Negotiations update: join our AFT 2121 membership meeting and more

Faculty compensation: still waiting for critical information

Despite the slight movement last week with the District offering “off-schedule” pay-outs to faculty while keeping base pay woefully inadequate, we were unable to make a well-informed counter-proposal this week because our information requests continue to be ignored.

After years of using the financial crisis and then the accreditation crisis to force bad contracts onto faculty, the District does not feel compelled to bargain in good faith. They have failed to respond to our repeated requests for necessary information on calculations used to develop their budget for faculty salaries.

What are they trying to hide? Our analysis shows that for several years the District has over budgeted on faculty expenditures, resulting in large sums of unspent monies. In FY 2013/14 the balance was $5.5M. For FY 2014/15 it was nearly $6M. This is money – which could have restored faculty salaries without any impact upon the overall budget – was later used to further build the reserves.

In order to engage in serious negotiations the District mustfulfill our information requests and stop hiding money which could be used to raise faculty salaries. We view these delays as ignoring our collective bargaining rights.

Evaluations: management oversight for the sake of management oversight?

Yesterday, we questioned the District over their proposals to increase management involvement in the evaluation process. They were unable to provide any specific details nor did they identify particular problems their proposal would resolve.

The peer-review system is intended to be a peer to peer professional development opportunity. The District proposals are merely boiler-plate takeaways as part of the national educational “reform” agenda to de-professionalize higher education.

We will not accept a random management power-grab, especially when faculty protections in the evaluation process and the principle of peer review itself are at stake. Thank you to the faculty who came to negotiations to show their support for the Bargaining Team. United we can win a fair contract for all! 

This Tuesday: AFT 2121 General Membership Meeting