Sweeping Siblinghood of Sanctified Scribes

The rent seams within the labor movement, in the aftermath of the AFL-CIO convention, clouds our view of organized labor’s efficacy as an instrument in furthering the cause of workers. One hopes that the squabble within the family does not take on a vicious Corsican cycle of revenge and retribution, though if it does, it would not come as a big surprise. Common imagination and popular celluloid portrayals sees Union upper echelons staffed with brawny rather than brainy personnel.

Early on, we were poised to assist our BOE Teachers Rep. Ambrose Bennett to structure collective bargaining between teachers and administrators within the PSS, but the effort fell on the wayside for reasons totally unrelated to the substance and essence of the effort. Now, the effectiveness of teachers’ representation is being raised.

Tonight, members of the Association of Commonwealth Teachers gathers to map out how they can be significant players within the PSS family, without being caught in Mr. Bennett’s spun web. ACT aims to assert its thinking and presence not only in the teacher-administration dialogue on personnel and certification matters, but more importantly, in the continuing design of appropriate curriculum and the honing of effective pedagogical methods and discipline.

This musing, however, is not to start a stirring rendition of “Which Side Are You On?” to recruit members to a Teachers’ Union, or (Heavens forbid!) a Government Employees Union. It was actually triggered by one who my brother would call a member of the “Contented College of Certified Clerks.”

I encountered a male cashier at the Saipan BMV office one Thursday afternoon last month. He balanced his till 15 minutes ahead of the closing time. I needed a receipt for an incident report prepared by the Bureau. After pointing out that all the clocks in the Bureau are still within 10 minutes to the appointed closing time, the cashier bellowed: “If you have a problem, complain to the governor.” I retold the incident to friends and invariably, I was advised to write about it because the experience in varying forms seems to be universally shared.

A similar incident at the Department of Labor was explained to me this way. The Finance Department computers are programmed to automatically cease operation at an appointed time. Their setting is not calibrated to common time. Maybe so, but being a revenue receiving office, it would seem sensible to err on the side of accommodating 11th hour clients rather than cutting them off at the pass. If paying customers are eager to part with their dineros, the receiving government agent should be equally glad to receive them. But then, that would be rational, and as my lawyer friend in Tinian is fond of exclaiming, that is not part of our culture!

Clerks. Certified Clerks. I call them “scribes,” as in the biblical “Scribes and Pharisees.” Regardless of nationality, they are an officious lot, unyielding and inflexible, some even given to not so subtle insults on the beholden clientele when confronted with slight ambiguities. I seem to have met more of this last type in Immigration offices around the world.

I remember crossing into North Dakota from Saskatchewan in the late ‘70s. My wife and eldest daughter carried U.S. passports. Canuck-born youngest daughter had red maple leaf documents. I traveled with a Pasaporte Pilipinas. The officer asked in front of my wife and children: “Sir, did you marry your wife so that you can stay in this country?” Unflinching, I looked him straight in the eye and replied, “Yes!” End of irrelevant interview!

It did not matter that I had long qualified to become a U.S. citizen. A decade later, I would be detained in Honolulu, allegedly for fitting the profile of a possible Muslim terrorist. I was readying a pre-service training for Peace Corps volunteers going to Muslim Mindanao, so I traveled with reading materials from and pertaining to the region. “Sir, it is unusual for a person of Philippine descent to qualify as a U.S. citizen and not apply. We had to check carefully to ensure that your documents are in order,” I was told. Polite save!

A younger brother’s experience was not as benign. He had denials for a U.S. visitor’s visa from Glasgow to Hong Kong, Santiago to Kingston, Rome to Rio de Janeiro, just because he qualified to be an immigrant as an unmarried child of U.S. citizens. He had not applied to migrate, only to attend professional conferences. But because he could apply to immigrate while visiting, the officers did not wish him to circumvent established procedures. When he finally applied, he could not travel to see our parents for more than five years.

Two months ago, an acquaintance at DOLI processed my house helper’s papers. We locked horns early part of my service in Saipan, but had gotten to be civil to each other since. But true to form, he did not hesitate to ask if I was “sponsoring my maid so that she could stay in the Commonwealth.” I could have said, “Yes,” to end the conversation but I decided to just smile. That worked as well. But it was clear that his comments were meant to intimidate and offend.

While living in Majuro in the early ‘80s, each time I returned from an off-island trip, my entry would be made difficult by an immigration officer bent on checking every provision of law to ensure compliance. Holding a U.S. green card did not help. At the time, the RMI was flexing its muscles re Uncle Sam in the Compact negotiations. Also, the fact that Filipino workers from Nauru were lining up to move to the Marshall Islands at first chance, even marrying their ladies, might have contributed to this picky-ness over the color of my passport. I was convinced then that there really might be a sweeping siblinghood of sanctimonious scribes around the world, and most worked for immigration offices.

But there is not such brotherhood. Still, they seem to exercise similar traits around the world. Do CNMI teachers, and government employees, need an organized presence to further their interests? Those who believe so had better get their structures in place, their thoughts gathered, and their membership aligned. Just as long as it does not tread the path of the Siblinghood of Sanctimonious Scribes, we wish the ACT well!

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Vergara is a Social Studies 6th grade teacher at San Vicente Elementary School