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San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT 1493

Minutes of
General Membership/Executive Committee Meeting
of November 9, 2005 at Skyline College

 

 

Members Present: Nina Floro, Dan Kaplan, Yaping Lee, Victoria Clinton, Kathleen Feinblum, John Searle, John Kirk, Ernie Rodriguez, Sandy Raeber, Eric Brenner, Joaquin Rivera, Karen Olesen, Chip Chandler

 

Guests: Ron Brown, Alma Cervantes

 

Meeting was called to order at 2:25

Nina Floro facilitated the meeting.

Minutes of October 12 were approved.

 

NON-AGENDA ITEMS

 

The new phone system in Canada is not functioning properly.

 

The appointed date of the EC meeting is December 14 during finals. It was suggested that the December EC meeting be moved to December 7th or be cancelled. There will be an email poll as to whether enough people can make it on the 7th. If not, then the meeting will be cancelled.

 

CO-PRESIDENT’S REPORT and NEGOTIATION REPORT- Joaquin Rivera

 

Recent Elections:

  • The dues restructuring proposal passed with a 73% approval.

 

  • In the Special Election, all of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s propositions were defeated. The defeat of Propositions 79 and 80 were a bit of a disappointment, but in general, Labor did well.

 

  • Two endorsed candidates for Board of Supervisors, Richard Holober and Helen Hausman, were elected.

 

  • Measure A, the construction bond to finance district construction projects, was passed.

 

The Negotiation Committee has had one initial meeting. The budget was discussed including borrowing 2100 FTES from the summer to cover the fall semester. These FTES will count as enrollment for last year and this year. The next meeting for Monday, November 14 was cancelled. The next meeting is Dec. 5.

 

Two versions of the Academic Calendar were discussed and voted on. The late start version starts a week later in August and ends a week later in December. However, the early calendar won out by a vote of 10-3. The choice of Academic Calendars will be part of an all-district employee survey which will include preferences for Spring Break.

 

 

CAMPUS REPORT

 

Yaping Lee for CSM: In the initial discussions with faculty, many were against the dues restructuring, but after the vote, everyone seemed satisfied.

 

Karen Olesen for Canada: She will send an email so that faculty in the arts/graphics classes who want to make the AFT poster as part of a class assignment, can do so. There were also email discussions and confusion regarding class size. If the AFT had actual examples of faculty being forced to take in a lot of students in their classes, we could file unfair labor practices. But we don’t have concrete evidence as of yet.

 

Nina Floro for Skyline - At a Language Arts division meeting, questions were raised regarding tenure review committee membership. Would the current committee be responsible for evaluating subsequent hires? Can (or should) people be on tenure committees for 4 years?

 

WORK PLAN - Ernie Rodriguez

 

The EC members were supposed to rank task items in the Work Plan in order of preference. The instructions were misunderstood. The Work Plan items preference list needs to be turned in by Wednesday November 16th.

 

AFT WEBSITE DISCUSSION - Karen Olesen

 

The AFT website, especially the contract, may be hard to maneuver. 

Suggestions for improvement include 1) a FAQ section to help those new to the site and 2) upload the newest version of our contract. When we conduct a survey of the Advocate, we will also include questions regarding the website.

 

GRIEVANCES - John Kirk

 

There were 2 formal grievances:

 

1.         The first grievance is regarding the nursing instructor who was fired because she flunked students who filed a complaint. After the grievance was filed, by law, the president of the college was supposed to write a response to the hearing but didn’t. After repeated attempts to garner a written response, the AFT filed a petition for a hearing with the chancellor.  Chancellor ruled – after the fact – that a less senior instructor was better qualified to teach in the nursing program. The next step is arbitration. The case is at the lawyer’s office and is now being reviewed.

 

2.         The Second grievance is in regards to classes in Broadcasting Media that were put on hiatus. The college restarted the program by offering two survey courses. A part-time instructor with seniority and experience in teaching the class was bypassed in favor of another part-timer who had never taught the class. A grievance was filed.

 

DISTRICT COMMITTEE ON BUDGET AND FINANCE - John Kirk

 

The 2005-2006 Adopted Budget Sorted by Division was distributed. The handout shows a breakdown of how the money is spent by various divisions but the colleges did not use a uniform account so the figures are skewed when compared against one another.

 

DISTRICT SHARED GOVERNANCE - Dan Kaplan

 

Meeting was uneventful. It was brought up that if the AFT couldn’t consent to the mutual respect policy, then it should be dropped.

 

AFT PARTY - Ernie Rodriguez

 

There will December 10th party pending enough RSVPs from the EC members.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 4:00

Respectfully submitted,

Kathleen Feinblum

 

 

  

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