In September 1979, the Hudson County Community College Commission (HCCCC) hired its first full-time faculty. HCCCC had been established a few years earlier as a college, whose mission was to place students at other local colleges, Stevens Tech, St. Peter’s College, and Jersey City State (now NJCU), for study toward Associate’s Degree Programs, all at the discounted HCCCC tuition rate. Then, as now, many students needed developmental education and ESL, and this had been handled by contractual arrangements with either St. Peter’s or Essex County College. During the previous summer, the contract talks fell through, and HCCCC scrambled in mid-August to assemble its own developmental-ESL faculty for the approaching Academic Year. I was teaching as an adjunct that summer and was taken on, along with about a dozen others, on a temporary one year contract. I couldn’t have known then that most of this core group would become decades-long colleagues and some of my best friends. 

We all worked together at HCCCC’s one Jersey City building at 2737 Kennedy Blvd., half a block down from the VIP Diner. We had 5 classrooms, a group office with a ditto machine, and shared desks. We were often reminded that we were on a one-year contract, and that we would be wise to be “seen but not heard.” We were also informed that because of Hudson’s Commission status (the 4th C), we were not covered by N.J. Statutory Code -tenure, state-sponsored benefits, pension plan - all these applied to faculty at the state and county Colleges, but not us. Still, it was a good teaching job and we enjoyed a merry camaraderie. 

Our little office brimmed over with jokes, puns, stories and laughs. Our contract was extended, and we received generous annual raises, comparable to the faculties at the other county colleges? most of them unionized and represented by the NJEA. About 3 years in, after HCCC was recognized by the state as a bona fide college, we were all surprised to receive a promotion from Instructor to Assistant Professor and a corresponding increase. It wasn’t something we had asked for - but was given as a token of appreciation from the college president. 

Our president in those first years was a courtly man with sufficient academic credentials to sit with his peers on statewide presidential committees. He owned racehorses, and his initiative to develop the Culinary Arts Institute was founded to supply chefs and other professionally trained staff to the Pegasus restaurant at the Meadowlands Racetrack and to nearby hotels. We didn’t see much of him because the administrative offices were far north of 2737, on Tonnelle Avenue and 86th Street in North Bergen. But he would visit us every Spring for a pep talk. Apart from handshakes and hellos, we were reminded to keep quiet. I remember at the end of one such session, the President looked the room over and asked, “Any questions?” Slowly, very slowly, one of us raised a hand. Time stood still. The President stiffened his jaw and with a stern half-nod, bid him speak. “So, who do you like in the Derby?” to relief all around. 

When the President retired, a new administrative team swept in, led by county political insiders. Their leadership was heavy-handed, and seemed to us little concerned with the educational mission of the college. Thus began a three-year battle with the NJ Department of Higher Education over the college’s charter and accreditation. As a united faculty of about 15, we reached out to the NJ Chancellor of Higher Education in a successful effort to demonstrate that, despite the dubious character of HCCC’s administrative leadership, the faculty was legit and our students fully deserving of the education we worked to provide. We also spoke out on college policy -though we had no recognized role in governance - and unsurprisingly became the target of harassment and threats. When the administration announced major cutbacks in ESL classes and the planned termination of the full-time ESL instructors, we protested, resulting in an announcement of impending across-the-board firings, with all faculty, counselors, and others receiving pink slips. 

Now what was especially interesting was that many of us had worked as full-time faculty for five years or more, long enough to be tenured by NJ statute. It was time to find out - were we protected by the state code, even when the college had always insisted otherwise? I offered to call the NJEA, which eagerly agreed to research the matter for us. I arranged for a clandestine meeting with a Union rep at an “undisclosed location,” picking Jersey City’s classic Miss America Diner on West Side Avenue below the Jersey City State campus. Walking into the Miss America, I felt like I had stepped into a John LeCarre novel, but instead of caviar, blini, and vodka, we were soon sitting over chicken salad sandwiches and rice pudding, as I recall. The NJEA Rep assured me that legal research had turned up no “commission” exception - that by statute those of us with 5 years of full-time service were already tenured in the eyes of the state, and that the NJEA would go to bat for all of us if we faced retaliatory actions. 

From this point, the decision to organize the faculty as an NJEA unit was an easy one and went smoothly. The college didn’t fight our organizing effort - no surprise there, since county politics was accustomed to working hand-in-hand with union rank and file. Within months, the HCCC Professional Association was negotiating our first collective bargaining agreement.