The Union's Position

  By Charles Loiacono     

The Warp and the Woof

 

As with the crossing of fibers to weave a cloth, two essential elements make up the warp and woof used in the fabrication woven to justify the hiring of scabs to teach in the LINCC program.

            In this case, the warp is the lie and the woof is the strategy. The lie is that LINCC is a new program. The strategy is aimed at avoiding arbitration since they have no hope of prevailing at an arbitration hearing. So, a two-prong strategy was needed. First, a petition had to be filed with PERB pretending that the LINCC program is new and therefore does not fall under the terms and conditions of the AFA contract, thus necessitating a ruling by PERB placing the program under the jurisdiction of the AFA, but allowing the administration to set the terms and conditions of employment until new negotiations take place. That’s step one of the strategy. Step two is to file a petition with the Supreme Court seeking to stay the arbitration because PERB has to first rule on placement of the program.

            That represents the one-two punch the administration hopes will allow them to permanently employ scabs that are willing to work for sweat shop wages.

            In an effort to snow the court and PERB, the attorneys for the administration submitted reams of paper—99.9% of which are irrelevant. The bulk of the paper deals with the right of the college to create programs and deals with precedents upholding that right. The exhaustive treatment of the college’s right to administer programs fails to mention the fact that the AFA never challenged that right.  More significant than the waste of paper that deals with the irrelevant is the paper that is missing. Not a page, not a line deals with the fact that the administration agreed that the same program, under a different name, belonged under the jurisdiction of the AFA and placed the program within the AFA’s jurisdiction and paid the instructors AFA scale. That’s determinative. In a letter sent to the

 

 

  

.parties by Angela M Blassman, Administrative Law Judge, she states:

            “As a general matter, a placement petition is used to place positions that are not otherwise already represented in a unit…the AFA and the NCCFT appear to argue in their responses that the position is a re-titled position that is already in the AFA’s unit.”

            Therein lies the nub of the case. Desperate to avoid that nub, the attorneys hope to confuse the issue with pounds of paper.

            I was actually surprised by some of the gratuitous lies. These attorneys purposely misrepresented facts that we will discredit with documentation. Since that can only serve to hurt their credibility, I fail to understand why they would take the risk that we would ferret out those misrepresentations.

            It has been obvious from the beginning that an overriding aim has been to buy time. The administration wanted this program to run for the entire academic year. Therefore, stalling was necessary. Most of their tactics have been aimed at wasting time. If they lose in the end, they only lose money, and the legislature has given this administration millions of dollars to throw away. The one thing they don’t mind losing is money.

            Finally, were PERB to rule in favor of the petition, the AFA’s jurisdiction would extend to full-timers. The November issue of the VANGUARD listed the full-time duties and responsibilities of LINCC employees. The attorneys for the administration state:

“the NCCFT could demonstrate that the position of LINCC Lecturer corresponds more closely to the composition of NCCFT than the AFA.”

            That may have been their goal from the get-go—to negotiate with the AFA the hiring of full-time classroom teachers that perform full-time duties but are paid less than full-time wages.