUM that an adjunct can presently earn at Montgomery College. The minimum is $810 per ESH. The next level, $850 per ESH, can only be obtained after a teacher has taught at least 6 semesters (three years) and has accumulated a certain amount of professional development credit by taking various workshops. In three more years, the teacher can advance to $880 per ESH; once again professional development credit has to be earned. These courses must be taken during the adjunct's own time, so of course there's no compensation. Also, it's up to an adjunct to petition for the next pay level by submitting the appropriate form along with proof of professional development credit to his or her respective department. There is no such thing as automatic advancement. If an adjunct doesn't follow the above procedure, he or she will remain at the same pay level indefinitely.
So after six years and much training on the adjunct’s own time, the professor may earn up to $10,560 for four courses in a semester. Nice.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Montgomery College’s Union Busting Campaign: Part One of Four
Management calls them “union avoidance consultants.” Labor people call them “union busters.” But whatever term you use for them, you can count on them showing up whenever workers dare to tell the boss that they are thinking about forming a union. All across the country, thousands of lawyers, consultants and outright shysters rake in billions of dollars working for anti-union employers. They spread fear and propaganda and some of them even assist employers in breaking labor laws just so workers will be too scared to choose union representation. And now Montgomery College has hired a “union avoidance” lawyer of its own.
Montgomery College’s union busting started when the college’s adjunct professors approached SEIU Local 500 to discuss representation. Many of us remember college faculty as being tenured, comfortable residents of the ivy tower. But today’s college professors are increasingly part-time, paid by the class, with few benefits and no job security. Montgomery College’s faculty is now mostly comprised of adjunct professors who, unlike tenured faculty, have no union representation. According to the Gazette, the college’s adjuncts are paid $880 per credit hour taught, with most classes worth three credit hours. Full-time faculty can make up to $3,038 per credit hour. SEIU reports that adjuncts do not have health benefits or defined benefit pensions. When SEIU began gathering authorization cards from workers for a state representation election, the college acted quickly to put an end to it.
Montgomery College hired Darrell VanDeusen, a lawyer with Baltimore law firm Kollman & Saucier. VanDeusen, recently named as one of Maryland’s “Super Lawyers” in Baltimore Magazine, describes his practice as “providing advice in matters such as compliance with anti-discrimination laws, union avoidance and collective bargaining, family and medical leave and fair labor standards.” The law firm also states that VanDeusen “has defended employers in hundreds of charges before the EEOC and other state and local fair employment practice agencies” and “has argued cases in state and federal courts that have interpreted the law in favor of employers.” SEIU states that the going rate for top “union avoidance” lawyers in Maryland is $400-600 per hour. If that is true for VanDeusen, he could earn more in 30 hours of billing ($12,000- $18,000) than an adjunct professor could earn teaching four courses in a semester ($10,560).
What is Montgomery College getting from VanDeusen? We’ll take a look in Part Two.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Montgomery College’s Union Busting Campaign: Part Two of Four
On March 3, Mary Kay Shartle-Galotto, Executive Vice-President for Academic and Student Services and Marshall Moore, Vice-President for Administrative and Fiscal Services sent a memo warning adjunct faculty not to support SEIU Local 500. This document has the fingerprints of a “union avoidance consultant” all over it. The memo begins:As some of you may already know, organizers of the Service Employees International Union Local 500 have approached the part-time faculty at Montgomery College and have asked them to sign union authorization cards. If a sufficient number of part-time faculty sign these cards, the union intends to submit a petition for a representation election to the State Commissioner of Labor.
So Shartle-Galotto and Moore admit to maintaining “good relationships” with their other unions but nevertheless say “the College does not believe” that unionization would be in the interest of adjuncts. Why not? They refer to “many complicated facets to this issue – and some misunderstandings.” They talk about the “sizable fee/cost factor” of unions but avoid mentioning that U.S. union members were paid on average 30% more than non-members last year. They also do not want their adjuncts to know that while 69% of U.S. unionized employees have access to a defined benefit pension plan (which the adjuncts do not have), only 15% of non-union workers have similar access. And their discussion of “standardizing” the workforce omits the fact that any employee classifications are a subject for collective bargaining in which the employer has full rights of participation.
Montgomery College has always maintained good relationships with its full-time faculty and staff unions; however, the College does not believe that the unionization of part-time faculty would best serve the interests of this faculty base, the College, or our students. There are many complicated facets to this issue - and some misunderstandings - that part-time faculty members should understand and reconcile before they commit themselves to union representation. Unions can promise a lot - namely wage increases, better benefits, job security - but the union may not always be able to deliver everything it intends. Faculty should also be aware of the sizable fee/cost factor involved with any union membership.
Part-time faculty members are a diverse group of people with many different goals and priorities. We have faculty who work for a variety of different industries and institutions, and this diverse, real-world perspective is something we highly value in this faculty base. Unionization would almost necessarily standardize the treatment of this population, which could result in difficulties with the assignment and scheduling of classes, not to mention possible difficulties involving full-time faculty relationships.
Later in the memo, Shartle-Galotto and Moore claim that adjuncts received an 8 percent salary increase in the 2007-08 academic year. They neglect to mention that the college's adjuncts receive as little as one-third of regular faculty pay for the same work. They also fail to mention that their hired “union avoidance” attorney, Darrell VanDeusen, could be making more in 30 hours of billing (perhaps $12,000- $18,000) than adjuncts can make teaching four courses in a semester ($10,560).
But Montgomery College is not merely selectively releasing information. They attached a list of “frequently asked questions” about unions to their memo which was probably drafted in consultation with VanDeusen. We’ll take a look at that list in Part Three.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Washington Post Steps Up Anti-Union Campaign
The Washington Post Company, long an opponent of unions in both its editorials and its business operations, is accelerating its campaign against labor. In the last few months, it has emerged as arguably the biggest promulgator of anti-union sentiment in the Metropolitan Washington region.
In four successive editorials, the Post has ramped up its criticism of Montgomery County labor unions. First, the Post attacked the Fire Fighters in February for seeking to give salary concessions in the form of deferred pay rather than COLA eliminations, calling them the “worst offender” among the unions. The Post failed to mention that the Fire Fighters’ deal had been negotiated with officials on the Leggett administration’s management team. Next, the Post editorialized on the county’s disability program twice, characterizing the desire of some to negotiate it through collective bargaining as a “ruse” and painting the issue as “a window into the sway that unions exert over county politicians and the lengths to which some council members will go to protect them.” Yet the Post’s own reporting shows that some of the most suspect cases have involved police managers (such as former Assistant Chief John King), not just the rank-and-file. Finally, in its endorsement of Ben Kramer for the District 4 County Council seat, the Post said this:We supported Ms. Navarro in last year's special election, impressed with her ability to avoid petty politics to produce results on the school board. Ms. Navarro has continued to be an effective board member, taking a leading role in persuading school unions to forfeit some of their pay increases. Yet Ms. Navarro has been less willing than Mr. Kramer to criticize labor, and it’s hard to imagine her standing up to the union leaders who hold excessive sway over the council. Mr. Kramer has been endorsed by the firefighters union, but that has to do with his support for public safety.
What happened to the Fire Fighters being the “worst offender” of the unions?
The Post’s repeated references to “excessive sway” by the unions do not conform to recent history. First, every union save one has given up its cost-of-living increase in Fiscal Year 2010. The only one that has not – the career Fire Fighters – is now apparently forgiven by the Post because they support the Post’s preferred County Council candidate. Second, the decision by the county’s Labor Relations Administrator that the County Executive is not required to fund union contracts in his proposed budget is a heavy blow to labor that the Post ignores. Third, the county’s public employee unions will certainly be subject to furloughs and perhaps the loss of step increases, again a fact that the Post ignores. If the unions were as powerful as the Post believes, none of this would be happening.
But the Post cannot be regarded as an impartial commentator. It is above all a business, one that has had rocky relationships with its own workforce for many years. The Post’s history of union-busting goes back almost four decades and required an entire blog post to recount. The Washington Post Company currently has expired labor agreements with eight (!) different bargaining units covering more than 600 workers. Its 435 production workers have had no contract since 5/18/03 and have launched a publicity campaign against the company. (No wonder the Post sees collective bargaining as a “ruse.”) The Post’s non-union Gazette subsidiary pays its reporters starvation wages and avoids paying overtime. After we exposed the Gazette’s exploitative labor practices last fall, Gazette management went on a witch hunt for our sources. They never found them. Finally, despite the fact that the Post lost $439 million last year and has had to implement multiple workforce reductions, its top four continuing officers still collected a combined $7,053,662 in compensation – up from $4,678,956 in 2007. That’s right, the Post relentlessly bashes Montgomery County unions over their now-departed raises while giving its executive team a 50.8% RAISE IN ONE YEAR.
Simply put, the Post editorial page cannot be trusted as a source of opinion on any county labor issues. For a long time, management policy inside the Washington Post Company has been to harass its existing unions into oblivion and prevent any more from forming. Now the Post seems intent on spreading that philosophy out into Montgomery County as a whole.
Disclosure: The author is the Assistant to the General President of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and has been employed in the labor movement since 1994.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
REVOLT!
In a moment that defined their political careers, Montgomery County Council Members Duchy Trachtenberg, Phil Andrews and Valerie Ervin put the fate of the public employees’ cost of living adjustments on the table last Friday. Present to greet them were over 300 chanting, stomping, clapping and occasionally yelling union members.
Council Members Trachtenberg, Andrews and Ervin are members of the council’s Management and Fiscal Policy (MFP) Committee. The committee’s charge on Friday was to discuss the extent to which savings on the county’s labor costs should be applied to fix its $297 million budget deficit. “Labor savings” ultimately means funding less for personnel costs than is called for in the county’s collective bargaining agreements: a practice derisively labeled by the unions as “contract busting.”
A word about the union members in the pictures. Assembled by pugnacious MCGEO President Gino Renne in the nearby County Executive Office Building, they were in no mood for “contract busting” and marched across a rain-soaked street to confront their council overseers. Their radioactive yellow battle color is not intended to please the eye and it certainly does not. It is designed to attract attention. They certainly received plenty of it on Friday.
Council Member Trachtenberg, chairwoman of the MFP Committee, opened the meeting with new transfer and recordation tax receipt numbers for April. Transfer and recordation taxes depend on property sales and they have been devastated by the recent collapse in the county’s real estate and construction market. According to Ms. Trachtenberg, the county received $13 million in transfer and recordation taxes in April 2008, down from $18 million in April 2007. For the year to date, transfer and recordation taxes totaled $138 million, down from $180 million the year prior. “Taxpayers are reaching a breaking point,” declared Ms. Trachtenberg and that justified a 2% reduction in the unions’ negotiated COLAs.
Council Member Andrews agreed. Citing the fact that personnel costs accounted for 80% of the county’s budget, he told the ornery union members, “What’s fair is to ask everyone to help.” As he has for months, he criticized the unions’ agreements as “unaffordable” and stated flatly, “I would not have negotiated the contracts that came over to us.” Supporting Ms. Trachtenberg, he said, “I believe that the 2% COLA reduction is a fair way to go.”
Pictures cannot do justice to the unholy din created by the roaring public employees. Hundreds of police officers, bus drivers, librarians, deputy sheriffs, correctional officers and park and planning workers rose to their feet to challenge Council Members Trachtenberg and Andrews. “What are you giving back?” one cried. “We are the taxpayers!” another yelled. “You’re hitting us twice!” pointed out one employee who was also a county resident. Worker after worker decried simultaneous increases in fuel and food costs, cuts in county services and proposed cuts in COLAs as a squeeze on their standard of living from multiple sides.
And then Ms. Ervin took the mike. She is a 25-year veteran organizer and trainer in the labor movement and everyone knew what she would say. “I was a proud member of the UFCW union,” she announced to the crowd. “We do not have to balance this budget on the backs of working people.” She recounted a bookful of statistics on poverty and income inequality to the groans of the audience (some of which we will examine on this blog) and concluded with, “Montgomery County is affluent for only some people.” “I believe that cutting salaries will hurt our local economy,” she said, “and I will not support a 2% COLA reduction.” We present the crowd’s reaction below.
In the end, the MFP Committee did not recommend a 2% COLA reduction. Instead, Ms. Trachtenberg introduced a motion calling for $40 million in “labor savings” with the exact mechanism to be decided later by the rest of the County Council. Mr. Andrews concurred and Ms. Ervin ferociously dissented. Neither the council members nor the staff justified this particular number against a lesser or greater amount. No mention was made by anyone of the unions’ identification of $67 million in additional revenues and savings as reported on this blog. The Post and the Gazette also omitted that fact from their coverage.
So what will become of the committee’s proposal for “labor savings,” a euphemism for underfunding the contracts? There do not appear to be any other votes on the council for the MFP Committee’s proposal, especially considering the fact that the union contracts are affordable in the next fiscal year. Instead, a rough consensus is forming in favor of a slightly lower property tax increase than that proposed by the County Executive along with a carbon tax proposed by Council Member Nancy Floreen. 
But even that plan involves breaking the county’s charter limit on property tax increases, which generally holds tax receipt gains to a level equaling the increase in the consumer price index. Seven of the eight County Council Members must vote to exceed that limit. Both Council Members Trachtenberg and Andrews oppose breaking the charter limit, enough to kill any property tax hike. Will either of them budge on that position, thus enabling the union contracts to be preserved? That is the big question. We will have an answer by Thursday.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Getting to Know the Real Montgomery College
A reprint of a forthcoming Montgomery County Sentinel column by Wayne Goldstein.
Montgomery College is in the news these days in some very unflattering ways. The first is because the communities who live near the former Maryland College of Art and Design (MCAD) on Georgia Avenue, now owned by the Montgomery College Foundation, want this land to become a park. Although the College and its Foundation were given the MCAD site for free, they want to sell the land to developers for as much money as possible. The second is what is being called "Montgomery College’s Union Busting Campaign" documented this week in a four part series where the College is being accused of interfering with the right of adjunct professors to consider joining a union.
I think it's time that a new generation of county leaders and residents be introduced to what I call "The Real Montgomery College." From 2000-2002, I was part of a group who fought to stop the College from building its Cultural Arts Center in South Silver Spring's historic Jesup Blair Park because of the irreversible damage that would be done to the park's remaining old growth oak trees and to the setting of the last of the historic Blair family mansions. Against all odds, our group, with the timely help of others, successfully pressured the College to relocate this building to the corner of Georgia and Burlington Avenues, where it is being constructed today.
As I searched for ways to stop the College's building plans for the park, I began to do research about the College that soon became an exhaustive pursuit of the history of how the College grew its campuses and its buildings. What I found were some very embarrassing, even shameful moments in the College's history, as well as long periods of near-reckless behavior where the College fought everyone to try to get its way. By 2002, I had written a 100,000-word manuscript titled "The Real Montgomery College" covering the time period from the early '40s through 2002. In part, as a result of sharing this long-forgotten history with those concerned about the College's behavior in 2002, more people and institutions stood up to the College and forced it to make changes it did not want to make. And now, in 2008, it looks like the College is once again starting to spin out of control, so it is time to once again tell some of those shameful stories of the past.
For decades, the College has complained about not having room to expand its Takoma Park campus, a problem it continues to struggle with to this day. It might surprise you to know that this problem could have been entirely avoided, except that past College officials intentionally chose to ignore the obvious. In 1946, Montgomery Junior College [MJC] began evening classes in World War II surplus government building at B-CC High School. By 1950, the College was ready to move to its own campus. It ended up preferring the former Bliss Electrical School in Takoma Park.
"In June [1950], "The [Montgomery County] Board [of Education] discussed further the purchase of Bliss Electrical School for the [MJC[" Then on 7/11/50, "...the Board directed that negotiations be proceeded with for the purchase of the property..., including all land, buildings and equipment... Mrs. Baylor [a board member] voted for the purchase of the property, after stating her position as follows: 'I have prepared a statement in regard to my position in connection with the proposed purchase of the Bliss Electrical School, which I would like to have inserted into the minutes of this meeting. First, the campus of approximately 7 acres is, according to all educational standards, inadequate for a Junior College. A minimum of 35 acres is desirable. [Emphasis added] Second, the proximity to the B & O Railroad with its accompanying noise is detrimental to carrying on a school program... However, I want it noted that the proposal for the purchase of the... property has been approved by a committee from the Advisory Council of the Junior College, by the Civic Federation... and by Dean Price. It appears obvious that unless the Bliss Electrical School is purchased, the [MJC] is doomed to struggle along in its present inadequate quarters. With this in mind, and considering the other factors, I will cast my vote with the majority of the Board.'"
The College's leaders, knowing the site was far too small for the College's needs, rationalized the decision based on the price and on their hope that they could always use local parks and schools for all of their athletic programs. Within 5 years, they had outgrown the campus and began looking for ways to expand it, including buying adjacent residential properties as they became available. One did become available, the Grabill Property:
"...The following resolution was adopted [4-2]...That the Grabill property at 703 New York Avenue... is needed as additional property for the [MJC], and... that the Superintendent be authorized to make the purchase of this property in the name of the Board of Education... from the estate in an amount not to exceed $17,000." 5/14/57 School Board meeting: "The Superintendent announced that the Grabill property on New York Avenue.., for which the Board had been negotiating for use by the [MJC], had been sold to another party."
"Here's how this institution, at their 6/11/57 meeting, responded to having the object of their desire snatched from their outreaching hand: "The Superintendent and Dean Deyo... briefed the Board on the action to date in connection with the proposed acquisition of a site adjacent to the College for future use. They stated that they felt this land is valuable to the school. In view of the fact that neighbors have purchased the Grabill property during the period of negotiations between the Board and the owners, the Superintendent remarked that he felt condemnation proceedings should be recommended." [Emphasis added]
The School Board voted to have condemnation investigated as a possible action. Miraculously, without any outside intervention at all, the College realized that it should not abuse the condemnation process, and the motion was rescinded on 1/27/58. This may have been the last time in the past 50 years that Montgomery College did the right thing without being forced to do so by others.
As to the issue of relationships between College leaders, professors and students, consider this: "5/10/78: "The faculty at [MC] has voted overwhelmingly to recommend to the college's board... against renewing the contract of college president William C. Strasser when it expires on June 30 of next year... Students, incensed over next year's calendar which crams exams into 3 days scheduled to run from 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. are circulating a petition opposing Strasser... Of the 246 faculty members who responded [to a poll], 225 (91.5 %) were opposed to renewing the president's contract, 14 were for renewing... and 7 had no opinion. The poll also gave Strasser low ratings in several areas. On a scale of one (low) to 10 (high), the majority of faculty members against renewing Strasser's contract gave him 1.5 for leadership, 2.8 for administrative ability, 1.1 for communications and 1.8 for public relations. The poll... conducted in Feb. and sent confidentially to the board... also listed the 3 most important problems facing the college as apathy and morale, Dr. Strasser, and lack of communication...
"Several members of the [MC] Student Senate are distributing a petition asking the board... not to consider Strasser as a candidate... Several thousand students have already signed the petitions. The goal is 6000 signatures (about half of the Rockville campus enrollment) to be presented to the board... Previously [Strasser] had been censured by the faculty (1968), asked to resign (Dec.,1976) and hung in effigy by students (Nov.,1977)."
11/8/78: "The president of [MC], William C. Strasser, will step down when his current 5-year contract ends on 6/30/79... Strasser has been president... since 1966. He presided over a great expansion in the college's enrollment, offerings and the addition of a third campus--but will also be remembered for tremendous friction with the faculty and students... during his tenure... The friction at [MC], according to some faculty members, led to the state legislature's unprecedented vote last spring to allow collective bargaining at MC, which is not authorized at any other community college in Md..."
Today, adjunct, untenured Montgomery College professors are paid $880 per credit hour taught, normally as three credit hour courses. Full-time, tenured faculty can earn as much as $3,038 per credit hour. It is also reported that adjunct professors do not have health benefits or defined benefit pensions. Montgomery College's uniquely bad behavior over the decades has caused a number of "unprecedented" votes and actions by other government entities. I hope that all who seek to hold the College to the same standards as all of us will find assistance in this and future installments of "The Real Montgomery College."
Wayne Goldstein is the President of the Montgomery County Civic Federation and is one of the grand-daddies of civic activism in this county.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
SEIU Local 500 Declares Impasse with Montgomery College
SEIU Local 500, which won a campaign to represent Montgomery College’s adjunct professors in June 2008, has reached deadlock with the administration on a new contract. That does not bode well for the new college President who replaced Brian Johnson in September.
Union organizing in the public sector is supposed to be easier than in the hard-as-nails private sector. (Disclosure: your author has tossed around a few of those nails and has also sat on a couple of them in fifteen years in the labor movement.) But SEIU’s campaign put the lie to that myth. When the adjuncts began organizing, former President Johnson brought in a union-busting consultant to spread negative propaganda about unions to their colleagues. The college also claimed that the adjuncts were not really public employees and thus were not eligible for collective bargaining. But Johnson eventually backed down and SEIU won a 365-105 vote to represent the adjuncts.
Johnson dragged his feet on a contract until various revelations prompted his ouster in September. But new interim President Hercules Pinkney has not concluded a contract with the adjuncts either, prompting a declaration of impasse by SEIU. The local told the adjuncts:After more than a year of difficult negotiations with the Montgomery College Board of Trustees, we’re disappointed to report that we’ve reached an impasse with the college over just one issue: money.
The pay issue was one of the most critical reasons why the adjuncts sought out SEIU for representation. Prior to the organizing campaign, adjuncts were paid $880 per credit hour, much less than the $3,038 per credit hour paid to full-time professors for the same work. That means an adjunct teaching four three-hour courses in each of two semesters would make just $21,120 per year, a poverty-level income in Montgomery County. The issue is particularly acute considering that adjuncts outnumber full-time faculty by two-to-one.
We’ve resolved all the other points of contention. Our contract, once approved by you, will bring part-time faculty higher ESH limits and greater job security then we've ever had. It also includes a commitment from the college to work with us toward a permanent solution to pay inequity between full-time and part-time faculty for in-classroom instruction, as well as to explore health insurance options for us.
However, the college has proposed no improvements in pay for part-time faculty this year, despite the fact that the college provided pay increases and bonuses to full-time faculty and classified staff.
It’s intolerable that a county that emphasizes education as much as Montgomery would sanction poverty level incomes for professors who teach at its community college. The new administration must strike a deal on the contract and put this issue to rest.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Montgomery College Adjuncts Stage Cyber-Rally
Earlier this morning, an incredible 83% of our site traffic consisted of direct entries to Montgomery College adjunct professor Victoria Baldassano's guest post, "A Voice from the Other Half: Montgomery College Part-Time Faculty Member Speaks."
A year ago, this blog chronicled a campaign by the college's adjuncts to seek representation by SEIU Local 500. At the time, adjuncts were paid $880 per credit hour while full-time faculty could make up to $3,038 per credit hour for doing the same work. Then-President Brian Johnson hired a notorious union-busting consultant to crush the effort. While the professors voted for unionization by a 365-105 margin, Johnson stalled on concluding a collective bargaining agreement with them ever since.
But the issue remains a hot one on campus. The traffic to Baldassano's guest post is not being driven from any central source. Instead, most of the visits are coming in spontaneously, probably through email chains. That means the adjuncts are fed up. If new Montgomery College Acting President Hercules Pinkney really wants to be a "calming spirit," he needs to finish the contract negotiations and give the adjuncts their due.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Council Votes 6-2 to Preserve Labor Agreements (Updated)
Last Friday, Council Members Duchy Trachtenberg and Phil Andrews voted in the council’s Management and Fiscal Policy (MFP) Committee to recommend $40 million in “labor savings” or “employee participation,” alternative terms for under-funding the county’s collective bargaining agreements with its employees. Today, they sought support for their proposal from the full County Council. They found none.
Labor contracts were not the only budget item considered by the Council. They also discussed the nature of the proposed property tax hike. The MFP Committee recommended that the County Executive’s proposed rate and his proposed credit be cut. The effect of that structural change would be to channel the tax burden onto homeowners and away from commercial properties, including apartment buildings occupied by renters. That proposal was approved by the Council by a 7-1 vote, with Council Member Marc Elrich dissenting. Council Members Trachtenberg and Andrews also recommended lowering the amount by which the property tax would exceed the charter limit from $138 million (which was the County Executive’s proposal) to $118 million. Ms. Trachtenberg and Mr. Andrews were joined by Mike Knapp and Roger Berliner, but Valerie Ervin, Marc Elrich, George Leventhal and Nancy Floreen voted against it. And so the property tax reduction failed on a 4-4 vote. Interestingly, Ms. Floreen commented that she voted against the reduction because she wanted to see a larger one.
But the main action of the day concerned “labor savings.” The 300+ people who mobbed the room were not there to lobby for a $20 million reduction in a tax hike. The vast majority were public employees present to defend their livelihoods. And at least from the perspective of political theater, the County Council did not disappoint.
Former union organizer Valerie Ervin hurled the first thunderbolt. “We could fund this budget right now and not go into the COLAs [cost of living adjustments],” she said. “A lot of this other stuff is just subterfuge.”
George Leventhal objected to any hint of “subterfuge,” defending the county government’s record of clean government. But he agreed with Ms. Ervin on the COLAs, saying, “I don’t really appreciate the term ‘employee participation.’ That’s a euphemism for busting contracts.”
Phil Andrews would not back down. He looked the 300+ public employees in the eye and told them, “Employees need to do their part… It would be unfair to expect taxpayers to pay a tax increase to fully fund employee contracts that would be 8% next year.” He praised MFP Chairwoman Trachtenberg, who had joined with him in recommending labor savings, for her “intelligence, diligence and guts.”
Duchy Trachtenberg also stuck to her guns. “I have stood with labor on a number of issues,” she said, citing her support for living wage legislation and the SEIU’s organizing campaign at Montgomery College. “I represent a million residents. Most of them don’t have an opportunity to join a union and benefit from collective bargaining agreements… I don’t disrespect you, but I respect the unrepresented, the seniors, the disabled and the homeless.” She told the crowd, “I have been the object of a lot of vilification. It doesn’t do any good to attack another person on a policy difference.”
But the other Council Members did not seem convinced that reducing the COLAs was the only alternative. Council Member Marc Elrich brought up possible savings from the county’s annual PAYGO expenditure. PAYGO is a cash contribution made by the county towards capital projects, which are mostly financed by bonds. Council staff told Mr. Elrich that next year’s capital budget would be paid for by $330 million in bond issuances and $30 million in a cash PAYGO contribution. If the county did not make its cash contribution this year, it would not necessarily delay any capital projects which would be mostly covered by bonds. In fact, the unions recommended reducing PAYGO by $10 million last week, just one part of their suggested $67 million package of cuts and alternate revenues. Mr. Elrich’s idea received support from several other Council Members, though Ms. Trachtenberg opposed it.
And then Mr. Leventhal pointed out the real role played by the council in labor contract decisions. For non-schools government employees, the council does indeed set funding levels for contracts. But with regard to the public school system, the council only approves its budget as a whole. Contract funding is decided by the school board. Mr. Leventhal called Board of Education President (and former County Council candidate) Nancy Navarro to the witness table. He asked her whether the school system, if handed a budget cut by the council, would respond by cutting employee raises. She replied, “The board feels very strongly that its strategic investment is in the compensation of our employees.” And then she said that while she could not speak for the rest of the board, she personally would not vote to underfund contracts. Mr. Leventhal concluded that if the council cuts contracts for non-school employees but the school board preserved its employees’ pay, significant inequities in pay scales would result.
After Ms. Ervin recognized several exceptional county employees in the room – including one fire fighter who had heroically raced into a burning building to rescue victims inside – the County Council took its vote on the contracts. Ms. Trachtenberg and Mr. Andrews were the only Council Members on the short end of a 6-2 vote. While some of their colleagues defended their good faith, none were willing to break the county’s commitment to its employees.
But the issue is far from decided. In order to fund the contracts, the council must approve a property tax hike that exceeds the rate of inflation tomorrow. The county’s charter states that seven votes are necessary to do that. Both Mr. Andrews and Ms. Trachtenberg have publicly opposed breaking the limit, which would be sufficient to block it. One of them must budge. If they do not, there is no obvious alternative and catastrophe would result.
And so the lights will be on in the County Council building very, very late tonight.
Update: The Gazette and the Post have also covered the story.
