Fresno City College faculty employees have unresolved conflicts with the district that involve their contracts, conflicts that may affect the future of the student body through classes and services.
Zwi Reznik, the president of the State Center Community College Federation of Teachers, has several items to discuss regarding the contract including the cancellation of faculty sabbaticals, the removal of the long-established cost-of-living salary adjustment, and the status of the school’s unrestricted general fund.
The 2006-09 faculty contract, which is still the effective document used until an update is negotiated, states that sabbatical leaves “shall be granted to unit members, under provisions of the Education Code, for the purpose of carrying out an approved program, which will enable the unit member to provide improved service to the District and its students.” However, the district has recently cancelled sabbaticals due to the state budget situation, causing discourse among faculty.
“It’s an unreasonable thing for them to do,” Reznik said, emphasizing that the district is going against the established contract.
The district has also stopped cost-of-living adjustments, or COLA, which are small but periodic bumps in pay to offset rising living expenses.
“We’re asking to maintain that in our contracts,” Reznik said.
Finally, in 2008-09, FCC’s unrestricted general fund, a “save for a rainy day” fund, was approximately $30,977,050, an amount Reznik says is “unusually large,” but not the highest he has seen among other California community colleges. Reznik said that the district used a substantial amount from the fund in 2007-08 toward the Old Administration building renovation.
According to Reznik, FCC has since kept the fund relatively intact.
Reznik, like other faculty members, has concern for the reserve and the effect it will have on future cuts and on the well-being of students. He suggested that some of this fund could be used to improve the campus for students right now.
Reznik, a mathematics instructor at FCC, has seen his Math 7 class double this semester to more than 40 students, making it more difficult to interact with individual students. He said that he sometimes holds office hours in his classroom to accommodate the increased class size.
With fewer classes and fewer instructors to teach them, class size will continue to be a problem, Reznik said.
In addition, due to fewer counselors and fewer library staff, these student services, among others, have become stretched and limited.
The library, for example, is only one of many affected operations being hit due to a lower budget, said James Tucker, the dean of instruction for the library and student learning support services. The library used to be available to students later on weeknights, late Friday afternoons and Saturdays. But all the hours have been scaled back by a few hours each. Saturday operation has been cut altogether.
For students who rely on night classes because of their full-time jobs, some may be unable to use the library.
“We didn’t have very many people coming on Saturday,” Tucker said, “and we’ve tried to minimize the impact.”
Reznik and others from the faculty union have been through ongoing negotiations with the district both with their contract agreements and with the handling of the unrestricted general fund.
The faculty union held an emergency meeting on April 10 in the Health Science building to discuss the contract and the unresolved issues with the district.
When contacted multiple times by The Rampage, district officials had minimal response.
Thomas Crow, the outgoing chancellor to the State Center Community College District, said it would be inappropriate for him to comment while negotiations were still ongoing.
“Each organization is going to have their philosophy in the way they deal with things. Some people choose to go public,” Crow said. “At this point, we choose to say that we’re going to confine our statements to the negotiating sessions with the bargaining unions.”
Crow also assured The Rampage of their professional negotiation process throughout.
“[Negotiations are] done with the greatest of respect from each side and so they’re not really acrimonious, personal, or vindictive. They [the faculty union] have a job to do and we have a job to do.”
