On Tuesday, union members and elected Delegates met to review and revise our Negotiating Team’s Sunshine document. Our Sunshine proposal is a broad, aspirational document laying out our goals for the upcoming contract campaign.
Delegates suggested amendments to the document, discussed them at great length, and finally voted unanimously to approve their revised version for presentation to the public at the October 12th Board of Trustees meeting.
Some faculty expressed disappointment that the Sunshine document did not to use the exact language they had suggested in a petition. Our rank-and-file leaders considered this language — which suggested raising salaries to the median of the Bay 10 — and ultimately decided to express its substance in even stronger, broader terms. In the end, the language Delegates voted to approve is more representative of all of faculty, and calls for faculty salaries to reach the top — not just the median — of the Bay 10. (See item IA in the attached sunshine document).
Our union has a strong and open process of participant democracy. In drafting our “sunshine” document, our union’s negotiating team reached out to members through contract surveys, 25 listening sessions at various times on various campuses, and many one-on-one conversations. Hundreds of faculty members shared with the team their hopes, concerns, ideas, and commitments to action in support of our upcoming negotiations.
Our Bargaining Team synthesized all of this feedback, noted the most prominent themes — compensation, workload, equity, access, and faculty rights — and incorporated our members’ many concerns into a unified statement of our platform.
Our Bargaining Team, delegates, and union leaders are all committed to fight and win. But we can’t do it alone. The best way forward, and the way we’ve always made the strongest gains, is by standing in unity.
What’s next?
Negotiations for AFT 2121’s collective bargaining agreement will begin this semester and next month we must “sunshine” our general objectives to the public in a statement of our platform. Our document, along with the District’s own “sunshine” document, will be presented to the public at a special meeting of the Board of Trustees on Oct. 12.
This initial bargaining platform document is not the only opportunity for membership faculty to be involved in the contract campaign. We will be negotiating over many months before our contract expires in June of 2018. And our Union looks forward to the many opportunities yet to come where faculty will be able to participate in fighting for and shaping our final contract.
View the entire Final AFT 2121 Sunshine Document
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