WELL, Rebel Girl just got home (11:41 pm) and while her spaghetti water was set to boil, she checked her email and discovered—as many of you have, no doubt—that the Faculty Association, with full support of the Academic Senate, is recommending that all faculty work to contract, effective immediately. The letter sent approximately an hour ago details this action and provides context—do read the letter and remember the hard work of your negotiating team.From the letter:
The work to contract strategy is that faculty will temporarily retreat from all committees and shared governance meetings except those that strictly fulfill their contractual obligations. In order to work to contract, faculty members should concentrate on their primary assignment and perform only required activities. Beginning immediately, faculty should attend only meetings that would fulfill their contractual obligations. Faculty are urged to withdraw temporarily from all voluntary activities such as working on SLOs, special projects, task forces, and hiring committees. Further, faculty who are completing stipends and/or reassigned time should fulfill only the number of hours for which they are compensated.Check back for more updates.
We're all in this together, folks. The goal is a fair contract which benefits us all. Remember that.
From the last board meeting: faculty address the board:
32 comments:
You guys will still write the blog, won't you?
I guess this call affects department chairs (faculty who work on stipends) whose duties include hiring part-time faculty, evaluations, scheduling, grade grievances, etc.
I know when I was a department chair, by this time in the semester, I had already worked ALL the hours compensated by the piss-poor stipend.
I encrouage ALL department chair to immediately cease their duties.
(The whole fraud of compensation in that area has been a scadal for years.)
Yikes. So much for the "the food is good and so are the friends" hiring committee.
People are resigning from hiring committees.
I guess curriculum will come to a halt. (I know I was going to finish up a class that needed its 6 year review done- it's already late.) Program Review too will cease.
This is good because it will, I hope, create pressure, the kind of pressure that is needed to get them back to the table and negotiating for real.
I hope someone who knows numbers will come on the blog and remind people just why this contract is so important, especially for the new hires and the adjunct.
Maybe Chunk can re-post that last testimonial from Lewis Long at the board meeting where he talked about this.
Not everyone will honor the work to contract recommendation but I suspect enough will.
Most of the people who won't are probably not that closely involved with the committee work and task forces that keep these colleges functioning. No doubt their voices will be loud during this time but I think everyone knows just who does what in the district.
I encourage everyone to honor this work to contract and support the work of the negotiating team. After all, we're generally happy enough to enjoy the gains their work gives us. We have all benefited from their work.
And if you think you've been working hard on committees, think about how hard they've been working on behalf of us all for OVER A YEAR to get some gains for our new contract.
Don't just honor the work to contract - let them know you are.
Does this mean I don't have to go to the IVC Foundation dinner?
I got the invitation yesterday and noticed that they had dropped the price for faculty and staff to $100.00.
Actually, I wasn't going to buy a ticket (I teach that night and I make my $ donation directly to the Foundation for scholarships - they don't have to feed me a pounded chicken breast in order to get me to write a check. I know the right thing to do) but maybe if the contract negotiations are still stalled at the time of the dinner, maybe faculty can have a presence outside the Marriot where the dinner is being held. Just a thought.
I am sorry that this is happening but I am sorrier still that the district can't negotiate in good faith.
Thank you to the faculty leadership for showing the courage to take action.
Yes, thanks to the faculty leadership.
Now it's up to us to support them in many ways.
Don't assume that the admin knows you will honor the work to contract - send them an email that tells them you will.
That's how pressure will build.
Yes, those first speakers are right - the part-time salary is abysmal! I once hired a part-timer who quit after the first class after HR got back to him and told him what he would be earning. Nice fellow, smart, qualified, - but he couldn't see working for that wage.
What is the average monthly wage for a part-timer - can someone post it?
Did the chancellor's $300,000 contract take over a year to negotiate?
9:07
http://www.socccd.org/hr/salaryschedules/AcademicSalarySchedules-b-2004-2007.pdf
This is the link for the hourly wage. Monthly would depend on how many hours the person works. 9 hours is the maximum allowed.
Some of the hiring committees have gone so poorly or have been delayed so long, I can't imagine what HR is going to tell the long-suffering candidates now...
this all could have been avoided - but there seemed to be no give at all from the distict!
And look how they act - for example, Bob King - take the money and run. No accountability at all.
All take, no give.
Will the candidates be notified or left hanging? What will HR tell them if they call for "updates" on their position?
Just want to point out the obvious: not a word from the district or administration.
I want to remind all department chairs that while we receive a stipend during the year (but it certainly DOES NOT cover the time we spend managing depts.! ) we receive NO STIPEND during the summer though we are expected to work.
Summer's coming up.
Anyone knows why Bob King was escorted out of his office by the police?
We at DISSENT don't have confirmation that he was.
Sorry but the rumor about Bob King being escorted off campus is totally false. Classified staff confirmed that he was there all day yesterday without incident and is back on the third floor today. Chunk, your reliable source sucks!
I'm doing it too, for my own reasons but we can say in solidarity - although in this case it is you who are inspiring me.
Good luck to you all! In solidarity,
someone who teaches at a decent place
I think the report of Bob King being escorted off campus was just the result of wishful thinking - one of those instances of collective hallucinations.
When does the Spring schedule need to be finished? How will this action affect that?
The Chancellor was advised to increase FT faculty two years ago by the Saddleback Senate. The BOT was also told in a public (and video-taped) regular meeting that Saddleback was critically low on FT faculty. Neither the Chancellor nor the BOT expressed interest in this concern that was seriously impacting instruction, curriculum and other areas for which FT faculty are responsible. Accrediation issues were also looming. And nothing was done about it. Then someone discovered the 50% rule.
Suddenly we had to hire gobs of faculty.
And what a mess has ensued--stretching thin faculty, HR, staff, and administrators who should be working on other matters (many of which are not done or not done as well as they should be).
Add to this faculty negotiations. Well, we all know about this.
District leadership is and has been in disarray for years but appears to be coming to head. What has saved us has been Basic Aid which has fiscally patched together blotched plans an isolated Chancellor has hatched. And I don't think we can blame this on a Nova degree.
November, however, is when something can be done to change years of neglect, disregard for college administrators. faculty, staff and students.
Isolation and ignorance (ignoring evidence) is not what a Chancellor should embrace. When a change does come, perhaps we will be fortunate to find an individual who will encourage the college community to share in the work that must be done to make these colleges and this district a remarkable place for students to attend.
A not so anonymous faculty member.
The Chancellor was advised to increase FT faculty two years ago by the Saddleback Senate. The BOT was also told in a public (and video-taped) regular meeting that Saddleback was critically low on FT faculty. Neither the Chancellor nor the BOT expressed interest in this concern that was seriously impacting instruction, curriculum and other areas for which FT faculty are responsible. Accrediation issues were also looming. And nothing was done about it. Then someone discovered the 50% rule.
Suddenly we had to hire gobs of faculty.
And what a mess has ensued--stretching thin faculty, HR, staff, and administrators who should be working on other matters (many of which are not done or not done as well as they should be).
Add to this faculty negotiations. Well, we all know about this.
District leadership is and has been in disarray for years but appears to be coming to head. What has saved us has been Basic Aid which has fiscally patched together blotched plans an isolated Chancellor has hatched. And I don't think we can blame this on a Nova degree.
November, however, is when something can be done to change years of neglect, disregard for college administrators. faculty, staff and students.
Isolation and ignorance (ignoring evidence) is not what a Chancellor should embrace. When a change does come, perhaps we will be fortunate to find an individual who will encourage the college community to share in the work that must be done to make these colleges and this district a remarkable place for students to attend.
A not so anonymous faculty member.
No change likely in November - as EVERYONE knows, including the BOT - incumbents win on our board because the public can't or doesn't follow district issues.
We need to make the change on our own - can't count on the voters. Really. come on - we've been here before.
I'm a union activist at a community college (relatively) near to you. After watching the video, I need to say that the fact that your part-timers are 40th in the state in pay while your full-timers are near the top in salaries is NOT entirely the fault of your BOT.
Improving part-timers' pay at the SOCCD is a positive; the fact that your BOT apparently doesn't agree is another example of their fossilized thinking.
However, the huge disparity in statewide salary comparisons between full-timers and part-timers is the residue of years of contract negotiations.
With that said, good luck with your work-to-contract efforts!
"Full-timers near the top" depends on how you measure it. We have a very wide and deep education / experience matrix, and faculty are spread everywhere around it. (This leads to lots of different ways of coming up with a ranking, which keeps everybody entertained while negotiating.)
Our last contract fixed a situation where our new hires were not able to count all their experience toward salary placement. Our ability to attract good faculty was seriously impaired.
We do need to pay part-time faculty more, and so does every college in the nation! None would never be able to operate without this permanent underclass of poorly paid, at-will employees.
A fair contract would establish part-time faculty pay as a fixed percentage of full-time faculty pay rather than a subject of separate negotiation. Part-time faculty should also have an appropriate form of tenure. Their academic freedom and safe participation in college governance are just as important as ours.
PS to "not so anonymous faculty member": Beautifully said. Even twice. It was worth twice.
PPS The part-time vs. full-time (and for that matter the university untenured assistant vs. tenured associate) professor structure is modelled in economics by tournament theory. Anybody interested in that branch of econ, call me. I'll put my dissertation's indecipherable dullness up against anybody's.
District does not care about putting hiring committees on hold. They are not going to hire ANY of the 40-ish new hires until they are ALL complete. If they wanted them, they would process the ones that are already finished.
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