This was a field trip to which I couldn't invite you. But it is very much a part of our studying distributive justice. On June 22, the California Faculty Association met at CSUDH for a bargaining meeting with representatives of the Chancellor's office. CFA invited CSUDH faculty to attend the open meeting.

We met in the President's Peace Room, which isn't called the Peace Room any more, but it was when I occupied the college in my first year here, and it will always be the Peace Room in my mind. (Dewey would relate this reminiscence to the intrinsic meaning of that earlier experience.) Perhaps all that colored my anticipation as I went this morning to observe the union bargaining process.

There was an accident on the freeway, and I was late in arriving. The bargaining team was rather larger than I had expected. The two teams fairly filled the Peace Room. There was neither coffee nor water on the sideboard. Strange. As best I recall, there was coffee when Vice President "Hoot" Gibson summoned me to the Peace Room that day so long ago. Me and that one little child who fell asleep on the floor, the one whose parents we couldn't find. I tried to remember how that bargaining turned out. We did get a child care center. Chalk that up as a win. Children matter!

As the bargaining began, Ed (CFA) began to ask Sam (CSU) how certain budget items were calculated. For example, how did CSU know how much to ask for in the salary budget for lecturers? How did the CSU know how many lecturers would qualify for SSIs? Sam (CSU) said that was estimated as 40% of lecturers. But how, asked Jane, I think, (of CFA), how did 40% enter the calculation? Weren't there many more lecturers now than in previous years?

That last question seemed to make the request for where that 40% had come from much clearer. It was, said Sam (CSU), historical. But how are you defining historical, Long Beach (CFA) wanted to know? Over five years? Ten years? Over the last four or five years. Well, actually, Sam didn't know, only John could answer that.

Who, I wondered, was John? Oh, he's on vacation.

Then George (CFA) wanted to know why the CPEC figures show that faculty have gained 28% in salary since 1991, when, in fact, they have not. I was a little confused by that. Wished I had the figures in front of me. But, nevermind. I was concerned to understand the process, not the figures. Sam (CSU) said that George was mistaken. How? asked George (CFA). Well, said Sam (CSU), every raise that was legislated was given. But there are faculty who leave, who retitre, they may not get the legislated raise. But if they were there continuously, they would have the raise. Hmm . . . Then why was George concerned that there seemed to be, what did he say, a $74 million dollar gap between money budgeted by the State for faculty salaries, and money actually going into faculty salaries? Hmm . . . You are mistaken, said Sam (CSU). But maybe only John knew.

I should have liked to have heard some specific figures, some identification between allocation and expenditure. This was beginning to sound like that half million dollar mistake Jackson made when he forgot to allocate budget for faculty benefits. Was there to be a, what was it, $430,000 loan from Fullerton here, too?

What, asked Jo (CFA), happened to salary savings? You know, Sam (CSU), the salary savings we used to calculate, asked Ed (CFA), or don't we do that anymore? No, we don't.

But what about money that is legislated for salaries but that isn't spent? asked CFA. Doesn't that go into rollover? CSU, we were told, must request rollover for monies that are not encumbered. Then, asked CFA, can you tell us what percentage of that rollover is in budgeted salary monies? No, once the savings is rolled over we can't identify its source. No one asked if John could. But I wondered.

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I would like to share some observations with you. First, there were very few CSUDH faculty present. Second, a budget meeting is a budget meeting is a budget meeting is very much like a bargaining meeting. I heard the exclamation several times, "But those figures are public information. You must have them!" No, not one of six Chancellor's representatives had them. Third, only WE (the collective, not the royal) can make a difference here.

After long discursive elaborations, "We don't know" was CSU's most frequent response. They had come completely unprepared, an offense more common in the academy these days. They didn't know reliably how budget amounts were calculated, traced, moved, and accounted for, even though the questions had been submitted in writing, and the meeting had been a planned meeting. John, apparently the only one who knew, was on vacation.

This was an aesthetic experience for me, professionalism distilled, an undertaking in which the very essence of my professional skills made of this experience what Dewey would call "an experience," set off from others to capture the intrinsic meaning of my professionalism. I ventured back into a space given heavy meaning by activism long ago. And I was included in a collegial effort to get answers to questions as simple as "How did you calculate this budget item? How much of that item was spent and where is the remainder? What will happen to that remainder? Is the remainder still budgeted for faculty salaries? We must get answers to those questions. Accountability. It will not do that only John knows.

There were no answers.

So what shall I say of this as a field trip? Was this a good way to spend my day? Yes! The CFA team does very well what we are professionally trained to do: question, research, make decisions in the interest of the academy as a whole. That's what made this an aesthetic experience. I was immersed in an event which typified all that we represent in the academy. In this is the unity a union comes to represent.