10/26/2026
The Faculty Collective Bargaining Team (FCBT) met with management on Friday, Oct 23, 2026. Here’s what happened.
Special Assignment Rate
After a discussion about scheduling the next few bargaining sessions and reviewing which teams needed to provide counterproposals, a discussion about the Special Assignment pay rate began. The Special Assignment rate is the hourly rate that some faculty work is compensated at, including certain types of work done by associate faculty and some work that is done by full-time faculty over the summer. This rate has been at $45 per hour for years, and the FCBT proposed that this rate be increased to $60 per hour. The union proposed this because the rate does not increase with cost of living adjustments (COLAs) like faculty salaries do. The management team has so far refused to agree to any change in the Special Assignment rate.
What’s a COLA?
The state legislature sets a COLA each year for community college faculty, which in theory ensures that our salaries keep up with inflation. It’s worth noting that a COLA is not a raise. A COLA is meant to make sure our salaries don’t backslide as inflation rises. The COLA does not always do this, since the state legislature has to predict the inflation rate two years in advance, and inflation can change faster than that.
Management’s Financial Proposal
The FCBT has made their financial demands clear since the beginning of this negotiation process. Our associate faculty need a higher percentage of full-time pay and the full-time faculty need a raise. Right now, our associate faculty get paid 65% of a full-time faculty member at a similar step. The FCBT has proposed raising that percentage to 80%. They have also asked for an increase to all full-time faculty steps of 5%.
During this bargaining session, management laid out their financial proposal:
It was the current pay scale with the state-mandated COLAs included.
The FCBT was not impressed.
The management team’s arguments for their proposal were also unimpressive. They claim, as always, that there’s a budget crisis, that it’s the worst budget they’ve ever seen. However, if we look back at previous years, every budget that management presents to the Board of Trustees at the beginning of the fiscal year in July shows a massive budget deficit. And like magic, in June, at the end of the fiscal year, the college’s finances always show a surplus. This is a common bargaining tactic, one that the faculty union at Bellevue College explains well in this LinkedIn video. Budgets are predictions of the future, and management uses those predictions to suppress its employees' demands for fair wages. While they do this, management salaries at Edmonds College continue to skyrocket, as you can see in the state fiscal data shown below.
Management Employee | Salary for 2025 | Increase from 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Amit Singh (President) | $363,300 | +$22,000 |
| Suzanne Moreau (VP of HR) | $171,400 | +$10,000 |
| Kim Chapman (VPI) | $179,400 | +$8,500 |
Management also touted their agreement to an FCBT proposal in the previous contract cycle to increase the number of associate faculty steps from three to six, saying that they moved a lot in the last contract, so therefore the union should agree to no salary changes this time around. While we are happy that those associate faculty who have worked at the college for at least 27 quarters will have the opportunity to get wage increases, this does not change the fact that our associate faculty get paid one of the lowest percentages of the full-time salary scale in the state, much lower than that of colleges within 5 miles of Edmonds College.
Management claimed that they have put faculty first in the finances of the college. The FCBT did not agree.
Instead of pay raises or an increase in the associate faculty pay percentage, the management team instead proposed what they called their financial package. It consisted of two measures: pay for trainings and a one-time payment for associate faculty of $1000. Let’s review these in detail.
Faculty Training Pathways
Management is offering a stipend to faculty who take training courses like Online Teaching Essentials (OTE), the OSCQR Review, or the AI at Edmonds training. Full-time faculty would receive about $1800 to take all of these trainings. Associate faculty would receive between $900 and $1,125 to take all of the trainings. If you have already taken OTE, perhaps during the time interval when it was required and unpaid, fear not! You can receive equivalent pay if you take an upcoming OTE 2.0 training and redesign your curriculum to include AI.
The FCBT is skeptical about this proposal. For one, training that is not required for state employees should be compensated by state labor law. Including these stipends in the contract makes it look like the college is giving faculty more money, when they are actually just paying faculty to do more work. Furthermore, these stipends are only available until June 30, 2029, meaning that they are a one-time payment that has no guarantee of continuing.
Associate Faculty Payment
Management has also offered associate faculty a one-time payment of $1,000, but only if they teach at least one class in two different quarters between the time the contract is ratified at the end of the 2027 calendar year. That’s right, instead of any lasting changes to associate faculty salaries, management would rather offer associate faculty $1,000 one time. This payment would not continue after the end of 2027, making it another small offer with a quick sunset, just like the training proposal.
The FCBT was, to say the least, unimpressed with these proposals. The union is asking for real improvements to our pay scales so that we can keep up with the pay of our neighboring institutions, attract new faculty to join our college, and support the existing faculty who do essential work: making education accessible to our community. In response, management is offering more work for more pay and a small payout for some of our associate faculty.
Do you have thoughts or questions about these proposals? Do you want to learn more about how to get involved in the fight for a fair contract? Contact the union’s Action and Advocacy team, Jackie Sheppard and Leslie Rossman, at action@aftedmonds.com and the Federation President, Chuck Mueller at president@aftedmonds.com. If you are not receiving emails from the Action and Advocacy team about upcoming events, be sure to share your personal email with them today!