A letter I wrote...

This letter is written in response to an e-mail from Dodie Bump, current president of the Pomona Alumni Association, to all Pomona College alumni.  Her letter (pasted below) is in response to the December firings of 17 college employees for incomplete work authorization forms and to the ongoing unionization efforts of dining hall workers at Pomona College.  I sent it to her moments before I posted it here, and I'll post any response I receive (not holding my breath).  If you'd like to know more about what's happened so far at Pomona please reach out and I'd be happy to fill you in or send some resources your way.  The short version: it's tragic, and pretty despicable.



Ms. Bump,

Thanks for taking the time to write out a thoughtful letter about the work authorization issues at Pomona.  I appreciate you sharing your perspective on the matter, and in return I'd like to offer mine.

I began organizing with Workers for Justice on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 just two days before the campaign launched publicly.  On the morning of March 1st, a procession of workers and student supporters marched into President Oxtoby's office to deliver petitions signed by over 90% of workers asking for management neutrality in unionization proceedings.

For the next three semesters I spent anywhere from five to 50 hours a week organizing students, canvassing dorms, writing articles, generating print media, being interviewed, editing videos, talking with workers, connecting with local newspapers for coverage, training new student-organizers, soliciting signatures for petitions, speaking with faculty, leading and participating in student organizing meetings, and lending support to workers in whatever ways possible.  I was in the thick of it!

For months I struggled with the question of my own participation in the Workers for Justice campaign.  I wondered especially about our tactics and our message.  We spent much of our time trying to tell the story that Pomona was running an active anti-union campaign, and that the proof was in their actions.  Lots of people listened to that story and found it convincing.  That story was the reason why we were able to locate and retain so many strong student-organizers and supporters.

That story also upset a lot of people including students, faculty, alumni, trustees and administrators who didn't want to believe that the college would fight its own workers.  The vast majority of the college community did not buy into the anti-union story.

I had my own reservations as well.  Four or five times I was totally convinced that it was time for me to leave the campaign.  I would hear plenty of testimony from workers about anti-union practice, but then I'd meet with President Oxtoby or speak with a member of the faculty and begin to doubt what I thought I knew about the college's intent.

I could never completely convince myself of the story we were telling.  I felt that we were chasing a red herring.  What I've come to believe is that we were always in the right, and just telling the wrong story.

The final time I almost quit the campaign was in November, 2010.  That month few dozen pro-union students and I attended a forum held by Karen Sisson, Pomona's Vice President and Treasurer.  Ms. Sisson was there to explain the college's decision to terminate their contract with Sodexo, the food service management company, and move to in-house management.  We grilled Ms. Sisson, but she insisted that the decision had nothing to do with unionization efforts.  She claimed that the switch would actually lessen tensions surrounding unionization because new managers would be more accountable to the college administration than Sodexo's managers had been.  We worried that the opposite would occur, that increased accountability would mean stronger anti-union measures.

When the switch happened in January almost immediately workers reported heightened workplace hostility.  Instances included intimidating one-on-one meetings, demands that workers remove pro-union buttons, and new rules that prevented workers from speaking with students in certain situations.

That same month the college fired Maria Garcia.  Ms. Garcia never received proper treatment for a knee injury she sustained on the job several years earlier, and as the injury worsened during her most recent pregnancy she could no longer properly do her job.  She was terminated one year to the date that she stopped working.  Ms. Garcia was one of the most strongly pro-union workers and a member of the worker negotiating committee, a group of four workers who met several times with the college, all in vain, to work out an agreement for a union vote.  This past summer the college fired Francisco Garcia following crippling work-related back injury, one that the college falsely claimed occurred during his break time.  Francisco was also strongly pro-union and a member of the worker negotiating committee.

Later in January we invited labor expert Gordon Lafer to visit campus to explain some of the issues surrounding unionization.  Lafer described the college's actions as "cookie cutter anti-union" tactics, and as "straight out of management textbooks for union busting."  You could ask whether or not he had a stake in painting the college a certain way, but know that he did not receive any additional payment for his visit beyond the cost of his plane ticket.  Here you can find clips from his visit, including his take on management neutrality:

http://www.youtube.com/user/poworkersforjustice?feature=watch

Dr. Lafter illustrated all the nuances and flaws of labor law, decoded much of the college's behavior, and explained clearly and simply the logic of what workers were asking for and why.  He indicated that the college's actions did not occur in a vacuum, but actually fit firmly into the context how labor struggles have played out historically and how they continue to play out at institutions of higher education and in other industries.

Dr. Lafer told the same anti-union story as we did, only much better.  But he also told another story: the story of patterns.  He told a story of how puzzle pieces fit together, and how if you connect the dots you might see something that you didn't see before.

Given all of the above, and given that the 17 employees fired in December were almost exclusively dining hall workers, including several leaders in the union effort and at least one member of the worker negotiating committee, it's important that we recognize emergent patterns and ask why they continue to surface.

The dots I've connected here might suggest that the college has been working actively to defeat unionization.  I think there's a strong argument for that case and I would never argue against it.  But my purpose in writing is not to read minds or to decipher intent.  My purpose is not to convince you that Pomona college or any of its employees hold anti-union views.  I don't need to tell that story to believe something is wrong.

The story I want to tell is this: intent is irrelevant when the results of that intent paint an unambiguous pattern of systemic bias.

Something is wrong with how the college is set up with respect to workers.  They know it better than anyone.  Since the first day of campaigning, workers have always spoken about "voice."  In my time organizing, workers always emphasized that wages, benefits, hours and workplace conditions were always secondary to a much more basic problem: the need for a forum to speak out, to negotiate, to ask for change and if necessary to demand it.  Workers who want a union want it because they believe it will provide those things.  They want it enough to fight for it for two years.  They want it enough not to back down despite all the harm that's come to their friends, co-workers, and themselves.

We can point to problematic national immigration laws to explain why 17 people lost their jobs in December.  We can talk about larger systems of power and control.  Pomona people are really good at seeing the big picture, and there are absolutely pieces of that picture that need fixing.

But if we want to talk about solutions it's important that we narrow our view.  We should not resign ourselves to believing that immigration reform is the only salvation to the tragedy that continues to unfold on our campus.  Workers have another answer, and they've been sharing it since March 1st, 2010.

We may be witnessing active union busting at Pomona.  We may be witnessing the tragedy that sometimes occurs when international politics hit the ground.  We may be witnessing systemic bias in the college that silences workers.  We may be witnessing all three.  Whatever the problem's source, the solution is the same: the college must agree to remain fully neutral in all matters related to unionization so that workers have the ability to create a solution on their own terms.

Ms. Bump, if you maintain your faith in the college's good intentions then I hope you'll acknowledge that even the best of intentions can create bias that harms workers.  I believe that to be so, and I believe it's crucial to minimize that bias as much as possible.  That's the point of full management neutrality: to prevent unintended harm, to minimize the power of suggestion that an employer has over an employee, to avoid crossed signals, ambiguity and conflict.

(The request for full management neutrality is nothing new, and is in fact quite common in union negotiations across all industries.  Dr. Lafer himself has written a helpful piece on the subject, and a summary is available here: http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/publications/general/neither-free-nor-fair.html)

I resonate with your desire to move forward and to begin a healing process.  As you continue in your role as President of the Alumni Association and on the Board of Trustees I'd encourage you to be vigilant to the nature of the issues facing workers at Pomona.  I'd encourage you to listen to workers' stories, to hear their requests for labor peace, and to learn as much as you can about labor law and its nuances.  I'd encourage you to help the college move forward by lending your voice to the need for full management neutrality.  Allowing for a fair process for unionization appears to be the best way to work towards a solution that's both ongoing and aligned with the desires of workers.

In the meantime I have advised all of my friends, family, and acquaintances to withhold all giving to Pomona College until the administration rehires all 17 terminated employees and until workers reach a labor peace agreement with the college that allows for a fair process for unionization.

Regards,

Sam Gordon

Class of 2011

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

February 17th, 2012

Dear fellow alumni,

It has been with great concern, regret and frustration that I have watched the work authorization issue unfold at Pomona over these past few months. Like many of you, I learned of this situation and its horrible ramifications late last year. I was shocked and saddened to hear of the impact on our community, and most especially on the 17 affected workers. As president of the Pomona College Alumni Association for 2011-2012, I am a non-voting member of the Board of Trustees for a year. That has given me a unique perspective on this situation, and for what they're worth, I'd like to share my impressions and observations.

I won't belabor the facts, but rather encourage you to read the very thoughtful and thorough analysis recently posted by Jennifer Wilcox, the Young Alumni Trustee, on Pomona’s Facebook page. You can find it at http://ow.ly/966lj. She explains the what and the why of what occurred far more clearly than I can. So instead of retelling that painful story, I want to talk about the connections that many inside and outside the College have been making between those events and the ongoing effort among some of Pomona’s dining employees to unionize.

The Trustees and President Oxtoby's administration have viewed the worker documentation issue and that of the unionization effort as entirely separate. To some, I know, that may seem disingenuous. There is no proof I can offer you, but I can tell you that I firmly believe that the timing was truly a tragic coincidence. Even if you start with the premise that the College is anti-union—a premise that, from my own interactions with the people involved, I believe to be completely incorrect—this would be a terribly self-damaging way to go about it. To be blunt, as an anti-union tactic, this would have been pretty stupid.

Personally, I would love to see the dining employees have the opportunity to vote on whether they want a union—and the sooner the better—but by law, the College can’t initiate that vote. The union has to do it by collecting cards and petitioning the NLRB. Before the work authorization problems intervened, there had actually been some progress. Both sides have agreed to a secret NLRB ballot, and there had been a lot of give and take concerning the rest of the process. The union organizers are insisting on “full neutrality,” which would mean that no one in management could talk about unionization or even answer questions about it for a period of months or years, until the union decided to call for a vote. You can imagine how difficult it is for a college to silence free speech, but the College had offered neutrality during the card-collection process and during the 24-48 hours before the vote and promised not to conduct an anti-union campaign or delay the vote. The process had stalled, but now it has been derailed by these events. (If you want to know more about the unionization effort, I would urge you to visit www.pomona.edu/unionization.)

I wish there were a way we could undo all that has happened, but we can't. It may be a cliché, but we need to begin the healing process and move past personal attacks and mistrust of motives and take a hard look at ourselves. Does the process for handling "whistle-blower" complaints need to be changed? What should be done to enhance communication between the Trustees and employees, students, faculty and alumni? How can Pomona take a leadership role in furthering the national debate about immigration reform?

There are many trustees, staff, faculty and students working on these issues, and I, for one, hope that in the long term, we can all learn from these sad events and become part of the solution. Ultimately, you must make up your own mind as to how you feel about the College's actions, but please know that they were taken with great pain and concern for all involved. I welcome your thoughts on these issues, if you would like to share them.

Best,

Dodie Bump ’76
Pomona College Alumni Association President

Teaching to Learn, Part 3: Rendering Visible the Invisible

I've been struggling with this entry for some time.  In my last entry I wrote about acculturation, the idea that many students in New Orleans are learning a different set of cultural norms at school than at home.  I ended that entry with the question: "whose line are they falling into?" with every intent of interrogating that question with this entry, which I began shortly after I finished the last one.  I wanted to write about the possible long-term consequences of acclimating students to white middle-class culture and about the specific ways that young, white out-of-town educators were moving that process along.  I still want to write something about that, but the last two months have both nuanced and confused my views on the topic.  I'm going to try to sort it out in the next couple of weeks (probably not until after Mardi Gras), but in the meantime here's my attempt to stop this blog from withering and dying.


"Can I go use it?"


I can't remember the first time a student said it to me, but I do remember a long puzzled feeling followed by a wave of recognition.  My thought process went something like this: "What?  What's "it?"  Oh!  The bathroom.  You need to pee.  You're asking me if you can go pee.  Yes, please go pee."  I'm not sure who was more confused: I who had just learned an idiom or my student whose simple request I had met with a blank stare.


I like to think I've been pretty good about picking up phrases.  "Boo koo" means "a lot," like the French "beaucoup."  "Big ole" means "large," like "big old."  "Ti" is short for "auntie," "pops" means "grandpa" not "dad," and "makin' 7" means "to turn 7 years old."


Little bits of dialect like these are some of the easier things I've had to learn.  They're simple, visible, repeated often, and my students are always willing to explain gently when Mr. Sam looks like an armadillo in the headlights.


It's the invisible parts that give me trouble, the times that my students say things that go over my head or act in a way that I completely misunderstand.  I'm sure it goes both ways, that I say and do things that seem foreign to them or that they misinterpret.  We do speak different dialects, but spoken language is only one way that we at times fail to understand each other because of our cultural backgrounds.


Educator, scholar and author Lisa Delpit enumerates some of the challenges of cross-cultural education, the kind that's occurring in mine and other schools throughout New Orleans and across the United States.  There's a laundry list of examples she presents related to language, narrative style, skill acquisition and so forth, all of which I'm going to oversimplify into a single obvious thought for the sake of space and because I'm only on page 63 of her book Other People's Children: people from different cultures see the world differently.  Delpit offers example after example of teachers who misinterpret cultural differences or dialectical variations for student incomprehension, when really the student might be demonstrating a culturally specific type of fluency or skill and in fact it is the teacher who does not comprehend.


This past Sunday I attended a wonderful workshop hosted by the New Teachers' Roundtable on cross-cultural education led by Lance Hill.  Hill led us in two activities that demonstrated some of the difficulty in cross-cultural education.


In the first he drew a glacier as a metaphor for understanding culture (below is my re-creation).  Like a glacier, cultures have certain codes and characteristics that are visible: music, clothing, language, rituals, traditions, foods, icons and so forth.  And like a glacier the real substance of cultures is what lies beneath: values, beliefs, aesthetics, narratives and histories, each of which connects to the visible aspects of culture.  "Often what happens in a cross-cultural setting," Hill explained, "is that the bottoms of glaciers, the invisible parts, will collide before the above-ground parts."  In other words, it's a challenge to identify the deep causes of cross-cultural conflicts.

Artist's rendition

It's difficult enough to notice and process the visible differences in another culture, and even more difficult to get at the invisible stuff resting beneath.  Harder still is to identify our own glaciers, to understand the codes and rules that dictate our own behavior, to interrogate what David Foster Wallace might call our "default setting."  In the second exercise Hill had us do just that: we split into threes and made a "Thanksgiving Rulebook," naming the set of unspoken rules at our families' Thanksgiving dinner.  We named rules such as "Everyone brings a dish," attached values to them such as "shared responsibility," then suggested rewards or punishments such as "disdain from family members."  My group wrote about five rules in 15 minutes and barely scratched the surface.


Hill then challenged us to think: how many rules could you think of for your classroom?  For your school?  For your workplace?  Like a foreign guest at your Thanksgiving meal, is it fair to expect your students to know all of these rules?  Have you even considered them, or how many there might be?  Can you imagine the psychological strain of constantly having to process and operate under cultural standards that aren't your own?


So one problem is this: teachers in multicultural classrooms are bound to screw up.  They'll have to make a lot of mistakes to learn about culturally appropriate ways of doing things if they desire to be effective at what they do.


Hill presents and even larger problem: teachers operate within the confines broad, non-local systems and their accompanying cultures: education, government, and philanthropic foundations.  Teachers have opportunities daily for cross-cultural practice and community accountability.  Not so for the people and institutions who decide curricula, who set educational standards, who allocate budgets and who award grants.  It's next to impossible to finesse a cultural gap in New Orleans if you're:


a. Living in Washington, D.C., New York or even Baton Rouge
b. Not at all interested in doing so
c. Not even aware that it might be a thing worth doing


If the folks who set the agenda for education in New Orleans make no effort at cross-cultural understanding then some of that burden will fall on the handful of teachers willing and able to alert their students to the invisible rules and codes dictating their education.  The rest of the burden will fall upon the students, who already have a thousand and one other compulsory things to learn.


The question of how to operate in a cross-cultural classroom is still very new to me.  Lance Hill offered a couple of tidbits at the end of his workshop that I found helpful about how to work through such challenges.  First, the idea of "perceptual relativity," that no two people see the same event, idea, or experience in precisely the same way.  Second, to "stop, look and listen," that in order to process a cross-cultural experience it's best to exercise patience, observation, self-reflection, and engage in dialogue when possible.  He also noted that the longer it's been since the embarrassment, confusion, or tension of a cross-cultural experience, the more thoroughly you come to understand it.


To those I would add humility: the acknowledgment that there will always be far more that we don't know than what we do; the recognition that communicating with people and trying to understand people's meaning will always be a challenge with room for improvement; the acceptance onto ourselves of some of the culpability for misunderstanding, rather than seeing our own cultures as correct or as standard.


Rendering visible the invisible rules and codes of a culture requires educators to go beyond the curriculum, beyond planning lessons and managing behaviors.  It demands that teachers turn the pedagogical gaze on themselves and ask: who am I, culturally speaking?  Do I know all of the rules and expectations that govern my classroom, or just the obvious ones?  Have I made the less-obvious ones clear to my students?  Am I breaking any of their cultural rules?  Have I taken the time to process and reflect?


If it's not plain to see then let me make clear: this is bound to be hard work.