We Return, Fighting

By David Yancey, FA, AFT 6157 President

Welcome back brothers and sisters, colleagues, friends and fellow travelers. As you know by now we achieved another great contract between the FA, AFT 6157 and the District and thank you all for the resounding show of support with a unanimous 100% vote of support on the new contract. You also know now of the defeat of Proposition 92, the Community College Initiative. So we have great collective bargaining news and not so good statewide funding news. Let me start with the bad news.

The defeat of Proposition 92 is initially disheartening because we have worked so hard for so long to first get it on the ballot and then to get it passed. We raised money, collected signatures, and lobbied our constituents, students, and neighbors. Once on the ballot we raised more money, and lobbied more constituents, students and more neighbors. Then we held news conferences; our students on both campuses rose to the challenge and voted to take official positions in support while our Trustees, Chancellor, College Presidents and District Foundation provided both support and leadership in the effort.

We all phone banked and promoted the effort with great enthusiasm because we knew the importance of the passage of this proposition. However, it did not pass and now the post mortems are underway. Fine political minds are dissecting the successes and the shortcomings and we will have a better understanding of the “pluses” and “minuses” as time goes on, but it is important to keep in mind that we always knew this was an uphill battle and that there were those who opposed our efforts. Regardless, it was the right fight to fight and we fought courageously and with great energy and purpose so there is no need to hang our heads or to be too critical of ourselves because we did not succeed.

We must continue to participate in the political arena despite this setback. After all, it is those that persevere beyond the setback or the lost battles that ultimately win the war. We have empowered our students and raised the issues of community college funding needs to the greater population in the state and even those that spoke against our effort started almost every editorial or mailing with “We all support community colleges and what they do”.

That is an important thing for us to remember. Most people have a positive opinion of our work and appreciated what we provide to the community and to our students. However, there is an old axiom in politics that says, “Timing is everything” and for us the timing turned bad when the economic crisis in the state took center stage with the Governor’s gloom and doom predictions and his call for a 10% across the board reductions in all state programs. In the face of such dire economic news, any request for guaranteed funding fell on deaf ears. The only funding related measures that received positive voter responses were the promises made by the supporters of the Indian Casino propositions, and they promised new revenue that many feel are hollow promises at best.

Still, take heart. Even in these bad statewide economic times our district is taking a very positive stance. Most of you saw the email from our Vice Chancellor Ron Root a few weeks ago, and then you received the letter from Chancellor Rosa Perez. Both correspondences reassured us all that the District was in reasonably good shape and that we would work our way through these difficult times collectively as a community; both offered very positive and important statements that are light years from what we would have heard from past administrations.

So stand tall and take pride in yourselves for all you did to try and make things better for our students and our district and continue your great and important work in the education of our community, you are the best!