Executive Committee Minutes
September 26, 2001
Present: Bess Chandler, Dan Kaplan, John Kirk, Katharine Harer, George Goth, Joaquin Rivera, Rick Hough, Anne Nichols, Romy Thiele, Paddy Moran, Karen Olesen
Guest: Sondra Saterfield
The meeting began at 2:42 pm.
The minutes of the May 9, 2001 meeting were accepted.
Joaquin Rivera and Katharine Harer gave the co-president's report.
Joaquin Rivera reported that the COPE associated with our local had met
on Sep 12 and had voted to endorse Richard Holober for the Board of
Trustees, to endorse Measure C (the bond issue) and to support Rosalie
Mahoney, an instructor in the district, for the Redwood City Council. Helen
Hausman and a third candidate, who is apparently a Libertarian, are
running for the other seat on the Board. After discussion it was voted
to endorse Helen Hausman for the other seat.
As the COPE can only distribute funds to candidates and not to campaigns
for bond issues, the Exec Committee voted unanimously to give $5,000 to
the Yes on Measure C campaign, with another $3,000 possible if, upon
examination of our budget and general fund, we can afford to do it.
Richard Holober would appreciate a contribution from our COPE. Dan
Kaplan will conduct a telephone poll of the members of the COPE Exec
Board (which is the same as the Union Exec Board but not all members
were present) to determine if we should give a contribution of $2000
with another $1000 possible after we have reviewed our finances.
Joaquin Rivera discussed negotiations, which are about to get underway.
This year we will negotiate salary, benefits, one additional item and
complete negotiations on a few items carried over from last year. We
have decided that the additional item will be making sabbaticals
permanent. The Board and Administration have expressed an interest in
using interest based, rather than positional, bargaining. We have agreed
to give this a try and, if it should fail, go back to the traditional
form of bargaining. We will prepare an initial interest statement,
focusing on competitive salaries and bringing our salaries up to the
level of the top three in the Bay Area. Joaquin Rivera said that the
Administration seems to be well aware that we have a demoralized
faculty, in general, and cannot attract, nor keep, younger faculty at
the current salary level.
Katharine Harer briefly reviewed the retreat of last semester, calling
it complex and innovative, and asked members of the Board to reread the
notes from that meeting.
Katharine Harer said that the first thing we will do for the salary
campaign is to conduct a survey of the faculty regarding salary and
quality of life (this was suggested at the retreat). A preliminary
version of this survey has been prepared by some of the younger faculty.
The final version will be distributed to the faculty in October. The
individual surveys will be completed on scantrons and we now have access
to software that will allow us to do quite sophisticated analyses, an
example being the correlation of home ownership with length of service.
It is hoped that the Academic Senates will co-sponsor the survey, which
will be distributed to both full and part time faculty.
Dan Kaplan said that Joe McDonough is doing an analysis of the District
budget and will compare it with that of Foothill-DeAnza. If needed, blue
sheets will be distributed pointing out the differences. However, these
will not be prepared at this time as we wish to give interest based
bargaining a try and the blue sheets are somewhat confrontational.
The Chapter Chairs gave their reports. Romy Thiele (Canada) said that
she had prepared a signup sheet to gather volunteers for the telephone
campaign in support of Measure C. She is also going to attend division
meetings to gather support. Beth Chandler (Skyline) said that she had
been talking with the Academic Senate on this and other issues.
The discussion then switched over to a discussion of calendar reform.
Beth Chandler said she was the only Skyline faculty member attending
these meetings and that Skyline seemed to be well behind the other
campuses in informing faculty about the impact of the proposed 15-5-15
calendar. Dan Kaplan said that at a recent Bay 10 meeting there had been
a statement that this type of calendar was now dead in the water due to
recent rulings by the State Chancellor's office. The Chancellor of the
SMCCCD has said he is not going to push on this until the situation
becomes clearer. It seems as if it is, at least temporarily, not going
to be implemented.
Katharine Harer said that the recent accreditation reports had been
critical of the District for not having much in the way of strategic
planning. Skyline has implemented a strategic planning task force and
that the Union should be sure that it participates on it.
Sondra Saterfield discussed the Counselor Task Force which was
established last year to make a thorough study of counselor related
issues in the contract. The task force originally had four faculty and
four administrator members, although two of the administrators seemed to
have dropped out. They have been working on specific language for
sections 6.12 and 7.5 on the contract, which relate to the definition of
full time status and the definition of the workweek. Basically the
language redefines the workweek terms of hours rather than faculty load
credit. Section 6.2 (duties) as it relates to counselors has still to be
addressed. Sondra Saterfield was concerned that it might be impossible
to complete the work by the deadline imposed but Joaquin Rivera said it
would not be difficult to extend that deadline. When the initial
language has been completed, it will be reviewed by the counselors in
the district.
Paddy Moran discussed the upcoming Campus Equity Week (Oct 28 - Nov 3),
which informs the faculty, staff and students about the situation of
part time instructors. She said that she is in the process of obtaining,
from Los Angeles, scripts for short plays that relate to these issues.
There will also be a statewide contest for students on the best essay
relating to part time instructors with a $500 prize offered by CPTA. The
video Degrees of Shame will be shown on the campuses and fliers asking
for equal pay for equal work will be distributed.
Paddy Moran asked how the district's portion of the $57 million for
additional part time pay will be distributed (our portion is
approximately $950,000). Joaquin Rivera said a variety of methods are
being discussed and that, when it is in place, it will be retroactive to
August. It was noted that San Francisco City College has already
distributed their funds owing to the fact that they have a part time
salary schedule directly linked to the full time compensation.
Karen Olesen said that the local and the Canada Academic Senate are
going to sponsor a district wide pizza party on Oct 27, the day before
Campus Equity Week gets underway. There will be a nominal charge for
full timers and part timers will get in free. We will try to get the
other campus Senates to participate.
John Kirk discussed grievances. The involuntary reassignment grievance
was settled, satisfactorily, the day arbitration was about to begin.
While the resettlement is only for one year, we will keep an eye on it
and refile if the person is, in future years, reassigned in the fashion
discussed in previous minutes. The grievance involving the workweek of
coordinators is about to go to arbitration. A grievance involving the
possible conflict between program need and part time seniority will have
a hearing this week and we expect a response from the college president
involved shortly.
We endorsed a request from CFA (bargaining agent of CSU) to hold teach
ins discussing the imposition by the State College Chancellor of the
system's last offer in bargaining.
Dan Kaplan asked everyone to donate an evening to staff the phone bank
that the Central Labor Council is running, which, among other things,
supports Measure C.
The meeting adjourned at 5:00 pm.