Welcome to the following faculty who have recently joined the CCFT family. We await the rest of you who have not yet joined.

Colleen Avery	Temporary	Nursing/Allied Health
Allan Celestin	Temporary	English
Bonnie Cullen	Temporary	Fine Arts
Jennifer Ferris	Temporary	Human Development
Kenneth Bob Miller	Temporary	Physical Education
Larry Mischel	Temporary	Mathematics
Julia Raybould-Rodgers	Temporary	English

RACE FOR CCFT VICE-PRESIDENT UNDERWAY

Two faculty, incumbent VP, Matt Fleming (English) and Pete Lagomarsino (Engineering and Technology) are running for the office of Vice-President for the union. They each gave a candidate's statement at a recent Council of Reps meeting and answered various questions from the reps.

Each was given the opportunity to provide a written statement for this newsletter. One candidate responded with a statement, which you will find below. Members, please watch for ballots later today in your campus mailboxes, and be sure that you send them back by the deadline.

Candidate's Statement for the Vice-Presidency
By Matthew Fleming

Let me start by reading what the bylaws delineate as the obligations of the Vice-President of CCFT: "The Vice-President shall assume the responsibilities of the President if the presidency is vacant or if the President is unable to attend meetings or represent the CCFT. The Vice-President is responsible for maintaining the membership and for heading membership drives. The Vice-President shall assume other responsibilities as the President or the Executive Board may require."

First off, I want to thank Marilyn for her good health and commitment, because if she had any less of either one of these, I might have to step in and attempt to fill her very large jackboots. I know Marilyn Rossa, and I'm no Marilyn Rossa, not yet anyway. I make this point because I think it is essential to understanding the depth of knowledge and experience a union leadership role requires. In the past five years, I have learned a great deal about union policy, process, and history. When I first sat on the Executive Board (EB), words such as "arbitration," "mediation," "negotiation," and "administration" so quickly rattled off the tongues of the experienced members that to my untrained ear it sounded more like machine gun fire from the rebels in the hills than thoughtful communication on serious issues.

Now, maybe I was a bit of a slow learner and a greenhorn to the faculty in the beginning, but it took almost two years for me to acquire a functional understanding of union complexities. Early on in my first term, I realized I needed to get up to speed fast. I attended a weeklong session on grievance at the ULI conference in Santa Cruz, a CFT convention in San Francisco, and diligently worked on increasing union membership. Since that time, I have continued these activities as well as taken on quite a few more responsibilities, including formatting and editing the "UnioNews" and walking through the 6200 building every day.

However, I believe that what I bring most to the Vice-Presidency is not what I do, but how I go about doing it. While the EB deals with many volatile and sensitive issues among faculty, staff, and administration, we manage to keep the interactions professional and civil. I assist in this approach by dealing with people in a compassionate, honest, and fair manner, and where necessary, infusing humor into situations that desperately need some perspective. I think Marie even likes me.

Sincerely,
Matthew Fleming

NEGOTIATION NOTES

The district has rejected a Federation proposal to insert a part-time bumping rights clause into the contract. The proposal was to establish a formula whereby part-time faculty with greater seniority (semesters of service x loading) would be able to bump part-time faculty with lesser seniority. Although we don't wish any faculty member out of a job, we believe a fair process should be established. As it is now, a brand new part-timer, with no entitlement rights, can keep her class while a long time part-timer may lose his if the initial assignment has already been made. This situation has already occurred this semester. In two cases, a part-timer of 16 years and a part-timer of over 20 years who had classes that were cancelled lost their assignments while newer part-timers were able to keep theirs.

On another matter, the District has proposed removing two out of the five North County Division Coordinators and make the remaining three "Cluster Coordinators." The current coordinators and the Executive Board have strongly maintained that this configuration would be academically unsound. In an effort to cooperate with the district and help reduce the budget deficit, the Federation presented a counterproposal-proposed by the coordinators themselves-- that the five coordinators be maintained but that their "Responsibility Factor" be removed for 2003-04. This would save the district S17, 468. At this point, the district has rejected this proposal and has stated that it may very well remove two coordinators anyway. This would occur despite a signed agreement regarding North County Coordinators between the district and the Federation.

Although we do not yet know the final outcome of this matter, the Federation wishes to commend and deeply thank those coordinators who generously agreed to sacrifice $3133 for next year in order to preserve the positions and the 20% reassigned time necessary to maintain the integrity of their academic program. Those coordinators are Sean Boling, Virginia Findley, Jan Gillette, Brent LaMon, and Bob Marshall. You are marvelous!

Postscript: The district has notified me to say that since the college's financial situation may improve next year, they may be willing to negotiate an agreement on the North County coordinators. We will reevaluate our proposal and may submit another proposal based on increased district dollars.

We will have the details for all faculty regarding the buy-out provisions for single insurance payers prior to the semester's end. You will be getting a flyer regarding an all-faculty meeting on Wednesday, May 14, at 2:30 p.m. regarding the SISC composite rates for 2003. The Health Insurance Committee is doing a fine job sorting through the many possible permutations. We will have some reasonably priced packages, I believe.

A Charge to all PTers!
by Jill Schubert, PT Chair

PTers here at Cuesta have always faced unique concerns; among these are pay equity, loss of assignment with no recourse, and differing eligibilities/amounts of fringe benefits. At the same time, with an approximate 40% of PTers being members of the Union, the PTers have been the least vocal in pro-active concern to our unique and particular issues. We need more members, more participation, and more pro-active voice (in contrast to retro-active response), in order to manage the PT concerns.

This semester alone two issues came to a head: insurance and PT bumping rights. Regarding the first issue of insurance (with all eligible instructors to pay a composite rate beginning in October; part-timers have the option of not taking insurance at Cuesta, but all full-timers must take insurance), it does affect PTers radically differently than it does FTers. (Obviously, eligible PTers only get one-half the benefits; soon this amount will not cover the composite rate for former "singles" payers though of course it might help the former "doubles" and "family" payer categories). Regarding the second issue: the loss of assignments to either being bumped by a FT instructor or by low enrollment does and will affect PTers. While a movement was afoot during Spring Break to negotiate PT bumping rights, the District rejected the proposal on April 28 with concerns about the difficulty of applying universal formulas and criteria for bumping to the varying configurations within the divisions. So, there is no contract language in place at present for the upcoming Fall, though odds predict there may be a loss of assignments to PTers. (If any agreement is reached, we will be sure to inform you.)

If these issues concern you, (as they may very well affect you), we encourage you to take part in the future of these movements. Unfortunately, the insurance issue will not go to negotiations again until the 2005-2006 negotiations. As for PT bumping rights, it may be petitioned to be a re-opener in 2004-2005 negotiations (unless an MOU is agreed to earlier) - but that will take concern on the members' part to assure it becomes a re-opener through active participation in the next survey of members for re-openers.

In this overview of why a PTer might choose to join in a pro-activist movement to assist with PTer concerns, the question of "how" may be in order. First, communicate with your Division Representatives; take part in the vote to determine who is representing you and then communicate with them! Second, if you know of any PTer who is not a Union member, ask that faculty member to consider joining in order to promote our voice in numbers (remember -all faculty are already paying the "fair share," so it won't cost a penny more to become a CCFT member!). Third, read the contract; your ignorance is bliss for the District, not for you. The personal is political, and the political is personal (evidenced by fluctuations of your paycheck!).

It has been my privilege to assist with the PT concerns this semester; unfortunately, I am unable to continue in this capacity of the PT Faculty Chair on the Executive Board in the Fall due to scheduling of my assignment in the Business Education Division. However, I will help to do all I can from behind the scenes, hoping always to move our concerns forward with you! Thank you.

Home | Calendar| Announcements | Contract | Fair Share | Constitution | Bylaws
Executive Board | Minutes | Membership Application, Forms and Documents | Links | Newsletters

Copyright © 2003 Cuesta College Federation of Teachers
Layout by Ralph Sutter

This file was last modified by Ralph Sutter GMT