Minutes
of
General Membership/Executive Committee Meeting
February 15, 2006 at
Members Present: Kathleen Feinblum, Annie Nicols, Victoria Clinton, Teeka
James, Rick Hough, Nina Floro, Sandy Raeber, Dan Kaplan, Karen Olesen, Monica
Malamud, Katharine Harer
Guests: Nick Kapp, Linda Allen, Martin Partland
The meeting was called to order at 2:25
Minutes were approved with corrections. Agenda was
approved.
NON-AGENDA ITEMS
Skyline and
Joe Berry, author of the book Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher
Education, will be speaking at the 2006 CFT Convention and will be coming
to City College of San Francisco on Tuesday March 28. He will speak at a Local
2121 delegate assembly at 3:00 and attend a 5:00 a reception at the Diego
Rivera Theatre. Our Local 1493 has agreed to donate $200 to his travel expenses
which would include a reception for Mr.
CO-PRESIDENT’S REPORT - Katharine Harer
The District’s latest offer for a two-year contract
is as follows: The first year, employees would receive 1.5% total comp and a 1%
salary increase across the board. The second year, employees would receive 1%
with no additional increases or benefits. There was no mention of paid office
hours for part-timers. We need to decide on some strategies to protest the
District’s outrageous offer and pressure board members to adjust their position
in favor of the union. Some suggestions were to go to the press, distribute
“blue sheet” AFT information notices, stage a demonstration at a board meeting,
and insist on some compensation for office hours for adjunct faculty.
AFT concluded that the District’s proposal of adding
10 minutes to Tuesday/ Thursday classes was violating the contract because the
cumulative extra minutes exceeded the legal limit. The District changed their
proposal to a 5 minute increase of the Tuesday/Thursday classes. All morning
classes will start at 8:10 as originally planned. The EC took exception to the
fact that the decision did not involve the shared governance and was presented
as a “done deal” to the various Academic Senates and faculty.
MUTUAL RESPECT POLICY - Linda Allen, Assistant to
Linda Allen represents the constituency that
supports the Mutual Respect Policy. She
presented the argument that the Mutual Respect
Policy is important for classified staff because classified staff often
experience harassment, some serious enough to warrant legal action. The Mutual
Respect Policy would give staff a document in hand they could present in the
event of harassment. She offered to work on the wording, so the policy would be
more amenable to more people.
The AFT’s position was that the wording of the
Mutual Respect Policy is too murky and that also the document is
unconstitutional. There is no provision in the policy to train supervisors on
how to deal with harassment and in fact, the Mutual Respect Policy may backfire
on those trying to impose it.
The EC expressed support of Ms. Allen’s position,
and suggested that classified use the CSEA policy, Ed Code already in place,
and the union of they find themselves harassed. The EC passed a motion that
their representative to the District Shared Governance Council, in their vote
on whether to ratify the Mutual Respect Policy at their March 26 meeting, vote
on response choice “e” which states “I cannot support the recommendation”
CAMPUS REPORTS
Skyline - Rick Hough – The “additional 10 minutes to
Tuesday/Thursday classes” was discussed.
CSM - Teeka James - A part-time faculty member was
upset that he lost the class because of low enrollment.
COMMUNITY COLLEGE INITIATIVE
An initiative to separate the K-12 constituency from
the community college constituency, is now looking for support and signature
gatherers for their petition drive. Currently, the funding for K-12 and
community college constituency is calculated using the same formula. However,
K-12 attendance is in decline whereas the community colleges are seeing
increased enrollment through the impact of Baby Boom II. The initiative needs
over 500,000 signatures and 1.1 million dollars. The sponsoring coalition,
Californians for Community Colleges, is asking us for a $10,000 contribution.
The EC would like the San Mateo Community College Foundation to contribute to
the effort and get the district involved,
as not only would the community college receive more money, but student
tuition would go from $26 o $20 if the initiative passed.
DISTRICT COMMITTEE ON BUDGET AND FINANCE - John Kirk
(in absentia)
The Vice President of Instruction at all three
campuses developed Enrollment Growth plans to increase FTES during the next
year. This includes strategies to increase the schedule, increase recruitment
and marketing, and increase retention. Recruitment and marketing strategies
include outreach to high schools.
The
The implications of SB 361 (Scott) were discussed.
This bill will create a new funding mechanism for California Community
Colleges.
GRIEVANCE REPORT - John Kirk (in absentia)
The arbitration for the case involving a Nursing
instructor who was fired for flunking two students is scheduled for April 20th.
The union is preparing a grievance for a 4th year
probationary teacher who has been denied tenure.
The Chancellor denied a Level II grievance for a
part-timer in a program that was put on hiatus. The case involves a new dean
hiring a part-timer with less seniority over one with more seniority. This case
will be reported more in depth at a future EC meeting.
CLASS SIZE - Martin Partland
Martin Partland brought up the concern as to who has
the authority to determine class size. It was related that there is a
preliminary resolution currently being put together by the Academic Senate.
FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS
The Community College Initiative will be further
discussed.
Next meeting will be March 8 at the
Meeting was adjourned at 4:40
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen Feinblum