My name is Mary Whitfield and I have been a full time faculty member in Chemistry since 2004. I am the PI for an NSF grant that expands undergraduate research opportunities for our students, I am the Vice President for Dispute Resolution with our union, and I am the faculty advisor for our Bee Club. On that subject, I want to let you know that our annual honey sale is coming up next Monday!
But today I am here to speak about the high demand funds allocated by the legislature in 2019, funds that were provided specifically for faculty salary increases. As you have previously heard, the legislative proviso for these funds was removed in the current biennium, and this resulted in the college issuing a demand to bargain in June. I am happy to report that we have made good progress in our discussions and hope to have an agreement soon. I want to thank everyone on both sides for their hard work.
But I also want to set the record straight about how this change in proviso came about. The president spoke to you about this at the September board meeting. He said, and I quote: “This year in June the proviso was removed from funding….. It caught all of us off guard, and we were trying to figure out what happened.”
However records from the SBCTC tell a different story. A recording of the June board meeting makes it clear that this move out of proviso was made at the request of the college presidents. It was voted on at a meeting of the Board of Presidents and was the result of lobbying efforts that began as soon as the legislative session opened last January. This was not a surprise.
It was, however, a surprise for faculty. We concluded bargaining on an MOU covering high demand funding in late April, and thought we had an agreement that would last two more years. We certainly never expected to be hit with a demand to bargain after only two months. I am sharing this with you today because we will begin full contract negotiations in January. For those negotiations to be successful we need a shared commitment to openness and transparency. We need to be informed of any pending or actual legislative changes that might materially impact our negotiations. We do not need any surprises. We need good faith. The union commits to this and we would like the college to as well.