San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT 1493
Minutes of General Membership/Executive Committee Meeting
Wednesday, February 18, 2015, at Skyline College
EC members present: Najla Abrao, Eric Brenner, Vicki Clinton, Katharine Harer, Teeka James, Dan Kaplan (Exec. Secr.), Michelle Kern, Doniella Maher, Monica Malamud, Sandi Raeber-Dorsett, Joaquin Rivera, Paul Rueckhaus, Elizabeth Terzakis, Rob Williams, Shaye Zahedi.
AFT (non-EC) members present: Shana Whitney (ECE and Health Science – Skyline, representing Skyline Academic Senate at today’s meeting), Nina Floro (English – Skyline), Masao Suzuki (Economic – Skyline).
Guests: Zev Kvitky (CFT Field Rep)
Meeting began at 2:45 p.m.
Facilitator: Rob Williams
- Welcome and Introductions
Done.
- Statements from AFT (non EC) members on Non-Agenda Items
None.
- Minutes of January 18, 2015 AFT meeting
Approved unanimously.
- PT Survey on Medical Reimbursement Stipend – Katharine Harer, Paul Rueckhaus, Michelle Kern
Survey closed last week, with a good response rate, approximately 30% of PT faculty. PT are spending anywhere from $200 to $2000 a month for their medical expenses. Our average PT, if they were teaching a full-load in the District (hypothetical but impossible, for calculation/comparison purposes only), they would have a salary that would require them to pay approximately $450 a month in the Covered CA exchange
Joaquin reported that when the survey results were brought up during negotiations, Eugene was very dismissive (“only 80% of the PT faculty say that the stipend does not meet their needs? I would have expected 100%” and when shown a chart showing how poorly our District compares among the Bay 10 in terms of PT benefits: “we cannot look at benefits in a vacuum”).
We need to escalate this campaign. Some ideas:
- Have faculty speak at a Board meeting. Only one Board meeting available per month, since the other one is a study session in March and April. Plan on BOT meeting of 3/25/15 (disadvantage: this is during spring break). Start recruiting speakers.
- Stress the fact that consistency/lower faculty turn-over benefits students
- The District is doing well financially—let’s make it public
- Make flyers with facts/data
- Another article in the Advocate
- Negotiations update – Joaquín Rivera
Negotiating teams met last week. Not much progress. There is another negotiation session scheduled for February 27.
Medical Benefits:
Current AFT proposals:
- FT: $50/125/175
- PT: stipend of $1200 per semester
District’s position:
- Increase in medical cap for FT: District is not willing to move from $50/75/100.
- Medical reimbursement for PT: District offered to raise it from $600 to $800 per semester. Additionally, District offered to give a “pool of money” (as opposed to a fixed amount per PT) to be divided among all PT who apply for the stipend. This concept was not supported by the EC.
For the last negotiation session, Joaquin prepared a comparison sheet with PT benefits in the Bay 10. Eugene said that he could not consider information “in a vacuum”, by which he meant that salaries needed to be included in the comparison as well.
Joaquin prepared a salary comparison of FT salaries in the Bay 10 and shared this information at the AFT meeting. We fare well in our District in terms of salary. But when we compare benefits, our District is towards the bottom of the Bay 10 group. If salaries and benefits are added up together (this is “total compensation”), then our District is in the middle of the pack.
- Next step: Joaquin will call Ron to try and get some movement on negotiations.
Teaching assignments/Administrators teaching:
- Faculty teaching assignments: AFT is trying to get some movement on this—getting in writing the reasons why a requested teaching assignment is not granted.
- Administrators teaching classes: The main point of contention is that the AFT wants administrators to be put in the PT seniority list. Eugene does not agree with this, because he says that special sections would be created in order to give administrators the opportunity to teach, so administrators would not be taking away sections from PT. Eugene proposed to limit the number of sections taught by administrators to 6 per campus per year.
We were told that Mike Claire feels he can be a better president by having direct contact with students. The AFT’s response: administrators can take advantage of many other situations in which to have direct contact and meaningful interactions with students.
- Consensus: drop the whole thing.
- Strategic Campaign Initiative Organizing Project update – Katharine Harer, Michelle Kern
Katharine and Michelle were asked to do a presentation at the CFT Leadership Conference, to showcase the great work that they are doing in our District, under the sponsorship of a CFT grant. Audience responded positively to their materials and the concept of PT appreciation days.
- Organizing the second PT Faculty Appreciation Days
CSM: no report
Skyline: one division is planning a PT appreciation event
Cañada: recently had an AFT all-faculty meeting (see below). The college also holds a PT appreciation event.
7.b. All-faculty AFT meeting at Cañada (added to the agenda)
Elizabeth reported on the AFT all-faculty meeting at Cañada. Much of the conversation revolved around class cancellations and how they affect programs and professor’s loads. Attendees are taking these issues to all the meetings in which they regularly participate. Cañada faculty in attendance also requested that there be an evaluation of higher level administrators. The District has not followed up on conducting a Deans’ survey.
- AFT 1493 will work with CFT’s Zev Kvitky to prepare a survey of administrators, similar to the Dean’s survey that was done before, but this time including all administrators; survey will be modified accordingly, and may result in two separate surveys, one for deans and another one for higher level administrators.
- AFT 1493 budget analysis – Dan
We have received a fine report from our Auditor, Josh Pooley.
In a nutshell, income in our budget has gone down, while expenses have gone up. Some factors: increases in per capitas, retirement of FT faculty with high seniority, replaced by new hires who are lower in the salary scale. Our unit is over 1000, so we now get the 60% rebate rate from the CFT on our paid per capitas, instead of the 70% rate we used to get when our unit’s size was under 1000 faculty.
According to Dan, we are going to have to raise our dues. We have a good financial cushion, so we do not need to do this immediately, but we should have further discussion on this topic.
- Workload Reduction Campaign
We will have a meeting with Academic Senate presidents on Monday, March 2nd, at 3:45 pm.
- DPGC report – Teeka
Eugene is proposing Board Policy, and accompanying Administrative Procedure, about Civility and Anti-Bullying (another reincarnation of the Mutual Respect policy). There are laws governing much of what this proposed policy intends to address.
Zev shared that what works against bullying is a “program”, not a policy.
Watch out for this coming up in Senate meetings.
- DART
Dan had a meeting with John Searle, Ernie Rodriguez and John Kirk. These retired faculty expressed a desire to have some participation in the District, working with students. They will be approaching Ron Galatolo about this idea, and they will write an article for the Advocate about this.
- Bay Area tour of veteran civil rights activist Colia Clark
Doniella announced that Cañada will be hosting events with her on March 12 at 10 am and 5 or 6 pm.
- Statements from EC members on Non-Agenda Items
Doniella/Elizabeth: Favianna Rodriguez, artist and activist, will be at Cañada for two workshops in March.
Monica: wrote a CFT Convention resolution, “Free Community College”, submitted by ELL Committee.
Meeting adjourned at 5:05 p.m.