Rally Results, Mediation in Bargaining, & Another Unfair Labor Practice Filed

At last Thursday’s Rally for a Fair Contract jointly hosted by AFT 2121 & SEIU 1021, you, as faculty, demonstrated your unity and articulated your urgent needs.

The action was a success in communicating your collective power, generating positive press attention, launching your strike commitment card, and winning decisive action from the Trustees to support bargaining. All of this was the result of your visible power in numbers and the moving testimony from faculty across the college, from EMT to Math, on why a fair contract and competitive salary are so urgent for our families and programs.

As a result of your Rally:

• Your bargaining team is entering voluntary, pre-impasse mediation with the District to try to address sticking points in bargaining, and, at Thursday’s meeting, the Trustees decided to appoint up to three individual board members to the District’s bargaining team to participate in these mediation sessions. A major issue in bargaining has been that the District’s team lacks the authority needed to actually negotiate. But the Chancellor and his team bargain on behalf of Trustees, so we expect this issue to change. Mediation sessions will take place on November 6th and November 13th. AFT’s expectation is that the District will commit to bargaining in good faith during this process. To keep the District accountable, we have set a deadline for declaration of impasse of November 14th.  

• Positive press coverage of your demands for a fair contract and more competitive salaries: see stories in the SF Examiner, Mission Local, Sing Tao, and additional potential coverage to come from KQED and CalMatters.

Finally, we have an important update on bargaining.

• Chancellor Martin knowingly provided false information to your union regarding matters relevant to your contract negotiations. In response, AFT 2121 has filed another unfair labor practice. Unfortunately, the Chancellor opted to provide false and misleading information to AFT 2121 about the District’s OPEB (Retiree Health Care Fund) contributions, an issue central to negotiations over salaries among other economic topics in bargaining. It is a violation of labor law to “knowingly provide an exclusive representative with inaccurate information” about the District’s financial resources. See further details in a copy of AFT’s Unfair Labor Practice here.

Stay tuned for more details on mediation and the broader struggle to ensure CCSF leaders work to better support and lead our college.