Your AFT Negotiating Team has been working for more than a year to hammer out an agreement with the District.  As you know, given the drastic state of funding to education, many school districts have taken drastic measures:  furloughs, salary and/or step freezes, across the board salary cuts, such as at CCSF, and in the worst cases, layoffs.   In our district, our part time instructors have experienced cutbacks to teaching loads and many have lost their entire assignments.  We have lost some excellent colleagues, and our students have lost the opportunity to work with great teachers.  What is happening to education in this country –and in our state — is shameful.

Throughout this long and still unresolved round of bargaining, we have tried to guard against any further damage to faculty and to the quality of the education we offer to students.   At this point, we are still unable to report any details of our conversations at the table because we are still working with a state appointed Mediator.  We are as frustrated as you must be, and we wish we could communicate more openly with you, but the rules of Mediation dictate that we cannot share any specifics — yet.   We will continue to fight for the best possible agreement we can achieve.  We are not giving in or giving up.  Thank you for your patience and your hard work.  As soon as we are able, we will send out an email communication and bring all of you into the conversation.  Meanwhile, let your union reps know of anything going on in your workplace that is of concern, and hang in there. Let’s not let California become another Wisconsin.

In unity,
Joaquin Rivera, Chief Negotiator; Katharine Harer; Victoria Clinton & Sandra Raeber-Dorsett, Part-Timer Representatives