Union Leader Waged Battle on 2 Fronts

On a parching June night, Larry Miller returned to his Camarillo home and collapsed on his bed.

At first, he thought the shivering and cold sweats were a result of acute fatigue from hours spent negotiating with community college officials.

But when he saw blood in his urine, he knew something was wrong.

“I had a fever so bad I was shaking violently,” Miller, 59, recalled. “I have no idea how high it was. I took six Advils and saw my doctor the next day.”

A year of constant stress appeared to have finally taken its toll on the president of the Ventura County chapter of the California Federation of Teachers.

The 1,400 teachers and faculty members at the county’s three community colleges had been working without a labor contract for a year. Miller said he felt the responsibility of their happiness and well-being--and consequently the welfare of the district’s nearly 30,000 students--was squarely on his shoulders.

A military chaplain’s son who has always rebelled against authority, Miller found he couldn’t turn his back on the bitter contract negotiations that stretched 17 months.

His temper grew shorter, his criticism more biting, as he fought a dual battle: against the college administration and his own health problems.

It turned out the doctor’s prognosis would be grimmer than a case of fatigue.

Instead, the doctor found a tumor in Miller’s bladder and a swollen scrotum. He removed the tumor and part of the scrotum and ordered Miller to stay in bed for a week.

“A day later I was up, and four days later I was at a union meeting,” Miller said. “That was the problem.”

Although the tumor was benign, his surgery wound became infected. The doctor warned him that if he didn’t remain in bed and his infection worsened, he could die or, at the very least, lose his left testicle.

“My health was indeed in jeopardy, in serious jeopardy,” said Miller, who has taught biology for 32 years. “Because if that infection had gone systemic, there could have been a septicemic poisoning and that could have been fatal.”

Emotions peaked during those intense months of negotiations and planning for a strike. But while Miller stood before the Ventura County Community College Board of Trustees and pleaded for a fair contract time and time again, few people were aware of his personal strife.

“I knew he was sick, but I wasn’t aware of the details,” said trustee Pete Tafoya, who represents Oxnard, Port Hueneme and El Rio. “I heard he was told to stay in bed, but it doesn’t surprise me that he didn’t. I certainly don’t wish him any harm. I wish him good health. Obviously, he’s a tough bargainer and I’m sure we will sit at the negotiating table again.”

A Determined Individual

Tafoya, along with board President Norman Nagel, are the target of Miller’s latest campaign: ousting board members in November’s election whom he considers unsympathetic to the union.

Nagel was also unaware of the severity of Miller’s health problems while negotiations were taking place.

“He certainly will persevere under all circumstances to do what Larry Miller thinks is best,” said Nagel, who represents the Conejo Valley area. “He’s always been a very determined individual and I respect his determination.”

Miller said he purposely kept the details of his illness under wraps.

“Just my close associates knew,” Miller said. “Elton Hall [the teachers’ chief negotiator] was always concerned. Certainly people were concerned.”

They told him, “Larry, go home, go to bed,” Miller recalled. But halting all union work became an impossible task.

“I would go home and they would usually call me a day later and say, ‘You’ve got to do this or that.’ I tried to rest in between meetings.”

Although he continued to work on the contract settlement, he did try to slow down a bit, mostly at the urging of his wife of 26 years, Debi. He was also on a regimen of strong antibiotics to fight the infection.

The announcement of a contract settlement in mid-July came just as doctors gave Miller a clean bill of health.

“I just had to do it,” Miller said of his unrelenting effort. “There was no other choice. I never considered myself indispensable. Never that. But the fact that I could do it. And I did it. I kept going and I made it.”

Miller has a long history of rallying for the underdog. He attributes this, and his fighting spirit, in part, to his childhood.

As the son of a military chaplain, his family moved to various places around the globe every year and a half, eventually settling in Lompoc.

“I was a preacher’s kid and a military brat,” Miller said. “It’s a wonder I’m still alive. I was obedient, but not happy.

“I was always lonely as a kid,” he continued during an interview at his small, pleasantly cluttered office at Moorpark College, where he has taught for 27 years.

Compassion for the Downtrodden

When he, his father, mother and older brother lived in a section of Morocco ruled by France, he witnessed a tribal uprising. The country gained its independence in March 1956.

“I was very much on the side of the Moroccans and never the French,” Miller said. “Then we lived in Japan during the Korean War. It gave me tremendous compassion for the downtrodden and the underprivileged.”

But perhaps the real reason behind Miller’s perseverance has to do with his family life. His father, he said, was emotionally and physically abusive with him and other relatives. Yet he and his brother were expected to keep that secret and maintain the appearance of a good Christian household.

“There’s no one to believe you, so my brother and I just had each other,” Miller said. “This was my burden in life until I was 17 years old and could get out of there.

“Forgiving is hard,” he said, while students noisily scurried to their classes outside his room. “Not only my dad, but my mom was a moral coward. If she had any sense, she would have dumped him, taken her two boys and just let him fend for himself. But she didn’t have the courage.”

He learned to question authority at an early age. He recalled an occasion when he was a toddler and his family was traveling through the desert. They stopped at the side of the road and Miller remembers seeing a cactus with sharp, pointy spines.

“I asked my dad, ‘Do those spines hurt?’ ” Miller recounted. “He said, ‘Well, hit them and find out.’ And I did. And I never trusted him after that.”

Miller said he has raised his own children--Bart, 20, and Garrett, 16--differently.

“I have tremendous distrust of authority,” Miller said. “And I taught my two sons to defy authority and question authority always, even me. Even me.”

For years he turned to drinking for comfort, but Miller said he has been sober for 12 years. Since beating that disease and overcoming his recent health scare, Miller said he wants to focus on teaching and fighting for what be believes in.

He admits defying authority requires having a thick skin.

“I will focus on what I believe to be true,” Miller said. “And I don’t mind the detractors. When I’ve made a decision and I think I’m right about it, it doesn’t really matter where the chips may fall.”