RETIREES

A plan to recollect AFT 1493 history

by Rich Yurman, Skyline College professor emeritus

I began teaching at Skyline in Fall 1969 when the college opened and I retired in June 1993.  This June I will have been retired for 24 years.  A nice bit of symmetry.  However, as I keep seeing in the District’s Retirees Newsletter, most of my colleagues from Skyline’s early years have left this world and a large portion of the survivors have long since scattered around the country.

When I set out to write an obituary for my close friend Joyce Unger (which was published in the last issue of The Advocate), I realized how much I have already forgotten of the details of our battle to get AFT 1493 certified as bargaining agent for the SMCCD.

This motivated a search through the scattered papers I’ve still retained from those days.  The more I recalled the more I recognized the gaps in the story that I could not fill in.  And this is a story that needs to be recorded as part of the institutional memory of the Union and the District.

So I have resolved to dredge up as much as I can on my end and publish that in installments in the upcoming issues of The Advocate, which I hope will spur others to send details that I’ve missed, make corrections to my faded memories or outright contradict them.  The ultimate goal is to present as accurate a version as possible by next Fall.

In the meantime I invite anyone who feels as I do about this history to send me their recollections now via email.

Thanks,
Rich Yurman
ryurman@newsguy.com