GIVING THEM THE BUSINESS
      Faculty Votes UFT in Gibbs School Show Down
By JACK SCHIERBENBECK

The old-school managers at Manhattan’s nearly century - old Katherine Gibbs School never got it until it was too late.

For years they’d pushed around the 180-member faculty at the one-time whiteglove finishing school for secretaries with a bullying disdain best summed up by one veteran Gibbs ’ instructor: " We’re going to do what we’re going to do. If you don’t like it, leave."

So what if your paychecks were always late and often short? So what if the weekly work load spiked 50 percent - from 20 to 30 classroom hours - without a nickel more money and without ever bothering to ask the teachers? So what if you were left hanging before every 11-week term not knowing whether you’d be teaching and what your schedule was? So what if your daily schedule is spread out from 1 o’clock in the afternoon to 11 o’clock at night? Too bad. What are you going to do about it? Join a union?

Exactly.

Gibbs ’ top brass were feeling pretty good about their chances when they gathered at the 40th Street midtown campus on May 21 to watch as the votes were counted. So confident, in fact, that the champagne was already on ice and the catered food delivered. And why not?

Hadn’t Gibbs and its parent company spent a million dollars hiring some of the top guns in the union-busting business, including Proskauer Rose, the city’s most notorious anti-union law firm? Hadn’t they showered the faculty with slick anti-union, anti -UFT literature and videos? Hadn’t they - in clear violation of federal labor law - doled out raises and promotions as a peace offering, even going so far as extending first-time-ever benefits to parttime instructors? Hadn’t they hired a new school president who was saying all the right things about turning over a new leaf?

Alas, as it turned out there would be no victory lap; the only thing popped that day were self-inflated egos. In a stunning upset, the faculty had voted 93 to 81 for a union: the United Federation of Teachers.

"I’m so proud of the eight teachers who formed the core of the organizing effort," said Howard Schoor, the UFT’s point man in the Gibbs campaign, who had helped mastermind the union’s successful organizing of United Cerebral Palsy workers last year. "They knew they were putting their livelihoods on the line. They stood up to the pressure, even when there were offers of promotions. It took real integrity and guts."

The feeling is mutual, said Gibbs instructor Robert Levine, one of the rebel ringleaders. "I can’t say enough about the union. They did everything they said they would do. Never once did they push us to do anything we didn’t want. Everything, from putting together a list of demands to how a memo was worded, was discussed and approved by us."

He had his doubts at first, Levine will tell you. In fact, a year ago, kind words for any union would have been the last thing out of the 39-year- o l d ’s mouth. Sure, like everyone else at Gibbs, he’d suffered his share of abuse. Sure, after eight years and with an NYU master’s degree, he was still only making $40,000. Outspoken, he’d been punished with a teaching schedule with two- and three-hour gaps between classes. But old habits die hard.

"I was trained by a very anti-union company, the Marriott Corporation," he said, trying to make sense of what now seems like another life. Besides, unions represented the barbarians at the gate, the very negation of everything he believed. After all, said Levine, "I do teach management."

But even company men have their limits. For Levine, the final straw came last fall when the school’s management announced that all full-time faculty would be made part-timers, with health benefits pared and the 401(k) match eliminated.

With their backs against the wall, Levine and a few others met to discuss what options they had. One thing led to another and a call went out to the UFT. The fight was on.

Joining Levine was Brenda Canty, a $38,000-a-year computer science instruct o r, who shared Levine’s doubts about unions. "Maybe, it was because of all the negative publicity," said Canty, "but over the years I avoided jobs that had unions."

No more. "Howie Schoor and the UFT were just fantastic," Canty said. "From the beginning they told us, ‘We do what you want. ’ They were straight with us. They said, ‘We can’t guarantee you anything. The only promise we make is to do our best.’"

Canty and the others soon learned, this union label came with no guarantee. Org anizing, they would find, is more than outwitting a deep-pocketed company, antiunion consultants and a clever public relations campaign.

"If management hadn’t intentionally set up the environment to keep us divided, it sure worked out that way," said Canty, pointing out that shift work meant you couldn’t get everyone together at the same time. Even if they could, she noted, there was no place to meet since the school’s only lounge was shared with students. Said Canty, "There was nowhere for teachers to congregate, to be able to sit down, talk about our shared problems and establish a trust." To make matters worse, she added, management had padded the voting rolls with new hires "who no one even knew their names."

Undeterred, the rebels methodically organized the ground war. Day and night, shift by shift, department by department, inside and outside the school, they quietly worked to turn co-workers - and, in some cases, strangers - into co-conspirators. Why quietly?

"Even though management was saying there would be no retaliation, you could tell a lot of people were scared of the repercussions if we lost," said Canty, who had heard that some teachers had been told that the company might sell or move the school if the union won. And that, at the very least, the rebel leaders would be marked men and women. That promotions, raises, work schedules - maybe, even their jobs - hung on the outcome of the vote.

"It was really nerve-wracking," said Canty, recalling the night of the fateful vote count. "You could tell management thought they’d won and for a while it looked like all the votes were no, no, no [against the union] ... But by the time they got to the bottom of the box, the votes were almost all yes, yes, yes... "I still have the paper I used to keep track of the vote. I’m not throwing it a way."