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C
O N T E N T S |
View the contract from this link. 1999-2000 Contract |
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Ponderings of the President
by Ira Lansing This one is partially true, depending to which president and which chief negotiator you are referring. Unfortunately the reference is not to United Professors of Marin. Paul Christensen and myself will have to remain contented with our free annual parking permits. It is our very own James Middleton, whose position now commands around $135,000 per year; and the District's chief negotiator, Paul Loughlin, who is compensated $45,000 per year (that's just for his work here in Marin). Both these gentleman undoubtedly deserve these salaries, and the compensation is most certainly in line (or even behind?) comparable institutions. UPM has always supported fair and equitable wages. To avoid having to print a correction next month, the chief negotiator's salary, as approved by the Board of Trustees in January, was only a single digit raise, but if the National Enquirer can do it, it must be all right? Once again this one is partially true. The governor is proposing in his next fiscal year's budget that there be two pots of money focused on part-time community college instructors. One is to fund their office hours on a one-for-one basis (meaning the college is reimbursed for the full cost, which is currently not the case). The other proposed funding is to bring part-timers' salaries into line with permanent employees. Mind you, these are proposals at this time, subject to change by the legislature. Furthermore, if both of these do come to pass, part-timers at CoM will not see much difference since they are already paid in full for their office hours (it is the college's reimbursement, hence actual expenditure, that would be affected; and we have already negotiated pro rata salary for temporary faculty, unlike many other districts, which pay hourly). True, but only in one respect. The District has hired a new manager, using Partnership for Excellence (P4E) funds, to oversee both the credit and non-credit ESL programs. The structure of the two programs (credit vs. non-credit, etc.) has not changed. Well, what did you expect? Again, partially true. Some of the faculty positions filled last year were supported by Partnership for Excellence money. Of course, the faculty can always direct the UPM bargaining team to negotiate a more specific use of this money, like raises for all unit members. Yes, you guessed it, partially true. Jan Dargel is the newest permanent academic dean. Bill Kester is an interim temporary dean, Sandy Boyd is going into the faculty, and nobody really knows who or what Chris Schultz supervises. This leaves Dean Dargel, with her nearly two years of experience, as the elder states person in her realm. Good luck, Jan. If this were referring to the President of the United States it would be 100% true. If you mean President/Superintendent of the College of Marin, who knows? New UPM Staff Appointments The UPM Executive Council received a healthy number of applications from new people for open positions on the UPM staff this year. Some of the various committees and positions will be filled by long-term UPM activists doing assignments different from theirs of the past, but other posts will be filled by brand new folks. All the changes will take effect in the fall semester of 2001. |
District Sidesteps the Contract Tenured Instructor Receives 90-Day Notice In a disturbing train of events, the UPM has been notified by District  administration that a full-time, tenured member of the faculty has been given a 90-day notice that could lead to that instructor&Mac226;s termination for unsatisfactory performance. Never before has an instructor at the college been given such a notice, and the administration has handled the case in a truly baffling fashion, ignoring rudimentary Contract requirements and refusing even to check the veracity of the allegations. With no prior warning or explanation, Bernadene Allen, the UPM Grievance Officer, was called to a meeting with the instructor, VP Boatright, and President Middleton on October 6th of last year. At that meeting, the instructor was handed the 90-day notice accompanied by the admonition that no discussion of the matter would be allowed. What was discovered then, however, was that the District had received complaints about the instructor from two sources and had deliberately withheld this information from the instructor and UPM for three months prior to the meeting in which the charges were revealed.To say that these events came as a complete surprise to this tenured instructor whose evaluations have been consistently good is a mild understatement. What has ensued has been nothing short of dismaying and, to both the instructor and the UPM, deeply disturbing.  Under the Ed. Code, an instructor given a 90-days notice has that period of time to follow a remediation plan to demonstrate improvements devised and directed by the administration. On the 11th of October, the instructor, accompanied by Allen, received the plan, several details of which were strenuously objected to. The UPM was astonished to learn, for example, that the manager in charge of evaluating the instructor's performance under the remediation plan was the manager who had been directly involved in framing the 90-day notice!The District's approach entirely ignores the Contract. Managers believe that the Contract, specifically Article 24, can be ignored. But that article provides for many steps that can be taken before the Ed. Code&Mac226;s dismissal procedure is followed. The District chose the 90-day procedure, but they sat on the issue for three months, a time when Contract-determined actions should have been underway. Clearly, had the District bothered to follow simple procedures of the Contract and informed the instructor of the charges and investigated the matter, we would not have come to this alarming point.  It has been only relatively recently that state law was expanded to include a charge of unsatisfactory performance to the list of causes for dismissal. Up to that time, an instructor could be dismissed only for such causes as moral turpitude. The area of unsatisfactory performance is left undefined and vague, and the District has latched onto it in this case.If the instructor, having progressed through the, remediation phase, is still found by District managers the instructor's accusers to be lacking in performance, a dismissal notice will be issued by March 15. At that time, the instructor may choose to have at last a hearing to challenge the action. Of course, the instructor and the UPM have submitted detailed responses to the allegations, pointing out their lack of foundation. So far, the District has not reacted to the response. Without having followed basic Contractual procedures, the District has unfortunately let this entire matter escalate beyond any reasonable level, and now we are in the midst of a truly Kafkaesque scene. One can only wonder why. Why were the allegations taken as truth without investigation? Why were simple Contract procedures ignored? Why did managers keep the allegations a secret for months? Administrators claim justification for their approach by citing the Ed Code rather than the Contact. But the District's execution of the provision, the managers&Mac226; inexplicable delay, the refusal to conduct an initial investigation, and the cavalier handling of some dubious charges demonstrate an egregious disregard for fundamental Contract provisions. You can be sure that since this entire matter has surfaced, the UPM has been tireless in its pursuit of justice. We will, of course, keep you informed as new developments occur. Stay tuned. Ideas and Concerns are Sought by Bargaining Team
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Web Page graphics & design by Mike Godsey, windfind@sonic.nett
Tenured Instructor Receives90-Day Notice
Now that you are back from a well deserved break, you may be inclined to wonder if anything happened while you were gone. With this in mind, we offer the following headlines as a synopsis of what has transpired between semester. Oh, one small detail: not all of the headlines are necessarily true, so as a warmup for your inquisitive students, you must decide which are correct and which are false. No fair peeking at the answers. Give it your best shot! True or false:
In late spring, early summer, the UPM Bargaining Team, headed by Chief Negotiator Paul Christensen, will begin the sometimes slow, stately process of creating a new Contract. All articles of the Contract are open for possible change, and the Bargaining Team needs to know from you what of the Contract needs change.
for its standards and more for its litany of warnings, penalties, and disciplinary actions. Arising from the simple need to ensure that grade rosters, positive attendance records, absence reports, and the like were submitted in a timely way, Article 24 has grown in size and seriousness over the years to encompass discrimination, harassment, and most recently, student complaints. For many unhappy members of the faculty, this article is perhaps the most familiar of the 25 in the current Contract. It is significant that of all the articles, this may be the only one known by its number rather than its title.
Article 24 contains several sections, most focusing on violations and their consequences. Interestingly, the list begins with a smoking prohibition and an enumeration of the penalties for violating the no-smoking rules. The language soon turns to the consequences of ignoring a set of professional norms, including the failure to file class rosters and final grades. Were you aware that an untimely response to a written request for academic information is a violation of this article? And what about returning District equipment or materials? Failure to do so in a timely way could get you suspension without pay if you violate this norm more than once.
The concept of progressive discipline evolved more or less from the perceived need to be tough on acts of discrimination and harassment, truly serious matters. Spliced between the no-smoking section and professional norms is a lengthy passage containing the definitions of verbal, physical, and visual harassment and penalties that range from censure letters to suspension without pay for as many as 10 days. The section provides for arbitration for cases in which a member of the faculty is accused of sexual harassment or other acts of harassment or discrimination.
The significant element of this section that draws attention and controversy is the way the District has chosen to pursue the investigation of a student's complaint. You may remember recent articles in the Press about an instructor having to go through many long interviews with a specially-assigned attorney from the District. The outcome of that investigation was finally a good one, but the process was rather alarming and uncomfortable, to say the least.