The Founding of AP:SOC - Cecile Baril’s Recollections


I think Bill Cornelius may indeed have been the first president [of AP:SOC] but I am not positive about it. He was in Political Science and was a very polite and gracious southerner. I certainly recall some road trips to Salem with him, one in which his car broke down near Sutherlin and we had to take a Greyhound Bus back into Ashland. The second term I was elected President and he was my “opponent” in the race, though not really an opponent in terms of goals. He was a little miffed that I had prepared and circulated a statement about my own goals for AP:SOC as part of the campaign and told me that he hadn’t realized we were supposed to be submitting “political platforms.” I remember feeling badly about it at the time.

I would argue a little with Herman’s statement about John Abernathy. Actually, John Finch, of economics, was one of the first organizers. John Abernathy, who was a friend of John Finch, had resisted getting too publicly involved. He was director of an institute that may have eventually evolved into SORSI. It was at the time gathering economic data and building indicators for the southern region. I believe it was through that institute that John had been working as a consultant/mediator in labor relations in the southern Oregon region and he didn’t want to be directly involved as an organizer of AP:SOC. He did, however, provide invaluable service to us when we were organizing. We had not yet affiliated with anyone, and in quiet meetings he walked us through the steps, informing us on what we would have to do, get ready for, expect in the future. He helped us identify the information we needed to “arm” ourselves with at some hearings that were held to determine whether we could in fact be unionized. I no longer recall why there were hearings and who were the hearing officers, but I do recall that we had a least one “dummy hearing” under his tutelage that was tremendously valuable. I also recall our feeling that the State attorneys had expected us to be totally clueless about the process and had come to the hearing themselves poorly prepared. Thus, our preparatory work resulted in our first victory.

I recall prior to all this one of the first debates we had as a faculty was whether or not we should be involved in collective bargaining because after all, we were professionals. At one of the early meetings, a suggestion had been made that that we should begin with a survey of the faculty, asking whether or not they would approve of organizing. I had been asked to take on that task, since I was a sociologist. I was then (and still am) a little suspicious of what we learn from surveys and thought the best survey for us to take was to actually have the campus election that was legally required for determining whether or not we would organize. We did this instead of starting with a survey; I do not recall what the specific outcome was in terms of percentages voting for and those opposed, but I believe it was a very strong vote in favor of organizing. After that vote was taken the hearing, mentioned above, occurred. The first hearing was held on campus, but I believe there was also another in Salem where I testified later. Somehow, though this is very vague in my mind at this point, the Oregon Public Employees Union. . .was testifying in opposition to us because they had wanted us to sign up with them. My testimony had to do with whether we would have anything unique as a campus to bargain for; OPEU arged it was statewide and there was nothing unique.

It was in the first year that we were wooed by OEA and AFT, and we decided to go with OEA (probably through an election as well, though I do not recall what was the driving force there).

In the first year of collective bargaining, the team consisted of myself, Rob [Carey], Dave [Hoffman], John [Finch], Ian [Couchman]and Dave Copping, initially, then replaced by Jerry Merchant, as chief negotiators]. It seems to me that [Ted} Huggins was a secretary for us, and he took notes at all the bargaining sessions so we could focus on listening; his notes contained every detail that had been discussed. I couldn’t believe how thorough they were.

We tried very hard in the first year to get a collective bargaining process that more “collegial” and would involve both sides agreeing to principles (like professional development). Our proposal had been to have these “principles” be “ratified” by signatures on both sides with the details to be worked out by joint committees. We didn’t get to square one on that issue; the State wanted the traditional model; the state side had Bill Lemmon, Don Lewis, and Esby McGill (he kept using the phrase “a rose is a rose” to tell us if we wanted bargaining we would get bargaining and nothing less). (Lemmon might have occasionally brought an aide.) Dave Hoffman and I wrote a paper addressing those issues which we presented to the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

The year I was president (perhaps we had 2 year terms) we decided we needed to be prevented from having the right to strike and we organized a rather large group of people to converge on Salem and talk to legislators about it. We wanted binding arbitration that would come from our being legally unable to strike. Oddly enough, I recall more the process that day than what our specific demands or requests were. (A funny side story here: a large group of us, nervous about doing this lobbying work we knew nothing about, all climbed into an elevator along with a few other folks we didn’t know. After the elevator doors closed, Don Reynolds turned to face the crowd . . . and said, “I suppose you are all wondering why I have called you here this morning.” And we all looked at him, expectantly, waiting to be informed, until someone (one of the strangers) began to chuckle and we all broke into much needed hysterical laughter.

From my own perspective that day provided a major learning experience, and it was only after listening to legislators or their aides a great many times in several different offices that I began to get a feel for the kind of language we needed to use to put something together that would result in someone attaching a clause to some bill or another. I wish I could remember who [introduced the bill]. I only know for sure that it was NOT Lenn Hannon, though he had told us he was in favor of it. Finally, someone attached a clause to a bill in a subcommittee of which Lenn Hannon was a member. When the subcommittee met to vote on the bill, Lenn absented himself and we didn’t have the votes to get it to the floor.

Later we learned from Shirley Oas (who that year had some connection to someone from the OEA) that Lenn had absented himself just at the moment of the vote in order no avoid the embarrassment of having to vote against it, which was what the OEA wanted him to do. They did not understand our position at all, and having been unable to talk us out of it, had gone behind our backs to work on Hannon. It was a great betrayal, I thought, and as soon as we learned that, we disaffiliated from the OEA and became an independent bargaining unit. I wrote what I thought was a scathing letter to Hannon telling him I would do all in my power to end his term in office. You can see I was not successful at that. But we did get out from under the OEA.

I think Herman is right about the professional development funds; he suggested we increase it and we did. Also, it is the closest we came to achieving the “principles” notion of bargaining, as the funds were to be administered by a committee (the Professional Development Committee). When I was last on campus, Years ago already!!) that committee was still overseeing those funds.