May 2023 Advocate: AFT presents petition for a fair contract to Board & Chancellor

AFT members present petition for a fair contract to Board & Chancellor

AFT 1493 has been negotiating with the District for a new contract for a year, but the District has not made an acceptable offer. More than 1000 faculty, students, staff, and community members signed a petition to support a fair faculty contract and AFT members presented the petition to the Board of Trustees and the Chancellor at the final Board meeting of the academic year on Wednesday, May 24th.

AFT 1493 members Camille Kaslan and Kolo Wamba present the Board of Trustees and the Chancellor with a petition to support a fair faculty contract signed by over 1000 faculty, students, staff, and community members

The petition calls on the District leadership to negotiate in good faith to provide:

  • an increase in wages that allows faculty to live in the area
  • affordable healthcare for all faculty
  • equitable pay for adjunct faculty

“Faculty have been working tirelessly to provide students with the best educational experience.  We need our District to recognize that in order for this to be sustainable and continue to focus on our students, faculty need the working conditions and wages that our union has been trying to negotiate for over a year” said AFT 1493 President Monica Malamud.

The District is funded primarily by local property tax revenue, which continues to increase in one of the most expensive areas in the country. As of mid-May, the College District’s annual share of property tax revenues for the 2023-24 fiscal year was up 5.5%. Yet last year, faculty received a raise of only half a percent. And even though the State of California has allocated $200 million in ongoing funding to fully reimburse community college districts for providing healthcare to adjunct faculty, the District has been unwilling to expand its healthcare coverage to adjuncts—who currently have no employer-provided health plans unless they pay the entire premiums themselves.