We are asking all District faculty who support “binding arbitration” to please sign our online petition so we can clearly show how the faculty feel about this issue. Click here to sign the petition!

A top priority for AFT 1493 in current contract negotiations is to institute “binding arbitration” of faculty grievances. “Binding arbitration” assures that arbitrators’ decisions are actually implemented by the District. Our current contract states that arbitrators' decisions are only “advisory” and, ultimately, our own Board of Trustees can reject a decision of a professional arbitrator!

The inherent unfairness of this “advisory arbitration” language was clearly demonstrated in an arbitration case that concluded in spring 2009. In that case, the arbitrator found that our District had violated the AFT contract and awarded a faculty member back pay and reemployment, but then the Trustees decided to overturn the ruling of the arbitrator and refused to follow the arbitrator’s decision.

To communicate how important this issue is to faculty, AFT 1493 has posted an online petition calling for the District to agree to a change in our contract to “explicitly ensure that, when a faculty grievance goes to arbitration, the decision made by the arbitrator must be ‘binding’ rather than ‘advisory.’” We are asking all District faculty who support this change to please sign the petition so we can clearly show how the faculty feel about this contract language.  Click here to sign the petition!