W o w !
Spring semester 2004 has arrived. I feel somehow that this must be a mistake, or that I've lost a decade or two from my memory bank. Assuming that I make it through the entire semester, I will have completed twentyfive years of full-time college teaching!
I would
never have imagined twentyfive years ago that I would one day have
the honor of serving as president of a labor union that represents
faculty and professionals in higher education. The irony is that at
my first full-time job all those years ago, the faculty was locked in
a tense struggle over a vote to become unionized.
The debate raged for weeks. I listened intently to what all the "old-timers" were saying about the pros and cons of organizing a union in a college environment. Later that year, the faculty voted not to become unionized. The prevailing attitude at that time was that college faculty were professionals, and there was no need for union representation. As professionals, weren't we capable of fighting our own battles, and defending ourselves?
I wish I had known then how misguided that position was, and still is. Both at that first institution, and at subsequent positions as a college professor, I became increasingly aware of the need for faculty unions. I saw faculty members terminated for frivolous reasons. I witnessed hard working professionals turned down for promotions because they didn't fit in. I observed scholars denied tenure because the "weight" of their research was jealously determined to be insufficient.
When I came to Massachusetts seventeen years ago, I was elated to learn that faculty and professional staff rights were protected by a strong union. In the past seventeen years, I have been a proud and active member of an organized labor union.
Now that I am an "old-timer," I ask the other senior members of the MCCC to take some time to talk Union with the new faculty and professional staff we will be welcoming into our ranks. Please tell them your old "war" stories. Recount for them the stories of the many individuals at your campus that the MCCC has come to the aid of over the years. Explain the many battles that have previously been fought on their behalf to protect their future employment and working conditions.
As community college faculty and professional staff, we will face many challenges in the very near future. We need all of our members, "old-timers" and new hires alike, to be active participants to protect the many gains we have struggled to achieve.
Organized labor has been an integral force in a social movement to protect the members of our society who are most in need. We must continue in the proud tradition of organized labor. Our enemies in political power act as if unions are the problem in public higher education. We know better.
Attacks on public higher education unions will undoubtedly continue in the coming months. Our pensions, job security, and even the right to unionize will be under attack. To prevail, we need to stand together. Now, more than ever, we need each other.
Through our collective action, the MCCC will continue to help ensure a working environment in which we can do what we were employed to do:
Provide excellent, affordable, accessible public higher education to our students.
In Solidarity,
Rick