Colleagues,

We are officially at impasse in our negotiations with the District, and remain far apart on many issues. In our AFT Membership Meeting yesterday, we discussed the impasse process and heard from two faculty who have been on strike before. More information on both the impasse process and going on strike is below.

The most important thing we need to do now is to build a credible strike threat and achieve strike readiness. We need you to sign our “Count On Me” card, indicating that you will vote YES in a strike authorization vote if impasse does not result in a settlement. We started with 1:1 outreach last week, and already over 20% of our members have signed the Count On Me form.

⇒ Can we Count On You? If yes, please follow the link and fill out the form!

We have scheduled Informational Watercooler Talks this Friday and Monday for folks who missed yesterday’s meeting and/or want more information and a chance for Q&A.

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Stories from Faculty Who Went on Strike

Yesterday in our membership meeting, one of our members, Ben Feldman, along with Brian Greene from Yosemite Faculty Association, shared inspiring stories of going on strike with their colleagues and winning major gains in their contracts. There were many important takeaways from their stories, but a few that stood out to me: 1) strikes work – when faculty strike, they win, and they win quickly!; 2) strikes grow solidarity and camaraderie amongst members; and 3) faculty have the legal right to strike and the District cannot retaliate, and even more importantly, by going on strike together with 90+% of their colleagues, faculty protect each other. There is power and safety in numbers!  For more information about impasse and going on strike, see our FAQs.

With that in mind, can we Count On You to vote yes in a potential strike authorization vote in spring semester?

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Here’s a quick summary of major items we’re still fighting for:

Issue	AFT Proposal	District Proposal
Compensation	6% annual raises	3% annual raises
Health Insurance	District pays 92% of premiums for 2-party/ family Kaiser plans	District pays 89% of premiums for 2-party/ family Kaiser plans
Dental	$4,000	$2,000
Paid Parental Leave	20 days	0 days
Equal Work for Equal Pay	Pay by Load, Full-Time Overload at Parity	No counter / countered with status quo
Lab Parity	Increase load for most labs, English/Math (Calculus) workload adjustments	No counter / countered with status quo

 

Impasse can take several months and includes mandatory, confidential mediation, followed by fact-finding. At the end of that process, if we do not settle our contract, we would have the legal right to strike, so it’s imperative we get strike-ready as soon as possible!

Finally, you can show solidarity with our UC union siblings in AFSCME 3299 who are going on strike November 17th and 18th at several locations across California by joining them on the picket line! There are several UC campuses & medical centers in the Bay Area to join- see the flyer for details.

 

In Solidarity,

Chet Lexvold
Executive Director
San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT 1493
lexvold@aft1493.org
650-395-8347

See All Negotiations Updates

 

 

November 3, 2025

Dear faculty colleagues,

The District all-employee communication last Friday (10/31/25) contained disinformation that again demonstrated the District’s unwillingness to show they value faculty in a material way, beyond lip service. Their monthly update included a press release that claimed that “AFT’s latest three-year proposal at 54% would cost over $54 million for the faculty group alone, roughly five times the available ongoing resources the District will have for raises and increased benefit costs across all employee groups.”

What does this mean?

The District does not know how to compute the cost of our economic proposals accurately. For example, the District wrongly imputed one-time increases into all three years of the contract on multiple proposals we have made, thus tripling their estimated cost. Further, in their calculations, the District used our initial proposal for FT medical benefits, in which we asked for 100% coverage of all healthcare plans for single, 2-party and family levels for FT faculty. However, in our most recent proposal, we asked the District to raise the contribution of the 2-party and family plans from 88% of the Kaiser cost to 92%. The District’s costing of our economic proposals completely ignores the significant movement AFT made in an effort to reach an agreement.

Why did the District send this information to us now? It means they are seriously feeling threatened by our consecutive actions in 10/8 Flex Boycott and 10/29 informational picketing. It is a classic strategy by a school District facing impasse to advertise an overbloated cost to dissuade the teachers from standing strong by their legitimate demands.

Today, AFT filed a response to the District’s request for impasse declaration.  From here on, we need to build our strike-readiness as we go through the impasse process. Come join our AFT membership meeting to learn about impasse and strike on 11/12 at 2:30-4:30pm, at Canada College in room 3-117 or by zoom.

Finally, we received a great volume of member emails in response to Chet’s email and video over the weekend, which we appreciate very much.  We are very busy responding to the District’s actions and organizing for strike-readiness so we haven’t had a chance to respond to many of your emails, but we sincerely value your engagement and will try to respond when we get time this week!

In Solidarity,

Rika
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Rika Yonemura-Fabian
President, AFT 1493
fabian@aft1493.org