In Spring, the District's negotiation mantra seemed to be: "We don't have the money...there are too many uncertainties." Things have changed. Now their position is: "We DO have the money. We just don't want to spend it on faculty."

NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE By Teri Bernstein, Chief Negotiator

As most of you know, our contract expired at the beginning of the semester, and there has been little progress at the bargaining table. The District has proposed a contract which increases salary less than the increase for classified staff, requires additional work at pay-cut rates for department chairs, includes additional responsibilities for faculty, and eliminates a hard-won benefit for part-time faculty. There has been some agreement on overload banking and leaves of absence and what the District considers a "probably no-cost" vision/dental benefit for domestic partners but that movement is entirely tentative because the District has made it clear they are only interested in coming to agreement on a "whole package."

Our research this summer makes us quite certain that a significant amount of money exists in the available funds that must be spent on instruction. One place to spend this money would be on office hours for part-time faculty. For one thing, the state is subsidizing part-time office hours, almost like a matching grant. Secondly, the District has paid a lot of lip service to "student success." Contact with faculty for help outside of class would certainly enhance student success. Since a larger percentage of our sections are being taught by part-time faculty (saving the District money), we need to provide students with office hours for these sections.

The District won't even discuss this. They informed us in May that they were opposed "on principle" to any improvements for part-time faculty. To this end, they have proposed the elimination of a NO-COST benefit to part-time faculty that also provides a side benefit to students: one year contracts for a very limited number of part-time faculty. The District team has "no interest" in discussing any replacement provision that would provide job security for part-time faculty and continuity for students looking for letters of recommendation or grade appeals.

It is our position that increasing the number of sections taught by part-time faculty--without providing for paid office hours and employment continuity--is inherently anti-student, and can lead to long-term problems in transfer rate and student success. The District Team is unable to address issues such as quality of education at SMC. They seem only able to forward anti-faculty messages from either the Superintendent/President or the Board: we don't want to spend any money on instruction. We are spending it on other things.

Our team would like to honestly hash out with the District a balanced way of spending the additional money that is coming into the campus. The Faculty Association priorities are aligned with the Mission of the College! We would welcome a principled discussion of these priorities and how they relate to our goals in negotiation.