Accomplishments

COMPENSATION: The Largest Negotiated Raises IN ECC History

Salary is a concern and point of contention in every cycle of contract bargaining. During the contract negotiations where I've been involved, we've taken a data driven approach to analyze not only the comparability of our lowest and highest salaries and pay rates to our peers, but to more comprehensively consider different time points of faculty careers, and more carefully consider the many types of faculty designations, work types, and workloads. In so doing, we've not only been able to achieve substantial raises that keep us competitive with our peers, but also address the internal inequities and inconsistencies within our contract. The figure below shows the minimum increase to every pay rate and salary since I've begun bargaining our agreements. In addition to the minimum illustrated below, there have been steps added to both the PT and FT scales, and supplemental longevity raises to bring up mid- and late-career pay. All of these changes have increased the ratio of PT/FT parity and made us more competitive with our peers.

LAbor Conditions: Protecting Faculty Pay and Rights

Some of the most important work I've done for the Federation has been that where I've protected faculty individually, as a class, or as a whole from the District's alleged violations of our contractual and legal rights. I have assisted individual faculty with issues ranging among attempted dismissal from employment, unreasonable evaluations, interpersonal issues with supervisors, incorrect payment, navigation of leaves, improper overload assignments, scheduling issues, and more. The language that we bargain is important, but it's only as durable as our will and skill in standing together to assert and defend the rights we bargain in those agreements. Accordingly, I've invested a lot of time both serving directly in the grievance process as a faculty representative or as a grievant on behalf of the Federation. Below is a short selection of items that I have been involved in bargaining and/or defending during my work as VP.

Dual enrollment courses and online teaching are faculty prerogative.

The District attempted to assert the right to assign dual enrollment or distance education courses to faculty by modifying job descriptions. I worked through the grievance and then PERB process with our Grievance Chair, John Baranski, and President, Kelsey Iino, to eventually successfully reach a mediated settlement with the District where they agreed to language that made it explicitly clear that acceptance of dual enrollment or distance education assignments is solely at the discretion of faculty.

Improved, new (2022) sick leave formula is now correctly applied.

When we bargained an improved sick leave formula that only deducted faculty sick leave for scheduled hours missed (previously, you could have more leave deducted than time actually missed), various inconsistencies in the District's procedures led to exploitative deduction of sick leave to the detriment of faculty. I worked with the District and directly with the BOT to bring the issue into light and work toward a solution. The District generally properly deducts sick leave now.

Faculty are paid correctly more often.

For years, the District has struggled to consistently produce accurate faculty contracts for a variety of technical and bureaucratic reasons. In the past five years, I've worked extensively with the District both at the bargaining table and in individual administrative areas to achieve greater accuracy in employment contracts and workload calculations, leading to correct (typically increased) and consistent faculty payment. Where issues do still come up, I have frequently worked with faculty to help them understand their contracts/workloads and reach a solution that gets them paid correctly. 

Institutional Service: Building a Professional and Sustainable Union

When I began work with the Federation Executive Board, our Federation was spending more money than it was taking in, didn't have a website, was inconsistently accessible to members, and had administrative functions largely maintained by a single employee. In the years in which I've served on the Executive Board since, I've been really proud to have worked with a team that has achieved a financially sustainable, fully faculty run union. It has made us stronger and healthier as a body. Currently, our Federation is tax-compliant, in good standing with our parent organizations (CFT and AFT), in good financial health, has a regularly maintained website, and is consistently accessible to its members. Additionally, member dues money is no longer spent on the Executive Board's work/release time. Now, the Executive Board's work is fully funded by the District, not members, in exactly the same manner as the Academic Senate.