By Howard A. Stahl

I would like to inform the faculty about the contract negotiations underway with the district.  As you may be aware, our current contract expired on August 23, 2010.  Your Negotiating Council continues working to complete this round of negotiations.

As of February 14, 2011, your negotiating team (comprised of myself, Dennis Frisch, Peter Morse and Jackie Scott and supported by Janet Watts) has spent 30 hours over 15 sessions negotiating with the district.  In addition, your negotiating council (comprised of myself, Sandi Burnett, Chris Fria, Dennis Frisch, Garen Baghdasarian, Mario Martinez, Mitra Moassessi, Peter Morse and Jackie Scott) has spent countless hours over many months preparing and strategizing for these sessions.  I would like to publicly thank all these faculty for all their invaluable service.

Negotiations with the district are tense and difficult.  Given the budgetary climate, it is clear that the district is intent on seeking many different “take-backs” from faculty.  These include:

• Article 8 : A freeze on all salary group and step movements (These increments represent the only salary increase faculty have seen in the recent past since state COLA remains at 0%)

• Article 22 : Reductions in reassigned time for certain department chairs (These reductions would make it that much more difficult for chairs to handle the ever-increasing workload that the college administration places upon them)

• Article 10 : Placing a cap on the cost of our health benefits (These reductions would greatly weaken the health benefits many of our faculty receive)

• Article 21 : Reductions in load banking limits (These reductions would greatly limit the ability of faculty to bank their assigned load)

• Article 26 : Intellectual Property (The district seeks to own all distance education course materials created by faculty)

On many different cost-free or cost-neutral proposals proposed by the Faculty Association, the district has been unwilling to accept them.  For example:

• State Disability Insurance for part-time faculty : Even though this program would be 100% funded by payroll deduction and require no financial contribution by the District, the District remains uninterested in this proposal

• Rights of the Association : The Faculty Association seeks a recognized place on Board of Trustee’s meeting agendas.  On this cost-free proposal, the District remains uninterested

• Academic Freedom : Even though many of our trustees (and even Dr. Tsang) come from districts with contracts that offer this protection to faculty, the District remains uninterested in this cost-free proposal

• Associate Faculty : All efforts to strengthen the provisions of the Associate Faculty article have been opposed by the District, even though there is no cost to any of these items

• Library Faculty Leader : Cost-free proposals to improve the working conditions of the library faculty leader have been opposed by the District

I believe the district is using the state’s current financial woes as a scapegoat to extract the most concessions it can from its employee groups.  With CSEA currently going through impasse in their negotiations with the district, the outlook for our negotiations is not much better. 

Recently, at a Board of Trustee meeting, a number of trustees publicly expressed the hope that we all work together during these difficult times.  While the Faculty Association certainly agrees with this sentiment, our district sure has a funny idea of what “working together” means.  Facing looming financial challenges, our district continues to spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs and significant amounts of management time to extract concessions from its employees. 

Please read the FAB during the spring semester for additional updates.   I will need and appreciate your support as negotiations continue.