by Doug Collins

illustration by Dick Lande

The Free Press

Willene Goodwin, a part-time instructor and faculty union member at the Community Colleges of Spokane, received written notice on Christmas Eve that she had been dropped from the roster for the winter quarter beginning in January. The notice did not state a reason for not rehiring Goodwin, who had been teaching there for eight years. Goodwin's job loss comes after months of troubles with her supervisor, Geri Swope, who also happens to be a member of the same faculty union. Goodwin currently has given up even asking her union for help. "It's no use, they've dumped me."

This strange circumstance in which Goodwin's immediate boss is also supposed to be her union "sister" is common in many community colleges around the state.

Current union president Ron Merchant of the Association of Higher Education (a Spokane-area affiliate of the Washington Education Association) says that the union will "probably not" represent Goodwin. He remarks of Goodwin's job loss: "It's no breach of contract. That's one of the sad things about the union contracts in the state of Washington. They [part-timers] have no rehire rights." Merchant is quick to admit that such contracts create a ludicrous situation in which the union will represent a part-timer on academic freedom issues, but won't represent a part-timer if he or she simply isn't rehired the next quarter. Although they pay the union dues, most part-time union college teachers receive zero job security. In contrast, full-time college teachers, in accordance with state law, typically have tenured positions with excellent job security.

Goodwin's troubles began in July after she organized a hasty safety meeting for evening teachers, in response to threats of violence that had just been received by some students from off-campus acquaintances. The next day, according to Goodwin, her supervisor Geri Swope told her that she had no right holding a meeting without Swope being present.

Swope, a department chair, is in charge of making class schedules and recommending part-timers for hiring and rehiring. In the following autumn quarter, Swope shifted Goodwin out of the adult education classes that she had been happily teaching for eight years, and placed her in a job reading poetry to inmates at the Spokane County Jail. Goodwin accepted this assignment, but with the loss of an extra $1,100 per quarter stipend she had received in her former job.

But now Goodwin is completely jobless. Swope's own sister, Gloria Garner, now takes Goodwin's place in the adult education classes.

Goodwin at the time contacted then union president, Richard Cox, and asked him for help concerning the treatment. "He told me...since the reprimand came from department chair Swope, who the union also represents, he felt uneasy to do this." In a November 23 article in the Spokane Spokesman-Review by reporter Grayden Jones, Cox stated that the union had "no course of action in this case."

But Goodwin is not without some allies. One of her former students, Sunad Wavada, complained in the Spokesman-Review article that attendance in Goodwin's former class has gone way down. "In Willene's class, we couldn't find a chair to sit....Now there's ten people some nights. I'm thinking that I don't want to go to school anymore."

The article also quotes Swope commenting about Goodwin: "The woman is lucky she hasn't been fired."

As for the hiring of Swope's sister to replace Goodwin, Swope's boss - associate dean Sally Grabicki - said, "I don't have any problem with people being related as long as they do the job."

Union president Merchant also doesn't plan to pursue any charges of nepotism. He points out that Swope's sister, Gloria Garner, is a full-time instructor in another division, and according to the Spokane union contract, full-time faculty have preference for taking on additional part-time jobs, even if that means bumping a part-timer out of her position.

Merchant denies that there is a conflict of interest in the union, where some union instructors have a large degree of scheduling control over others in the workplace. Merchant himself coordinates a "Learning Center" in which he schedules faculty and tutors. Instead, he believes that Goodwin's problem is her unwillingness to change her teaching to fit curriculum changes in her department, which he says is beginning to include more mathematics. "Goodwin is not as well qualified as Garner, and she didn't take the initiative to become qualified."

Still, Merchant acknowledges that if Goodwin was a full-timer, she would probably be getting some union help. "If it was a tenured position, we probably would be supporting her in this, but administration also would have been more careful to have better documentation." Merchant says that the curriculum changes that Goodwin allegedly wasn't fulfilling have not been heavily documented by Goodwin's bosses.

Goodwin says that she is interested in looking further into possible nepotism issues in the college, but "I'm not getting any help from the union, so that cuts off my resources." On December 16, Goodwin spoke before the board of trustees of the Community Colleges of Spokane and asked them to take action. Goodwin contends that supervisors cannot objectively evaluate and recommend their own family members for employment.

Part-timers comprise roughly three out of four college faculty, according to figures from the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. However, they are lucky to have even token representation in the leadership of the teachers unions. Merchant says that his Spokane union local has only one part-timer on its executive board of eleven (that part-timer was, surprise, Goodwin herself). Another local, the Seattle Community College Federation of Teachers, likewise has only one executive board position normally held by a part-timer.

Poor representation in unions translates into lingering poor working conditions for part-time instructors. Part-time positions have a much lower hourly equivalent pay rate than full-time positions. As for benefits, roughly five out of six part-time instructors receive no medical benefits in Washington, and seven out of eight receive no retirement. Most are supposedly "protected" by union contracts.

The writer of this article is himself a part-time college instructor. For more info on part-time college instructor issues, leave your name and number at the Free Press message line at WAfreepress@gmail.com.

[Home] [This Issue's Directory] [WFP Index] [WFP Back Issues] [E-Mail WFP]

---

Contents this page were published in the January/February, 1998 edition of the Washington Free Press.
WFP, 1463 E. Republican #178, Seattle, WA -USA, 98112. -- WAfreepress@gmail.com
Copyright © 1998 WFP Collective, Inc.