by Karl Ewald
These are such strange times… No matter what your political leanings might be, what we are seeing in Washington seems unprecedented. While we were expecting bad winds coming from Washington with the appointment of Betsy Devos, perhaps the mostly challenging policy changes for community colleges are coming from Sacramento. The Governor’s proposal for a standalone “Online Community College” could potentially disrupt our own online offerings and leads one to wonder who will benefit from this 120-million-dollar effort. Cabrillo’s online offerings have been a steady source of growth in recent years. There is also a proposal for a significant shift in the funding formula that would leave many colleges, including Cabrillo, with flat, “hold harmless” funding. While the significant efforts of CFT, FACCC, and the Chancellor’s own CEO working group have shifted the formula in the most May revision of the budget, there is still unprecedented ambiguity in what the model will look like just a few months from the start of the fiscal year.
While the messaging around the changes is “student success”, the practical reality of flat or declining budgets hardly creates an environment where change will come easier. Departments and employees will rightfully be worried about surviving these changes. The cost of living adjustment (COLA) was just revised to 2.71%. How would depriving districts of resources in this inflationary period do anything but add friction to efforts to change? Who’s thinking about this from the perspective of individuals that make up our colleges?
Last week I did search on craigslist for 2-bedroom houses. There were 21 results. One for $1950/mo ($23,400/year). The next lowest was $2250/mo ($27,000/year). Two others for less than $2500/mo. Six for between $2500-3000/mo, and the other eleven were between $3000-3850/mo. How many people are we hiring this year? How many of them will be paying more than $36,000/year for a rental? How many other public employees will they be competing with? CCFT will continue to advocate for higher wages, but I really wonder what else we might do to make living here a reasonable, rational choice.
We expect the Janus case to be decided at the Supreme Court any day now. The expectation is that this case will decided on a first amendment basis and the whole country will become “right to work” overnight. The teachers’ strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Arizona might just give us some insight into the future of a “right to work” country. All of these states have “right to work” laws on the books. I think the message here is that even in places where there is broad political alignment with the winds in Washington, there is the bare, practical reality of survival. Not just personal survival, but the survival of the public education system itself. These teachers are demanding more than just higher wages. They are demanding funding adequate to achieve the task they’ve been given: educating our populace. You can believe in the free market and competition, but when the inevitable effects of defunding come to light, those who once believed they were just leaves blowing in the wind gather together and become the wind.
Unionists of the Year
CCFT honored Brian Legakis and David Lau as its Unionists of the Year at The Monterey Bay Central Labor Council Labor Awards Dinner on May 11th.
The CCFT Council wanted to honor Brian’s career long dedication to the union. Brian is retiring at the end of this academic year after a long career at Cabrillo. He’s been very active in CCFT over the decades and has most recently served on the CCFT Executive Board as Historian. Brian has been a tireless advocate for part-timers and we’ll profoundly miss his contributions.
The CCFT Council wanted to honor David for his award-winning work on our newsletter, The Faculty Voice and his leadership on the College for All signature gathering effort. David has been CCFT’s Communications Director since fall 2014. Under his direction, our newsletter has won numerous awards including “Best Online Newsletter”, “Best Six-Plus Page Newsletter”, and “Best Editorial or Column”. This spring, David stepped up and led the effort to gather signatures for the College for All campaign. He worked with students and Cabrillo and UCSC and helped us contribute many hundreds of signatures to the effort.
CFT 2018 Convention
CCFT sent a delegation of six to this year’s CFT Convention in Costa Mesa: Tobin Keller, Daniel Dodge, Claire Thorson, John Govsky, Jeffrey Bergamini, and me. Much of the convention was centered around the future of CFT and other public sector unions in a post-Janus, right to work, future. One of the bigger decision was to shift from having yearly conventions to having conventions every other year. This would increase the importance of the Division and State Council meetings in determining CFT’s course.
