Déjà Vu All Over Again
By David Yancey,
President FA, AFT 6157
Well here we are again, another September
welcome back article and the big statewide news is that we are in another
budgetary struggle statewide. Last year at this time we were fighting hard for
the passage of Proposition 92; a fundamental change in the way community
colleges are funded. It was a valiant attempt to improve the budgetary process
for
Prop 92 would have made a world of
difference for community colleges but we all know that our fight was
unsuccessful. Even though the proposition failed, we should all be proud of the
massive effort we made in this district and in college districts around the
state to make it happen. The silver lining in the whole thing is that our
efforts raised the importance of community colleges to a new level in the state
budgetary discussion. Proof of that is evident this year. When the state is
struggling against another huge budget deficit, at this writing 15 billion
dollars, and the governor is taking draconian steps, like reducing the salaries
of state employees to the federal minimum wage levels, the community colleges
are fairing better than many others. One of the main reasons community colleges
haven’t felt the pain quite as much as others is the
increasing awareness of the importance of community colleges to the community
and to the economy. Both of these factors are more apparent to lawmakers and
the “bang for your buck” value of attending a community college for job
training and/or transfer credit is clear. So the hard work and the political
activism we have generated, even though it wasn’t specifically successful with
Prop 92, is bearing fruit this budgetary season.
The long term solution to this long term
problem is “new revenue” or that dreaded Republican phrase “new taxes”. This
obvious solution is deadlocked over political ideology. I hope that someday we
will all come to the conclusion that wealthy yacht owners could do with a
little less to ensure that our state’s workers receive the education and job
training they will need to sustain the state’s economic future.
Catastrophic Leave Bank Boom
All is not gloom and doom. There are
exciting things happening in our union and in our district. At the end of last
semester I asked you to give a few days of your sick leave to our catastrophic
leave program to assist several of our colleagues who were in dire
circumstances and many of you did, some individuals with as many as 15 days.
Over the past year faculty donated 141 days. Bravo! We give you tremendous
thanks if you were one of those faculty members; you should feel proud!
If you haven’t decided to contribute to
the Catastrophic Leave bank, please do; the need is great, and the gift is
tremendous. Continuing someone’s full pay and health care
benefits when they suffer a catastrophic illness means so much to them and
says so much about us. One of the folks we have been supporting is doing
much better and may be able to return to work in the near future.
Health Benefits Audit
Speaking of benefits, we are talking about
collaborating with the district to conduct a benefits audit hopefully this fall
to ensure that everyone that deserves coverage is getting coverage; and that
those who no longer qualify are taken off the rolls to reduce costs. As we all
know, it is in everyone’s interest, the employees and the district, to keep
health care cost contained. The more effective we are in doing so, the better
the benefits we can afford for all employees. The details of the audit are
being worked out and more information will be forthcoming. The collaboration
between the
Vice President Frank Espinoza-Important
Nationwide Appointment
More exciting news comes in the form of
the appointment of Faculty Union Vice President Frank Espinoza to the Higher
Education Program and Policy Council (PPC) of the American Federation of
Teachers (AFT), our
national level parent union. Frank’s appointment
is another example of how our union is reaching beyond our district to impact
education policy and programs to better meet the need of our students and our
faculty. This is a real compliment to the quality of Frank’s professional
reputation amongst his statewide colleagues and the status of your FA, AFT 6157
within our statewide union, the California Federation of Teachers (CFT).
Union Mentorship Program
We are also very excited about the
implementation of a new program to provide our new faculty, and there are at
least 14 within our district this fall semester, a union mentor. This program
is very different than the mentor assigned during the Tenure Review Process,
this is a UNION mentor. The idea is to introduce the new faculty to the union
early in their career in as positive a way as possible by reaching out to them
with the kind of support our newer faculty have been telling us they really
need. We have appointed on each campus a Mentorship Coordinator to help
organize and grow the program. At SJCC the Mentorship Coordinator is Laura
Sanchez and at EVC it is Vivian George Morgan and Frank Espinosa.
If you are interested in learning more please contact the Faculty Union and we
will tell you more.
And lastly, as usual our negotiations team
has been working hard, even in the summer, and we hope to have an agreement
this fall with some very exciting accomplishments to announce. Is that a tease
or what?
Sincerely, welcome back to the fray and I
know you will continue to give our students and our district the best you have
to give and remember your Faculty Union is working everyday on a multitude of
fronts to give you the support and the positive environment you deserve to do
the noble work in which we are all engaged.
In Solidarity-David