Home

Present: Normal Prince, Jenny Saarloos, Katharine Harer, Joaquin Rivera, Nina Floro, Eric Brenner, Karen Olsen,Suzanne Russell, Dan Kaplan, Teeka James, Annie Nichols, Chip Chandler, Griselle Schmidt-Fonseca, Kathleen Feinblum

Guest: Barbara Christensen,

Barbara Christensen, project manager for faculty housing project presented a progress report on the 44unit apartment complex. She informed us that the district has started the initial study which includes an environmental impact report. Because the district owns the land, they have a lot of financial advantages and can offer good quality apartments for below market value. The apartments primarily serve as a 2-step program toward home ownership. It is assumed that residents of the complex will be able to save for a down payment on a house while they are living at the complex. The residents will be chosen by lottery and the lottery is open to part-timers. Barbara is requesting that AFT choose a rep to be a part of the housing project, so that the union can help establish criteria for the selection.

Vote to endorse faculty housing project: 11 ayes, 1 no and 2 abstentions.

Vote to endorse Kathleen Feinblum as AFT secretary: 13 ayes

Griselle Schmidt-Fonseca, a part-time counselor, expressed concern that many paraprofessionals are replacing counselors in order to cut costs.

The move entails changing job descriptions so that paraprofessionals are made to qualify for counseling jobs. This is the case at Canada.

Decision to file a grievance was postponed until we speak with John Kirk

Minutes of last meeting were approved.

Katharine Harer reported that the Raul Tallet scholarship is available to children of union members. The deadline for application is 12/31 and another one is in July. CFT, AFT and CLF (California Labor Federation) all offer scholarships.

Katharine Harer also announced her involvement with the Missing Community College Student Installation, an art project to protest students missing from the college because of budget cuts.

Joaquin Rivera reported that 3 of AFT's endorsed candidates won, but our COPE account is depleted from our endorsements. AFT leadership met with Dave Mandelkern this week. Mandelkern is able to gather and process information really well.

A meeting was held a week ago to address the severe management problems, demoralization, and the amount of grievances at Canada College. A report from John Kirk said he had never had so many grievances from one place before. There will be subsequent meetings with every board member so that they can see the evidence. Joaquin talked about the intermediary steps needed before board would consider other options. Canada's Academic Senate voted that all administrators should be evaluated and Rosa Perez threatened to sue. Dan Kaplan wondered if it is possible to obtain a vote a "no-confidence". Discussion ensued that the whole issue might boomerang. Board is starting to hear that the AFT is winning a lot of grievances but we have to convince the board that the problem is Rosa Perez.

Dan Kaplan reported that we are $50,000 in the hole. AFT added another part time person to the staff. Discussion ensued on whether we should raise union dues by increasing the cap. Currently the cap on our dues is $50,000 dollars even though salaries have gone up. We do not charge for overloads and no other locals have caps. We pay a lot of money when we go into arbitration. We will need an educational campaign to convince faculty that our dues are too low. Joaquin added that it will be a hard sell because health insurance premiums will be going up. We can't have an anti-union backlash so we have to be careful. Dan said that if they bring back some sections of classes, we might be able to get this money back Teeka James asked if we need to pay for all the affiliations? The answer is yes as the benefits include being in the network of other unions. CFT also lobbies on our behalf in Sacramento. Katharine would like to get rid of the cap. Eric Brenner would like to calculate how much additional money would result if there was no cap. The issue and vote was shelved for a later date.

Joaquin's report on the survey results shows that salary and benefits were the top priorities among faculty, benefits being higher than salary because of the increase in health care costs. Other issues of concern were scheduling flexibility, load issues, class size and compensation for office hours.

Negotiations: We will develop some proposals for the next negotiations by the next EC meeting. We will have to prioritize this year as non-monetary issues will be easier to get than monetary issues. Distance Education was not raised in survey but should be part of negotiations.

Katharine wants to add intellectual property rights for all written work produced during sabbaticals. Joaquin says to send him all issues so that he can formulate a negotiation proposal.

Jenny Saarloos, part-time rep, attended an AFT part-timers meeting of Northern California but can't remember the name of the meeting. She was also appointed to a position but can't remember that either; probably a Northern California Rep. The next project on the part-timers' agenda is the Missing Students art project and the next march on Sacramento. Jenny did a lot of work organizing the tables on campus. A selection of student praises to part-timers will be printed in the Advocate. Applause goes to Jenny.

Linda Vogel suggested to Katharine that we might have a big plastic banner calling attention to our part-time instructors on campus, similar to the one at De Anza College.

AFT will be a shared part of shared governance we hope.

Katharine reported that CSEA has a change in leadership. We had a raggedy relationship with CSEA previously, but they now have a new president, Charles Jones, who we hope to be able to work with more cooperatively.

Katharine wants to present an anti-war resolution for the EC to adopt. This discussion and decision was postponed to the next EC meeting.

Meeting ended at 4:20.

Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen Feinblum

Top of Page
AFT 1493 Home