Media Relations Training for Chancellor's Cabinet

According to the June/July Chancellor's Cabinet Highlights ("a publication of the Contra Costa Community College District Chancellor's Office to Employees of the District"), a full day's retreat next month will provide the cabinet members along with the vice presidents with media relations training.

Certainly the relationship with the local media vis-a-vis the district's grades-for-pay scandal has been problematic. While most of what the chancellor and the DVC college president has done has been to stonewall media inquiries (often in the reasonable stance of wanting to avoid compromising legal processes) or react to media reports, we've also seen bursts of responses: an estimated $6000 ad in the Contra Costa Times proclaiming the district's better efforts, its wobbly affirmation of the state accreditation's announcement that accreditation itself has not yet been withdrawn, and most memorably the interim college president's calling of a news conference last spring--without inviting or informing the Inquirer, the college's own newspaper.

We'd ask that board members be invited as well. We have already suffered the embarassment of Tony Gordon's dismissal of the importance of this matter ("Many things have happened (at community colleges) that are more important [than the grades-for-pay scandal] but have not been looked at by the Legislature"). And John Nejedly's personal and legal and workplace issues represent a tremendous public relations problem for the leadership of the district.

Who says young folks don't spend summers productively?

Police Arrest Teen Over "Potter" Translation
By: Reuters

PARIS - Police have arrested a high school student suspected of posting his own translation of the latest Harry Potter book on the Internet weeks ahead of the official French release date, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The 16-year old from the Aix-en-Provence region in southern France was taken into custody after a translation of the book's first three chapters appeared on the Web just days after the English-language release in late July, Le Parisien reported.

"The anti-counterfeiting police discovered the affair and contacted Ms. Rowling's lawyer," said a spokeswoman for publisher Gallimard, which handles the French editions of the Harry Potter novels.

Police were not immediately available for comment.

The official French language version of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is scheduled for release on October 26. The translator is still working on the text, the spokeswoman said.

The seventh chapter of the Harry Potter saga is the fastest selling book in history, publishers say, with some 11 million English-language copies sold in the first 24 hours.

Many French book stores are selling the English-language version ahead of the French language release.

AP reports American Airines pilots vote out union leadership

In today's news this story. In spite of incumbent president Hunter's calls for major pay raises and signing bonuses and his recent activism, some in the rank-and-file have said that Hunter was too slow in working for reparations from a past acceptance of salary cuts in the face of AA's crying poor several years ago.

We in the faculty ranks of the Contra Costa Community College District know what it's like to take a cut in pay when management has worked us into a financial bind (in our case, they did it by cancelling hundreds of classes--the main source of revenue for a college funded by enrollment, of course).

We don't know, however, what it's like to have a union leadership that stands firm for making up that cut as quickly as possible. Even with the current contract offer of a seven percent raise for 2007-08, we have no assurance that there will be anything greater than an offer of the state-provided COLA for 2008-09, although we have not had a pay increase for five years. Nor does our leadership organize protests against the stunning contracts awarded to our college presidents, featuring merit increases, built-in pay hikes; meanwhile, our chancellor is receiving more per year than the governor of the state.

The pilots rejected Hunter's presidency in spite of his apparent militancy, which this article suggests was mostly for show anyway. The rank-and-file are putting their hopes on Lloyd Hill and his more aggressive response to management infractions.

Here's AP's story.
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American Airlines pilots oust union leadership in election
From the Associated Press
June 21, 2007

Pilots at American Airlines, unhappy over pay and angry at company management, ousted their union's top officers and elected a slate of newcomers who promised to take a harder line against the nation's largest carrier.

Miami-based pilot Lloyd Hill defeated incumbent President Ralph Hunter by a ratio of more than 2 to 1 in a runoff. Challengers also unseated the Allied Pilots Assn.'s next two ranking officials.

Hill charged that Hunter and other union leaders were too cozy with company management. Hunter's post was clearly in jeopardy after he got only 25% of the vote during an election in May and barely made the runoff.

The first test for the new officers will come quickly — the union is in the early stages of negotiations for a new contract in which it expects large raises.

Under Hunter, the pilots union proposed pay raises of 30.5% and big signing bonuses. Hunter also organized protests against $160 million in stock awards given to more than 800 management employees.

Privately, airline officials viewed the protests and pay demands as part of the union leaders' campaign to stay in office by appearing tough. If so, the plan came up short against challengers who took a harder anti-company stance.

Pilots voted by mail, with ballots due Wednesday. The votes were counted at union headquarters in Fort Worth.

Hill got 4,573 votes, or 68%, to Hunter's 2,180. Dallas-based pilot Tom Westbrook defeated Vice President Sam Bertling by an even larger margin, and San Francisco-based pilot Bill Haug defeated incumbent Secretary-Treasurer Jim Eaton.

The union represents more than 9,000 pilots at American.

CONTRA COSTA TEACHERS VOTE ON STRIKE

Here's an opportunity for UFCCCCD to build relationship with active educators in our district. (We're hearing mighty rumblings from Mt. Diablo Unified teachers as well.)
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from the CFA newsletter:

Teachers in Richmond have voted overwhelmingly to strike if a contract accord cannot be reached by the start of school in the fall.

"We don't want to strike in the fall, but it may come to that if this district and school board continue to disrespect teachers," said Gail Mendes, president of the United Teachers of Richmond.

More than 92 percent of the 2,000 teachers in the district voted to begin a series of strikes if a reasonable salary agreement cannot be reached.

The strike vote comes on the heels of a major Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge filed by the union claiming district officials "reneged" on a tentative agreement offering teachers a 6 percent raise.

To find out more, go to: http://unitedteachersofrichmond.com/

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Media coverage of DVC cash-and-sex-for-grades story

Here's what KGO-TV (channel 7) aired June 12:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=local&id=5390090

KTVU Channel 2:

http://www.ktvu.com/video/13489749/index.html

& Brother Krupnick's piece for yesterday's _CoCo Times_ (don't miss the reader comments!):

http://www.contracostatimes.com/centralcontracosta/ci_6121030.

The Associated Press picked up the story, here presented at the S.F. Chronicle's site:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/12/state/n170232D22.DTL&hw=dvc&sn=001&sc=1000

We'll update this post as new reports come in.

Upheaval at Northgate High, Walnut Creek

Last week over a hundred Northgate students rallied in front of their school, protesting the impending flight of up to a third of their teachers, the result of the grim contract faculty currently teach under and the state of ongoing negotiations between the Mt Diablo Unified School District and the teachers' union. According to an article in the CoCo Times, 24 teachers are expected to leave at the end of the current school year, including six of the eleven full-time math teachers. At the crux of negotiations is the degree to which the district will take on medical insurance costs (faculty having bargained away medical coverage several years ago).

Read the entire article at

http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_6075561

Managerial changes at Diablo Valley College

Today's announcement (in the form of an email from VP Terry Shoaff with the subject line "Announcement") that DVC VP of Institutional Advancement Terry Shoaff is leaving to take a job as VP at the Contra Costa Council continues the stream of managers leaving the college. Arguably, this stream started with VP Francisco Arce's trickling out in late 2003, but reached full force once Mark Edelstein retired or was promoted to New Hampshire. Since then we've seen Carole Maga's leap to Contra Costa; we've seen Sandra Holman-Trujillo hustle out just ahead of the news stories about the grade scandal; we've seen just since the hiring of Judith Walters as our new president the announced departures of VP Alice Murillo (to a vice-chancellorship! good work DOES get rewarded!) and now Terry Shoaff, who joins his long-time partner Cheryl LeMay (herself removed from her leadership at San Ramon) as a VP for the Contra Costa Council.

One thing to consider is that most of the major players in the imposition of the unwanted division dean structure are now gone. Edelstein and Maga were hearty proponents of that shift in division governance; Murillo was a stalwart supporter of the structure; Shoaff and Holman-Trujillo did nothing to advance faculty interests in this sad period marked by increased hierarchical and closed-door decision-making.

If none of the active or passive proponents of that radical restructuring remain, perhaps it's time for those of us who continue on--the faculty and staff who represent the permanent workforce of the college--to recreate the organizational structure as we wish. NOTHING could be more conducive to the restoration of our morale than to resume governing control of our academic divisions.
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Read about the Contra Costa Council at
http://www.contracostacouncil.com/

California Nurses Association joins AFL-CIO

Late last month the CNA joined ten other nurses unions across the country in the AFL-CIO after twelve years as an independent union. CNA rejoined on the condition of the Federation endorsing single-payer health care in the United States.

Would the faculty of the Contra Costa Community College District have more political pull as part of a larger organization? Hopefully that will be part of the discussion next time we talk about affiliation.

AP: Domesticated elephant kills 2 handlers in Vietnam, official says

May 21, 2007
Associated Press

Vietnam — A domesticated elephant killed two handlers in northern Vietnam apparently after being forced to work without eating, an official said Monday.

Read the whole story at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4821430.html
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I mean, twenty years old, one tusk, & they ask him to haul the frakking trees without breakfast?!