|
December 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3 - Report from the Anaheim Mariott |
 |
 |
 |
By Martin M. Goldstein
We received a report the other day from a source we have code named Big Momma for reasons best kept out of print. It came in the usual manner, in an envelope left clipped under the windshield wiper of my car while parked in the SMC parking lot, much like a ticket. I think she knows my schedule better than I do.
Please note that it’s not just the insider nature of this source that compels us to keep her true identity secret -- we simply don’t know who she, or he, is. We believe the source to be a woman based on the personna "she" projects, but that, of course, might only be a ruse to throw us off. It matters not, since the information she provides has proved both true and valuable, and we are happy to respect the privacy of the source, as well as shade ourselves a bit from libel suits. Her report is as follows:
“Compelled as much by curiosity as a neurotic need to work on a Saturday, I attended an event on November 20 that related specifically to your college, and I thought you might appreciate my notes on it. It was the CCC Leadership Conference down in Anaheim, where I wandered into a panel on Relations with Employee Organizations: Building Bridges Over Troubled Waters. Given your current and past relationships with Piedad Robertson, Robert Sammis, Margaret Quinones, and Larry Frierson, I though you might appreciate the fact that they were the ones giving the panel.
“Before you get apoplectic, let me tell you Piedad didn’t show. Frierson made the announcement about her taking this other wonderful job, so the whole thing was like Christmas without the fruitcake, so to speak, given that the president had quit, leaving these second-stringers to fill out some air time.
“And fill it they did, with talk of honesty and building trust and not hiding money, and the necessity of taking the high road,' and 'treating employees with dignity.' Again, take a deep breath as I tell you that most of those in attendance where classified folks and they knew the truth through their network with your CSEA people. They were pitching a management pitch to a bunch of union people, and needless to say they weren’t buying it.
“Finally, after one unctuous Frierson comment too many, this frizzy haired woman shot up and asked Frierson, if they were so much into good faith, why did they have him, a hired gun, at the negotiating table both last negotiation and this one? Nobody else does that, she said, because it immediately creates bad faith before you even begin.
“Well, Frierson had no answer for that, and given what he charges your district, I shouldn’t wonder. Then another union person asked them all, finally, what were their positive ideas? What, exactly, were the bridges they were building over these obviously troubled waters? When that didn’t get an answer either, I walked out.”
|
|
|
|
