The Federation and the District met for another round of negotiations on Friday, Nov. 4th. We spent the first two hours or so addressing various contractual issues, reaching tentative agreement on several of them.
It was a positive, productive dialogue. But then we talked salary.
The District sweetened its previous offer somewhat, emphasis on the what.
As in: What was the Federation to make of the District's begrudging agreement to include part-time faculty in its offer of a paltry 1% raise? We couldn't in good conscience consider it much more than an artificial sweetener at best. As Evelyn Uyemura pointed out, a 1% increase for adjuncts would amount, on average, to a raise of 88 cents an hour.
And what to make of the second added sweetener, an offer of a one-time, off-schedule 1% raise for full-time faculty? This would get us nowhere near pay parity with comparable area colleges, nor would it add a penny to our pensions.
And what, finally, to make of this: The District is sitting on a pile of approximately 10.6 million dollars in additional unrestricted funds – 10.6 million dollars in excess of the unrestricted 20-million-dollar budget surplus we reported last week!
That's a total of more than 30 million dollars at the District's disposal.
The 6% catch-up raise we're proposing would cost the District roughly 3.1 million dollars in the first year of the contract. This would constitute less than 10% of the current District surplus. The District could give us the 6% and still have 27 million dollars left over.
But we're being offered just 1%, which would leave the District a surplus of 29.5 million dollars.
The District's ability to pay but reluctance to do so raises some pretty basic questions.
As in: What? Really?? One percent??? That's the best you can do????
As teachers we do the best we can do every day for our students. We expect the District to do its best to make us feel appreciated, respected, and fairly compensated for our efforts.
Talks resume Friday the 18th.