AFT gains crucial backing from State and County elected officials

By Jessica Silver-Sharp

As the District pushed contract negotiations into impasse this fall, AFT met with a number of key elected officials to brief them on our contractual priorities and to seek their support in the fight for a fair contract. Representing the union at these meetings were AFT President Rika Yonemura Fabian and Executive Director Chet Lexvold, joined by rank-and-file members Lee Miller, CSM Professor of Political Science, and Carl Lafata, Skyline College Professor of Administration of Justice.

Together, the delegation met separately with California Assemblymembers Diane Papan and Marc Berman; San Mateo County Supervisor Noelia Corzo (District 2); and staff from Supervisor David J. Canepa’s office (District 5) (Editor’s note: AFT’s meeting with Canepa is scheduled for Feb. 9); State Senator Josh Becker; and staff from the office of Congressman Kevin Mullin (15th District). AFT asked these elected leaders to demonstrate their support by writing to Chancellor Moreno and the Board of Trustees to urge a fair resolution to the negotiations.

L to R: Chet Lexvold, Lee Miller, Senator Josh Becker, Rika Yonemura Fabian, December 15, 2025

To share back some highlights from these meetings I sat down for interviews with Professors Miller and Lafata.

Silver-Sharp: What prompted your decision to get involved with AFT’s work to reach out to our elected officials?

 Miller: As a political science professor, various elected officials have been guest speakers in my classes, (for example, Diana Papan last semester), and my students have also interned for many of them. I offered to reach out on behalf of AFT to schedule meetings with officials or staff members whom I knew.

Lafata: I am from the Detroit area, so I come from a family that supports organized labor. My family and I have all been members of unions like the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Teamsters, and I was president of the Pacific Grove Peace Officers’ Association…as a police officer in California…so being involved with AFT has been a natural thing for me. In addition, when I served as a Michigan State Police trooper…I served…[on their behalf] as a registered lobbyist…working on legislation and testifying before the Michigan House and Senate…So when Rika reached out and invited me to participate, I figured that I could bring something to the table.

I’m also very much affected by the faculty wage and salary issues our union is trying to solve. Despite having a doctorate and nearly 20 years of part-time and full-time teaching experience…throughout the Midwest, my pay last year and this year is at the “low income” threshold for a family of two in San Mateo County. For this reason, I must work a second job as an instructor at one of the area’s regional police academies. I brought this up in our meetings [with elected officials] and rhetorically asked the representatives how, in good conscience, I could encourage students to continue their education and take on the debt and time commitment associated with obtaining a bachelor’s or graduate degree if higher education will not result in anything more than low income level wages. I made the point that the pay issue alone shows that the District does not value faculty no matter their qualifications.

Silver-Sharp: Was there anything that officials seemed especially curious about or surprised by?

 Miller: Yes, in fact all of them seemed particularly surprised both about the lack of academic freedom in our faculty contract… and also by how far out of compliance our District was on the 50 percent law compared to the majority of districts statewide. [Editor’s note: this is a California Education Code requirement that community college districts must spend at least 50% of their educational expenses on classroom instructors’ salaries]. They had many questions and kept us for a long time, listening intently. In our meeting with Marc Berman, we got to 30 min and he turned to his aide and said, “We need more time, cancel my next meeting and I’ll have my lunch here.”

Lafata: One of the things I brought up to Assemblymember Papan that surprised her was that our District and our colleges appear to be very top heavy, the ratio of administrators to faculty is out of place. It appears that the district prefers to spend its resources on positions with impressive-sounding titles than on students. For example, I have what appears to be 20-year-old audiovisual equipment in my current classroom with wires that are literally being held together by duct tape, while there are a number of vice presidents and other administrators earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. What they do may serve some unseen administrative purpose but it has no direct impact on students or their classroom experience. (See “Administrators’ pay ranks #1 in state, but faculty not keeping up”).

We presented the academic freedom issue in a couple of different ways. We certainly brought up the First Amendment related issues such as faculty being fired or disciplined for their speech in and outside of the classroom, as we have seen throughout the country. I noted that academic freedom also has to do with the ability of faculty to create program curricula that cover the topics they feel, based on their experience and expertise, their students most need…Any sort of limitation or in-person or online format imposed at the CCC, District, or local level is something about which the AFT must be concerned as it’s contrary to the ethos of higher education and paves the way for the creation of asynchronous courses that can be offered without a faculty member…The representatives were very surprised that academic freedom was as much of an issue for us and simply assumed that, as subject matter experts, we were free from these concerns.

Silver-Sharp: Were there other takeaways from those meetings that our members might be interested to know about?

 Miller: Let me share a story from when we met with Congressman Kevin Mullin’s Deputy District Director, Carol Ong. Mullin had been a regular speaker in my classes back when he was in the state legislature. I reminded Carol about an incident involving academic freedom, when Eugene Whitlock had been Vice Chancellor…Whitlock had sent me a letter, ordering me to stop giving any regular or extra credit assignments that involved my political science students engaging in the political activities of their choice, such as volunteering for a campaign or internships or participation in the CSM Democrats or the CSM Republicans. Some of my students had interned for then-Assemblymember Mullin. I told Assemblymember Mullin about this letter and he replied, “That’s ridiculous!” He had one of his assistants contact then-Chancellor Ron Galatolo, letting Ron know that if the District didn’t back down, he intended to introduce a bill in the legislature guaranteeing the right of political science professors to give their students credit for their political activities. It didn’t take long before I got another letter from Whitlock, informing me that I could continue giving my students credit for their political activities. I told Carol that I really appreciated Congressman Mullin’s help with this issue, but it illustrates that it’s not enough to just have academic freedom mentioned in the District Board policies. Back when all this had occurred, there had been Board policies on academic freedom. That clearly wasn’t enough, and I had to contact Assemblymember Mullin for help. Most faculty don’t have a personal relationship with a state Assemblymember like I did. That’s why we need academic freedom protections in our contract–for all faculty.

L to R: Chet Lexvold, Lee Miller, Carol Ong, Carl Lafata [December 3, 2025]

Lafata: Our discussions really resonated deeply with the representatives. Education is important to people in the Bay Area because they understand that it is critical to the success of their children and the region as a whole. The representatives know that their constituents want qualified educators who are able to intellectually equip their children for the challenges that the future will pose, and believe that those educators should be focused on teaching and mentoring and not having to run off to their second job at the end of the day. It is clear by the District’s words and actions that providing faculty a reasonable wage that allows them to do things like spend extra time with individual students who need it, hold robust after-class discussions, offer extended office hours, and participate in extracurricular activities is seen as a luxury, and the representatives understood that. They seemed very receptive and shared our concerns, and wrote the letters the AFT requested.

Silver-Sharp: Those are really important takeaways. I know that more meetings are planned and letters of support for our union will continue to roll in. Thank you for taking time as faculty to share your insights and experiences with those officials and with our readers, too.