Here is a PDF of the October 4, 2012 issue of Table Talk: tabletalkOCT2012.  The full text of the issue is also reprinted below so that it can be searched using or web site’s search engine.

Table Talk

The Newsletter of the United Faculty of Contra Costa Community College District

October 4, 2012

 

Election Issue

 

News at a Glance

  •  UF Plans October Rallies to Get Out the Vote and Educate Voters

•  E-Board Makes Recommendations for November Elections

•  UF President Asks Democratic Party to Endorse Measure A

•  Governing Board Candidates Speak at UF-Sponsored Forums

•  “Trigger” Schedule Cuts Pose Challenges for Departments

•  Know Your Contract: How to Manage to the Banked-Load Cap

•  2012-2013 Agreement Ratified

•  Appell Becomes Next UF President; No Contested UF Elections

•  UF Reconvenes Part-Time Faculty Issues Committee

•  President’s Message: What’s Next (Including Blue Cross Update)

 

October Rallies to Get Out the Vote and Educate Voters

With competing propositions, deliberately deceptive measures, and the future of education in California at stake, it has never been more vital that voters learn what’s on the ballot and why.  Please help support our efforts by coming to the UF rallies and sending your students.  At CCC, DVC and LMC, our rallies will include a free barbecue, live music and political speeches, tabling by advocates and candidates, and more.  All are welcome, and anyone who wants to table or speak may do so.  FACCC, Local 1, and Associated Students are co-sponsoring. At the Todos Santos Plaza rally in Concord, sponsored by Assembly-Member Susan Bonilla, UF President Jeff Michels will join CA Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, former CA Superintendent Delaine Eastin and others on the podium to speak out for public investment in education.

 

October Rally Schedule

CCC:  Monday, October 8, 11am-2pm,

Outdoor Amphitheater

Downtown Concord:  Wednesday, October 10, 5-6pm,

Todos Santos Plaza

DVC:  Tuesday, October 16, 11am-2pm,

Student Life Plaza

LMC:  Thursday, October 18, 11am-2pm,

Lower Outdoor Quad

 

UF Board Makes Recommendations for Nov. Elections

Two years ago, in Table Talk, we reported that the UF Executive Board, having recognized that state politics has a huge influence over our working conditions and the learning conditions of our students, decided that the Board should review the propositions to highlight connections to our colleges and make recommendations to our members. “We see a lot of deceptive advertising these days,” we wrote. “Public employee unions and pensions are under attack. . . .  Nobody who cares about our colleges can afford to sit on the sidelines in this election, and still less those charged with protecting faculty rights.”

Two years later, the stakes have become even higher, the maze of measures and propositions even more confusing. Proposition 30 can change college funding in a single year by more than 500 million dollars. We know that if it fails, the classes to be cut have already been identified: for many students and programs, the fallout will be devastating. But is it threatened by Proposition 38, which raises taxes for K-12 but doesn’t increase college funding? Proposition 32 seems deliberately written to mislead voters and to keep unions like ours out of politics. And Measure A, our district’s effort to raise revenues locally, needs to pass by 2/3 to take effect.

So again this year, our E-Board decided to follow a process whereby we considered each proposition and measure on the November ballot.  First, we looked for the connection to education, to our faculty and students.  Second, we voted on whether to take a position at all.  And for those where the Board elected to weigh in, we voted to support or oppose.  Rather than listing our results here, we have posted our recommendations on our website: www.uf4cd.org.  We encourage members to take a look and to send us their opinions as well.

We know that our faculty are educated professionals with diverse political leanings, and we respect those differences.  Our endorsements are not meant to reflect the unanimous opinion of CCCCD faculty, but only to advise UF members of how these propositions look to us, when viewed through the narrow prism of educational interests.

Plus, this year we have taken an additional step.  As part of our political action plan, we will be sending a letter to UF member homes with some key points about our most critical endorsements. We are making available as well a template members can customize, print out, and distribute to neighbors.  This year, the E-Board is convinced that it won’t be enough for faculty to simply support education with  votes.  We need to become advocates and win the votes of our families, friends and neighbors.  For campaign materials or to volunteer, please contact the UF office at uf@uf4cd.org or call Terri at 925-680-1771.

 

Contra Costa Democrats Endorse Measure A

UF President Jeff Michels, Local 1 President Mike West, and District Trustees Sheila Grilli and John Marquez attended a Contra Costa County Democratic Central Committee meeting last week to seek an official endorsement for Measure A, the $11 parcel tax measure on the November ballot to support CCCCD. Michels made a two-minute presentation, followed by a unanimous vote to endorse Measure A.

 

Governing Board Candidates Speak at UF Forums

All three candidates running to replace District Trustee Bob Colone representing Ward 5 (East Contra Costa Country) on the CCCCD Governing Board met at Los Medanos College last week for a UF-hosted Candidates’ Forum. Greg Enholm, an economist and math teacher, stressed his financial credentials and his ongoing commitment to the District. Enholm takes classes regularly and has run for Governing Board in the past. De’shawn Woolridge, an education program analyst and a graduate of DVC and LMC, served both in student government and on District Governance Council. He stressed both his understanding of student needs and concerns as well as his long history of community service.  Daniel Borsuk, also a DVC graduate, is a writer and editor who served for many years on the County Board of Education. He emphasized the need for strong and experienced leadership to ensure fiscal stability.

At DVC this week, Vicki Gordon and Tom Cleveland, both running to unseat incumbent (since 2005) Trustee Tomi Van de Brooke in Ward 2 (Orinda, Moraga, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Hercules, and parts of Martinez), will meet at a UF Forum scheduled for Wednesday, October 3.  Van de Brooke informed the UF she could not attend due to a scheduling conflict.

Van de Brooke, the current president of the Governing Board, recently lost a bid to join the County Board of Supervisors (a race in which she was endorsed by the UF). Her track record on the Board has been excellent; she has often sought input from faculty and employee groups before making decisions as a trustee. In recent meetings with the UF, challengers Gordon and Cleveland also expressed commitments to dialog and transparency. Gordon, a former teacher and 15-year veteran of the Martinez School Board, emphasized a desire to champion students and learning. Cleveland, a CPA and former Mayor of Lafayette, stressed his goal to see our colleges expand and stabilize.

In keeping with recent past practice, the UF elected not to endorse any candidate for Board (since all seem faculty-friendly, and we will want to work well with whomever gets elected), but we are committed to helping voters make informed decisions and to helping candidates spread their messages. The UF PAC offered small contributions to each of the candidates for Ward 5, and we have added links to the candidates’ websites on our UF homepage: www.uf4cd.org.

 

“Trigger” Cuts Pose Challenges to Departments

As if planning for massive schedule cuts in the spring was not hard enough, departments with many part-timers are finding that staffing preference can make the whole picture even more complex. A part-time faculty member with staffing preference has a contractual right to be offered his or her modal load before part-timers who don’t have staffing preference are offered classes.  But what if a part-timer with preference accepts a “shadow class” that gets cut because Proposition 30 fails?  Will the department have to bump some other part-timer to offer a different class to the one with preference?

The short answer is yes. As we work out the details of the spring schedule this November, the changes we make will all be part of the scheduling process. While that process is ongoing, if schedules change, part-timers with staffing preference still need to be offered their modal loads (and offers may need to be adjusted). Staffing preference does NOT include “bumping rights” once the schedule is set.  A part-timer with preference cannot bump a less senior part-timer if a class is cancelled for low enrollment. But during the scheduling process, if classes are removed from the schedule, part-timers with modal load may need to be offered different sections.

This means the brunt of the schedule cuts if Prop 30 fails will be born by part-time faculty without staffing preference.  And it may mean that departments, to simplify their scheduling, will decide not to offer “shadow classes” to part-timers with staffing preference (if other classes are available).  Have questions about all this?  Call the UF.

 

Know Your Contract: Managing to Banked Load Caps

The semester a full-time faculty member exceeds the now-established 3.0 banked-load cap, he or she need not worry about hitting the mark exactly.  For example, if I have 2.9 in the bank and go overload .25 this semester, the District will let me put all of it in the bank, and I’ll be at 3.15 banked load.  No problem.  However, now that I’m over cap, I must manage my load accordingly, because I will not be allowed to exceed the cap, even by a little, in the future. And this can force me to spend load from my bank under some circumstances.

If my normal teaching schedule results in a load of 1.066, and I am above cap (with 3.15 banked, for example), I can’t bank the .066 anymore. Unfortunately, I also can’t be paid at my AC rate for just that fraction of the class that takes me overload. Each class I teach must either count entirely for A load (including bank) or AC pay.  This means that if I teach three classes that load at .50, .30 and .266, I must pick the smallest and take the entire load as AC (to avoid going over cap).  When I do that, I’ll be at only .8 A load, since my .266 is counting as AC, so I will need to spend .2 from my bank to have a full load. Of course, this will take me back under cap so that the following semester, I can again bank load. But it’s something to watch! When we originally negotiated the banked load caps, we expected that the District could and would pay AC for parts of assignments, but in our Contract Review Committee, we have agreed to the interpretation above unless or until we negotiate something different (which may first take some technological changes at the District level).

 

2012-2013 Agreement Ratified

The recent United Faculty vote completed on September 20, 2012 resulted in the ratification of the 2012-2013 Tentative Agreement by a count of 236 YES to 11 NO.  The CCCCD Governing Board also ratified the agreement at their September meeting, so the Agreement now goes into effect, retroactive to July 1, 2012.  Details are available on the UF website: www.uf4cd.org.  Negotiations for 2013-2014 are expected to begin in January and to cover a wide range of topics including compensation, benefits, part-time parity, evaluations, staffing preference, and intellectual property rights.

 

Glenn Appell Becomes UF President-Elect

The nomination period ended without multiple candidates for any E-Board position, which means that current and appointed Board members are confirmed for a new term, and Glenn Appell will become President of the UF beginning January 1.  The next steps will include Glenn selecting vice presidents for each campus, and those appointments will need to be confirmed in an election in November.  Outgoing UF President Jeffrey Michels has agreed to continue serving the UF as lead negotiator for the spring and in other capacities, but the details of his future role are still being discussed.

 

UF Reconvenes Part-Time Faculty Issues Committee

The United Faculty has reconvened its Part-Time Faculty Issues Committee and expanded the group to include not only part-time representatives from the UF Executive Board but also part-time Academic Senate representatives from all three colleges. Current areas of discussion include the impact of Proposition 30 and Measure A, as well as parity, benefits, and efforts to professionalize part-time faculty at CCCCD. For more information or to join the committee, contact your campus part-time representative or look for our meeting schedule coming soon. We also recommend that part-time faculty become involved in activities at your campus as well as professional organizations such as the California Part-time Faculty Association (CPFA) and the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCC). Our UF Part-Time listserv is a great way to keep abreast of part-time issues as they come up: to sign up, just send an email to Part-Time Faculty Advocate Deborah Dahl-Shanks at deborahadahl@aol.com.

On September 14, the UF hosted a Part-Time Faculty meeting to discuss the Public Employees Pension Reform Act as well as issues part-timers will face if Proposition 30 doesn’t pass. Most of the changes in the pension reform act will impact new employees rather than existing employees; however, some changes will affect everyone, such as a new rule that requires retirees (STRS DB/CB members) to wait 180 days to 6 months before returning to work while collecting a pension. Current employees also will no longer be able to buy non-qualified air time after Dec. 31.  For more information on pension reform and retirement, visit the CalSTRS website (www.calstrs.com). The UF will also sponsor a retirement workshop for part-time faculty in the spring as well as our third annual benefits conference, co-sponsored by FACCC, which will include workshops on retirement, pension reform, investments, and also health benefits options and related topics.

 

President’s Message

I used to show a film clip in my Critical Thinking class that had a dozen or so former presidents, senators and candidates for office, each from a different year, announcing that “this is the most important election of our lives” or that “this is the critical turning point in our nation’s history.”  Such hyperbole is so common during election years that we hardly hear it anymore.  Yet here I am, trying to get out that same tired message: that this is the year and the time is now.

It isn’t just the $500 million dollars and more that’s in the balance for community colleges this year with Proposition 30 or the $24 million or so that Measure A might bring our district. It isn’t the attack on unions in Proposition 32; it isn’t any one detail that has me concerned. It’s the tide.  It’s the wave of reformers with their “New Normal” flags; it’s the fact that if we lose this year, we empower for heaven-knows-how-long those voices who repeat that we just can’t afford high quality public education anymore. And the more we cut schools, the more our economy will suffer, and the truer their claims about what we can’t afford will seem.

We are on the edge; but the good news is that polls suggest we’re in close races. So first, I want to say this: your vote is not enough.  It’s not enough this year that you study the propositions and vote to support community colleges. You need to get dozens more people to vote.  You need to call friends and family; post on Facebook; take a walk down the street and talk to your neighbors; customize and print out our letter (now available on the UF website as a template); share it with people who know you. Come to our rallies and events; encourage your students to come. Show your students how to register to vote on-line. Become an advocate. If we all do this, we will win.  But time is running out.

And then what’s next?  The Blue Cross Bid discussion has been delayed, but it’s still probably coming. Before any road show or survey, we have been trying to clarify the potential for cost-savings. We’re still pushing for some kind of wellness program too, since this is the only approach that data suggests can really lower health care costs.

For the UF, obviously, we are heading into a time of transition, though we have a plan to maintain stability in our leadership team and our general approach. In some ways, I think I have been doing more than one job as UF President. This is partly due to my personality, but it also has to do with the way I came to the leadership of the UF, as a newcomer with a lot to prove.  I took on a lot of issues myself because I wanted faculty to get to know me (and vice versa). So I have been our lead negotiator, our chief grievance officer, our political liaison, our event planner, and our communications director in addition to managing day-to-day operations and our budget. Sure, I have had tons of help, and our vice presidents and others do a lot. But my hope is that as Glenn comes in and reorganizes a bit, we’ll develop a more discreet set of duties for me and for the President, and by sharing the workload and responsibilities (as do many unions that have both a president and an executive director) become stronger going forward. I’m proud of our record, but we can improve.