Dear College Faculty Colleagues,
While we have made progress during this round of college faculty
negotiations in several areas, it appears as though we are reaching the
point of declaring formal impasse with the District over several workload
concerns.
After struggling for several years to establish a resource allocation
formula with the intention of streamlining the negotiation process and
alleviating conflict, we are disappointed to find ourselves in a place not
too dissimilar from that of previous negotiation rounds. The essence of our
current deadlock is that the District has chosen to subvert the intention of
the allocation formula by seeking to dictate how AFT allots the resources at
its disposal. Specifically, despite the fact that resources are available,
the District has been unbending on the following issues:
… Equalizing the of workload classroom and non-classroom employees;
… Equalizing workload between lecture and laboratory assignments;
… Addressing the workload issue of composition instructors teaching courses requiring more than 6,000 graded words.
In addition to these allocation formula related issues, management is insistent on changing the faculty evaluation procedure to one that is inconsistent and potentially unfair.
As a means of heading off a formal declaration of impasse, the AFT and the District have agreed to invite a mediator from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in to help the parties reach agreement on these outstanding issues. If this informal process fails, we will then be forced to pursue the formal impasse (and potentially fact-finding) processes in order to achieve final resolution.
As we proceed to informal mediation, your negotiation team would like to reassess how strongly you feel about the above mentioned issues. Please take a moment to complete the brief online survey at www.aftguild.org . Click on “College Faculty Survey” in the upper left hand corner of the home page. The survey will take no more than one minute to take and will greatly assist us as we move forward.
If you have any questions regarding these negotiations, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thanks in advance for your continuing support.
In Unity,
Jim Mahler