San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT 1493
Minutes of General Membership/Executive Committee Meeting
September 9, 2015 – CSM
EC members present:
Najla Abrao, Eric Brenner, Lin Bowie, Vicki Clinton, Sandi Dorsett, Dan Kaplan (Exec. Secr.), Michelle Kern, Teeka James, Doniella Maher, Monica Malamud, Joaquin Rivera, Paul Rukhaus, Janice Sapigao, Anne Stafford, Elizabeth Terzakis, Rob Williams, Shaye Zahedi
AFT (non-EC) members: Wendell Doman (Spanish @ CSM)
Meeting began at 2:31 p.m.
Facilitator: Rob Williams
Closed session
EC Members discussed faculty grievances and complaints.
- Welcome and Introductions
Done.
- Statements from AFT (non EC) members on Non-Agenda Items
None.
- Minutes of May 13, 2015 AFT meeting
Minutes approved unanimously, with a few corrections sent by Dan.
- Workload Reduction Campaign – EC discussion
Our local has been talking about the increasing time that faculty have been required to spend on non-teaching tasks since Spring 2012, when a faculty survey was conducted. Since then, this issue has been on our AFT agenda several times, and we’ve had a meeting with Academic Senate leaders. Monica would like assistance from CFT to develop a strategy that will involve faculty at large, so that we may develop a proposal with good faculty buy-in and support that can be successfully negotiated.
Dan advocates for meetings where faculty can attend and share their concerns. Several EC members spoke about the need to stop going around in circles and getting to concrete actions. Monica has been reaching out to Zev to get guidance on how to make progress on this issue, but he was out on vacation. Zev told Dan that he will contact our local shortly to start working on this.
- Board of Trustees race – Joaquin Rivera
Subcommittee of EC members identified at our Retreat interviewed four candidates on the Friday right after the retreat: Maurice Goodman, Ramiro Maldonado, Karen Schwarz and Dave Mandelkern.
- Ramiro is a former republican candidate for the CA senate, worked for the G.W. Bush in the White House for six months, actively worked in Meg Witman’s campaign. He has been endorsed by current trustees Tom Mohr and Karen Schwarz.
- Maurice Goodman is a former Skyline student, former student body president, former student trustee in our district and comes from the northern part of the county. Committee was very impressed with Maurice. Current trustees Mandelkern and Holober have endorsed Maurice.
- Karen Schwarz and Dave Mandelkern are incumbents, and they are likely to be re-elected.
Two important players in the San Mateo Central Labor Coucil, as well as the San Mateo Democratic Party have endorsed Mandelkern, Schwarz and Goodman.
The recommendation of the EC subcommittee is that our local endorse Mandelkern, Schwarz and Goodman.
- EC approved endorsement of Goodman, Mandelkern and Schwarz, with two abstentions.
- Strategic Campaign Initiative Organizing Project update – Michelle Kern
On October 1st, Katharine and Michelle are meeting with other organizers of the March conference which our local will sponsor, together with Jefferson Elementary and Jefferson High School unions. Michelle has also been meeting with union leaders at Jefferson to collaborate with them and work on activism in the north county area.
Katharine and Michelle will promote the medical reimbursement stipend program among PT faculty, because it was evident from the survey that many PT faculty are not aware of this program.
- CCSF Full Accreditation resolution – Dan Kaplan
Dan brought a resolution for the consideration of the EC.
- EC voted unanimously to approve resolution.
Dan will bring up a resolution to our Board of Trustees.
- AFT Local 1493 2015-2016 budget – Harriet Tucker
Harriet distributed a draft budget for 2015-2016 and a comparison of budget projections versus actual income and expenses for 2014-2015, and she went over both documents.
- The EC unanimously approved the budget.
- Review and re(appoint) AFT Reps to Committees
CSM Professional Development Committee: Teeka nominates Chris Smith, Kathleen Steel and Rebecca Alex to this committee. In combination with the Academic Senate rep, the membership has a good mix of representatives from different areas.
- Moved to approve Teeka’s recommendations. Unanimous
At Cañada and Skyline, the same reps will continue to serve on the Professional Development Committees.
- Advocate Survey questions
The EC agrees that if faculty are still reading the printed copy, then we should continue to publish hardcopies. Suggestion: call it a “Communications Survey”, instead of “Advocate Survey”, and include questions about the website, Facebook page and emails.
Doniella pointed out that if our union membership is quite passive (not engaged/activist), then it should not surprise us if the readership of the Advocate is not very high. There are differing opinions within the EC on whether our members read the Advocate or not.
- Flex Day Obligation issue – Teeka James
Eugene Whitlock sent an email on August 6 to all adjunct faculty regarding pay for flexdays. Although he claimed that “the District has undertaken the task of clarifying how all part time faculty are compensated for participating in Opening Day and FlexDay activities”, the email was an attempt to unilaterally change the terms of our contract, skirting the negotiation process. The current contract language for PT pay for flex activities was written as an MOU on 4-26-13, and incorporated into the contract when the 9-11-13 TA was ratified by the faculty. The contract language regarding pay for PT for flex days was proposed by the District, in order to more clearly reflect the practice that had been in effect for many years. There are also emails from former ViceChancellor of Human Resources Harry Joel to Monica (past AFT 1493 president) and to college presidents documenting that this was the practice in our District for many years. The main two differences between our contract and Eugene’s recent email are: – Pay rate:According to the contract, it’s regular pay, which means lecture or lab rate, depending on what a faculty member would normally teach on a day of the week that is designated as a flex day.But Eugene says it’s “special rate”, which is exactly the opposite of regular pay (and a lower rate). – The cap on the number of hours that can be claimed as flex, and for which days:According to the contract, each semester, a PT may claim for flex up to the sum of hours that a PT is normally scheduled to teach on all the days of the week that are designated as flex in that semester.But Eugene said that pay would be capped at the number of hours of flex activities scheduled on campus on a given flex day.
Next steps:
- Teeka will send an email to faculty explaining what our current contract says about this.
- Bob Bezemek will be contacted to discuss the filing an Unfair Labor Practise with PERB.
- Administration Survey update
Elizabeth and Doniella will work on this.
- TA ratification vote
A link to the ballot was sent out to each faculty member’s email. Teeka will send out a reminder, stating that the EC has endorsed this TA.
- Statements from EC members on Non-Agenda items:
EIR for the colleges is posted online.
Meeting adjourned at 4:55 p.m.