The Sun
Southwestern College
Dissident Group Wants to Cut Ties with CTA
By: Sean Campbell
Oct. 5, 2007
Last spring 389 Southwestern College professors
and adjunct instructors told the state Public
Employment Relations Board they wanted to vote on
who represented them.
They got their wish. Ballots were sent by PERB to
about 1,300 faculty members and are due Nov. 5.
With Pasadena City College recently breaking
from the California Teachers Association and
Rio Hondo Community College marshaling to
follow in its footsteps, the CTA, which ultimately
oversees the college's faculty union, has a
stake in keeping SWC under its organization.
SWC professors and instructors have three
choices on their ballots, to stay with the
Southwestern College Education Association,
have no union at all, or switch to an
independent union called the Independent
Faculty Association (IFA). All balloting will be
conducted by mail. Votes will be tallied Nov. 6.
A second vote in the future will ask SWC instructional
staff if union payments should be mandatory.
SWC instructional staff pay the
Burlingame-based association about $400,000
in fees annually. That is the problem, for a group of
professors who call themselves the Freedom
Fighters. The dissidents started organizing more
than a year ago when the SCEA made union
payments mandatory. More than 80 percent of that
money is sent to the SCEA's larger associations,
most of which goes to the CTA.
Freedom Fighters Frank Paiano and Joan
Stroh said the CTA is loyal to K-12
educators at the expense of community
colleges. They said that college faculty
could get more for less if it was keeping its
money local. They are not anti-union, they
said, they are anti-CTA.
That the CTA is primarily focused on K-12 is not
contested by SCEA President Janet Mazzarella.
Almost 90 percent of the association is made up of
K-12 members, she said. But, Mazzarella, along with
other SCEA members, said that being second priority
with the CTA still gives the college faculty better
representation than being first priority with an
independent union
Under current representation, full-time faculty pay
$97.30 a month and the part-time faculty pay $20.76
a month. The IFA proposes to charge full-time
professors $45 and the part-time instructors $5.
Paiano contends that an independent union will
create a larger war chest for the college because its
dues will not leave the district.
When the money goes to Burlingame it does not
disappear, Mazzarella said, and CTA gives the union
support that an independent union could not. CTA
provides information that is "top notch," trained
professionals who know the ins and outs of the
community college system, and a team of lawyers
that can protect faculty. She said she recently had to
call on the CTA for help and has used its assistance
many times in the past.
CTA provides training for negotiating, wrote SCEA
member and SWC English Professor Andrew Rempt,
in a global e-mail. Rempt questioned the
representation of the proposed independent union.
"What have any of the members of the IFA done to
prepare themselves for stepping into the enormous
shoes of the SCEA?" Rempt wrote.
Several SCEA negotiators have attended
interest-based bargaining seminars, Rempt said. He
questioned how IFA negotiators would compete.
Paiano said that the IFA has an excellent legal firm
that has done well against the CTA and has
represented other faculty in dealing with districts.
The legal firm is well versed in Independent Faculty
Unions, which it has been working with for 16 years,
he said.
Paiano and Stroh have both worked on at least one
SCEA negotiating team and both said they believe
they can do a better job negotiating than SCEA,
Paiano said.
Rempt said an independent union will not be a
strong lobbyist for education legislation in
Sacramento and that it was irresponsible for SWC
faculty to have other people lobbying for SWC at a
state level without SWC's support, said Rempt.
Joan Stroh, SWC chair for computer information
systems, said the IFA would not be on its own, but
part of a larger organization called the California
Community College Independents (CCCI) which has
13 community college districts under it, including the
neighboring Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community
College District.
IFA supporters point out the state's split of
Proposition 98 to show CTA's loyalty to K-12.
Eleven percent of the millions provided by
proposition are supposed to go to community
colleges, Paiano said. He said that in the last
twenty years community colleges have
received the proper 11 percent allocation only
once. He contends that the CTA never agitated
in the college's favor.
"They're working against us," he said.
The California Community College Initiative, which is
on the February 2008 ballot proposing to lower
community college tuition from $20 to $15 is another
example of CTA's overarching loyalty to K-12, said
Stroh.
But SCEA officials said the initiative is not as
clear-cut an issue as IFA proponents believe. They
said that IFA's dragging it into this vote is a "red
herring."
Part-time adjuncts at SWC outnumber full-time
faculty 3 to 1 and they have the power to swing the
vote. A flier found in faculty mailboxes on Oct. 3
read, "We, the part-time faculty of Southwestern
College, know that you need our votes in the
upcoming PERB election."
Adjunct instructors will vote for that organization
which creates bylaws benefiting part-timers, the flier
read. It asked for adjuncts to be included on the
executive board and negotiating team and be placed
on representative councils "in numbers proportionate
to the number of part-time faculty on campus." The
letter went on to ask for adjuncts to have a piece of
shared governance on campus committees.
SCEA currently has a place for one part-time faculty
member on the union's executive board, negotiation
team and health and welfare committee. SCEA also
allows one part-time representative from each of
SWC's eight schools to sit on its representative
council.
Stroh said that the proposed IFA constitution
includes bylaws that would give part-timers 49
percent of the seats on IFA's representative
assembly and would allow at least one
representative to sit on the negotiation team.
Stroh said the bylaws would also include laws that
would push to allow for adjuncts to recieve office
space and paid office hours.
Adjuncts have always expressed concerns about
health benefits and not having paid office-hours,
Mazzarella said. There are adjuncts that want
improvements in these areas but the larger part of
adjuncts have expressed that they will not use
part-time office hours or benefits, Mazzarella said.
Rather than focusing on gains in those areas, the
SCEA has focused all its attention into getting
adjuncts the highest wage per hour, Mazzarella said.
Phil Lopez, SCEA grievance chairman and SWC
English professor, said that the SCEA's numbers
have shown that they have successfully done this.
Since 1992 SCEA adjuncts have enjoyed an 88
percent increase in starting pay. Long-time adjuncts
have shown a 96 percent increase, compared to
full-time faculty, which have seen only a 72 percent
increase, according to Lopez.
One hurdle the IFA supporters have to overcome for
the PERB vote is the SCEA's contract, which was
ratified last spring. SCEA leaders said the contract
garnered an unprecedented cost of living increase,
11.53 percent, from the district.
Stroh wrote in a global e-mail that the raise was not
necessarily due to the SCEA negotiating team but
instead due to the college's need to keep up with a
state regulation. The law requires community
colleges to dedicate 50 percent of its allocations to
instructional costs. This year college allocations for
instruction sit at 52.6 percent according to SWC
CCFS-311 report filed with the state chancellors
office on Oct. 10.
Lopez also pointed out the college's part-time
standing compared to a Gossmont-Cuyamaca, a
comparable college to SWC that is represented by
an independent union. He said the SCEA created a
step schedule that Grossmont-Cuyamaca does not
have. It rewards adjuncts who stay with the college.
The part-time starting hourly rate at SWC is $17.08
higher than at Grossmont-Cuyamaca, according to a
flier written by Lopez. SCEA receive pro-rated paid
benefits compared to Grosmont-Cuyamaca's, which
has no part-time benefits, according to Lopez.
SCEA also made a separate salary schedule to
benefit part-timers, so that full-time professors
teaching overload could not benefit from state
money that was allocated solely for part-time use.
Most other schools do not have such a system,
Lopez said.
"We have these two groups of people, part-time and
full-time," said Lopez. "Our goal is to get their
salaries closer together, not farther apart."
He said that from the numbers, they have clearly met
that goal and that the numbers clearly demonstrate
SCEA's commitment to part-time faculty.
Stroh said it is not accurate to use
Grossmont-Cuyamaca as a benchmark for an
independent union because it is one of the lowest
paid independent unions in the CCCI.
Three adjuncts interviewed for this article said they
had not yet decided how they would vote.
Carol Stuardo, SCEA adjunct faculty representative
and SWC Spanish and English as a Second
Language instructor, said she was voting for the
SCEA.
Stuardo teaches at another campus, which she
chose not to name, where part-time faculty are
represented by an independent union. She said she
is much more satisfied with the SCEA and that she
likes knowing there is proven support, on a state and
national level, backing the current SWC union.
"It would be disconcerting to lose their support," she
said.
Stuardo said the independent union at her other
college charges $5 a month, about one fourth
SCEA's part-time monthly dues. SCEA has
negotiated a contract that pays faculty $15 to 20
more per hour compared to her independent
representatives, she said.
"In one hour of teaching (at SWC)," Stuardo said.
"I've already made back my monthly dues."
Carole Ziegler, SWC geography and geology
adjunct, said she planned to vote for the IFA to
represent her.
"One of the reasons," she said. "Is that I work at
another university and I have to pay two unions."
She said she is looking forward to the debate coming
to an end so teachers can get back to what they are
at SWC for-the student.
Southwestern College
Dissident Group Wants to Cut Ties with CTA
By: Sean Campbell
Oct. 5, 2007
Last spring 389 Southwestern College professors
and adjunct instructors told the state Public
Employment Relations Board they wanted to vote on
who represented them.
They got their wish. Ballots were sent by PERB to
about 1,300 faculty members and are due Nov. 5.
With Pasadena City College recently breaking
from the California Teachers Association and
Rio Hondo Community College marshaling to
follow in its footsteps, the CTA, which ultimately
oversees the college's faculty union, has a
stake in keeping SWC under its organization.
SWC professors and instructors have three
choices on their ballots, to stay with the
Southwestern College Education Association,
have no union at all, or switch to an
independent union called the Independent
Faculty Association (IFA). All balloting will be
conducted by mail. Votes will be tallied Nov. 6.
A second vote in the future will ask SWC instructional
staff if union payments should be mandatory.
SWC instructional staff pay the
Burlingame-based association about $400,000
in fees annually. That is the problem, for a group of
professors who call themselves the Freedom
Fighters. The dissidents started organizing more
than a year ago when the SCEA made union
payments mandatory. More than 80 percent of that
money is sent to the SCEA's larger associations,
most of which goes to the CTA.
Freedom Fighters Frank Paiano and Joan
Stroh said the CTA is loyal to K-12
educators at the expense of community
colleges. They said that college faculty
could get more for less if it was keeping its
money local. They are not anti-union, they
said, they are anti-CTA.
That the CTA is primarily focused on K-12 is not
contested by SCEA President Janet Mazzarella.
Almost 90 percent of the association is made up of
K-12 members, she said. But, Mazzarella, along with
other SCEA members, said that being second priority
with the CTA still gives the college faculty better
representation than being first priority with an
independent union
Under current representation, full-time faculty pay
$97.30 a month and the part-time faculty pay $20.76
a month. The IFA proposes to charge full-time
professors $45 and the part-time instructors $5.
Paiano contends that an independent union will
create a larger war chest for the college because its
dues will not leave the district.
When the money goes to Burlingame it does not
disappear, Mazzarella said, and CTA gives the union
support that an independent union could not. CTA
provides information that is "top notch," trained
professionals who know the ins and outs of the
community college system, and a team of lawyers
that can protect faculty. She said she recently had to
call on the CTA for help and has used its assistance
many times in the past.
CTA provides training for negotiating, wrote SCEA
member and SWC English Professor Andrew Rempt,
in a global e-mail. Rempt questioned the
representation of the proposed independent union.
"What have any of the members of the IFA done to
prepare themselves for stepping into the enormous
shoes of the SCEA?" Rempt wrote.
Several SCEA negotiators have attended
interest-based bargaining seminars, Rempt said. He
questioned how IFA negotiators would compete.
Paiano said that the IFA has an excellent legal firm
that has done well against the CTA and has
represented other faculty in dealing with districts.
The legal firm is well versed in Independent Faculty
Unions, which it has been working with for 16 years,
he said.
Paiano and Stroh have both worked on at least one
SCEA negotiating team and both said they believe
they can do a better job negotiating than SCEA,
Paiano said.
Rempt said an independent union will not be a
strong lobbyist for education legislation in
Sacramento and that it was irresponsible for SWC
faculty to have other people lobbying for SWC at a
state level without SWC's support, said Rempt.
Joan Stroh, SWC chair for computer information
systems, said the IFA would not be on its own, but
part of a larger organization called the California
Community College Independents (CCCI) which has
13 community college districts under it, including the
neighboring Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community
College District.
IFA supporters point out the state's split of
Proposition 98 to show CTA's loyalty to K-12.
Eleven percent of the millions provided by
proposition are supposed to go to community
colleges, Paiano said. He said that in the last
twenty years community colleges have
received the proper 11 percent allocation only
once. He contends that the CTA never agitated
in the college's favor.
"They're working against us," he said.
The California Community College Initiative, which is
on the February 2008 ballot proposing to lower
community college tuition from $20 to $15 is another
example of CTA's overarching loyalty to K-12, said
Stroh.
But SCEA officials said the initiative is not as
clear-cut an issue as IFA proponents believe. They
said that IFA's dragging it into this vote is a "red
herring."
Part-time adjuncts at SWC outnumber full-time
faculty 3 to 1 and they have the power to swing the
vote. A flier found in faculty mailboxes on Oct. 3
read, "We, the part-time faculty of Southwestern
College, know that you need our votes in the
upcoming PERB election."
Adjunct instructors will vote for that organization
which creates bylaws benefiting part-timers, the flier
read. It asked for adjuncts to be included on the
executive board and negotiating team and be placed
on representative councils "in numbers proportionate
to the number of part-time faculty on campus." The
letter went on to ask for adjuncts to have a piece of
shared governance on campus committees.
SCEA currently has a place for one part-time faculty
member on the union's executive board, negotiation
team and health and welfare committee. SCEA also
allows one part-time representative from each of
SWC's eight schools to sit on its representative
council.
Stroh said that the proposed IFA constitution
includes bylaws that would give part-timers 49
percent of the seats on IFA's representative
assembly and would allow at least one
representative to sit on the negotiation team.
Stroh said the bylaws would also include laws that
would push to allow for adjuncts to recieve office
space and paid office hours.
Adjuncts have always expressed concerns about
health benefits and not having paid office-hours,
Mazzarella said. There are adjuncts that want
improvements in these areas but the larger part of
adjuncts have expressed that they will not use
part-time office hours or benefits, Mazzarella said.
Rather than focusing on gains in those areas, the
SCEA has focused all its attention into getting
adjuncts the highest wage per hour, Mazzarella said.
Phil Lopez, SCEA grievance chairman and SWC
English professor, said that the SCEA's numbers
have shown that they have successfully done this.
Since 1992 SCEA adjuncts have enjoyed an 88
percent increase in starting pay. Long-time adjuncts
have shown a 96 percent increase, compared to
full-time faculty, which have seen only a 72 percent
increase, according to Lopez.
One hurdle the IFA supporters have to overcome for
the PERB vote is the SCEA's contract, which was
ratified last spring. SCEA leaders said the contract
garnered an unprecedented cost of living increase,
11.53 percent, from the district.
Stroh wrote in a global e-mail that the raise was not
necessarily due to the SCEA negotiating team but
instead due to the college's need to keep up with a
state regulation. The law requires community
colleges to dedicate 50 percent of its allocations to
instructional costs. This year college allocations for
instruction sit at 52.6 percent according to SWC
CCFS-311 report filed with the state chancellors
office on Oct. 10.
Lopez also pointed out the college's part-time
standing compared to a Gossmont-Cuyamaca, a
comparable college to SWC that is represented by
an independent union. He said the SCEA created a
step schedule that Grossmont-Cuyamaca does not
have. It rewards adjuncts who stay with the college.
The part-time starting hourly rate at SWC is $17.08
higher than at Grossmont-Cuyamaca, according to a
flier written by Lopez. SCEA receive pro-rated paid
benefits compared to Grosmont-Cuyamaca's, which
has no part-time benefits, according to Lopez.
SCEA also made a separate salary schedule to
benefit part-timers, so that full-time professors
teaching overload could not benefit from state
money that was allocated solely for part-time use.
Most other schools do not have such a system,
Lopez said.
"We have these two groups of people, part-time and
full-time," said Lopez. "Our goal is to get their
salaries closer together, not farther apart."
He said that from the numbers, they have clearly met
that goal and that the numbers clearly demonstrate
SCEA's commitment to part-time faculty.
Stroh said it is not accurate to use
Grossmont-Cuyamaca as a benchmark for an
independent union because it is one of the lowest
paid independent unions in the CCCI.
Three adjuncts interviewed for this article said they
had not yet decided how they would vote.
Carol Stuardo, SCEA adjunct faculty representative
and SWC Spanish and English as a Second
Language instructor, said she was voting for the
SCEA.
Stuardo teaches at another campus, which she
chose not to name, where part-time faculty are
represented by an independent union. She said she
is much more satisfied with the SCEA and that she
likes knowing there is proven support, on a state and
national level, backing the current SWC union.
"It would be disconcerting to lose their support," she
said.
Stuardo said the independent union at her other
college charges $5 a month, about one fourth
SCEA's part-time monthly dues. SCEA has
negotiated a contract that pays faculty $15 to 20
more per hour compared to her independent
representatives, she said.
"In one hour of teaching (at SWC)," Stuardo said.
"I've already made back my monthly dues."
Carole Ziegler, SWC geography and geology
adjunct, said she planned to vote for the IFA to
represent her.
"One of the reasons," she said. "Is that I work at
another university and I have to pay two unions."
She said she is looking forward to the debate coming
to an end so teachers can get back to what they are
at SWC for-the student.
| [Note: Southwestern faculty members Paiano and Stroh were proved right in the Feb. 5, 2008 election when CTA campaigned against an initiative to help community colleges.] "Freedom Fighters Frank Paiano and Joan Stroh said the CTA is loyal to K-12 educators at the expense of community colleges. They said that college faculty could get more for less if it was keeping its money local. They are not anti-union, they said, they are anti-CTA." |
| Southwestern Board Members still love Stutz, Artiano Shinoff & Holtz. |
| Southwestern Community College |
| Vote may decide future of the SDCEA faculty union |
| Freedom Fighters get a vote on decertification By: Sean Campbell 5/30/07 A faction of dissident professors and instructors has claimed a first-round victory in its effort to decertify Southwestern College's faculty union. |
No complaint was filed as of press time.
Union executives denied harassing Paiano. Mazzarella
said two union executives confronted him not for
soliciting signatures but because he was speaking badly
about the union's executive team.
"They can do what they want," Mazzarella said. "But now
they're making it personal. We walked up to him and
said we didn't appreciate that you're insulting your
colleagues."
Fusako Yokotobi, vice president of SWC Human
Resources, settled an earlier squabble between the two
groups over whether Freedom Fighters could solicit
professors for their signatures using faculty mail boxes
or by approaching them on campus.
In the March 28 e-mail to Paiano, she cited a California
government code stating that the Freedom Fighters
have the right to solicit employees at SWC and the right
to "use institutional bulletin boards, mailboxes, and other
means of communication."
"Please be advised," she said in the e-mail, "that
harassment of district employees or disruption of district
activities will not be permitted at any time."
SWC Professor of English Phil Lopez said that it was
Paiano who was being erratic and behaving
inappropriately. The Freedom Fighters, if anyone, are
the ones guilty of harassment, Lopez said, citing two
examples of when Freedom Fighters pushed social
boundaries while collecting signatures.
The Freedom Fighters are trying to dissolve the SCEA,
which is affiliated with the California Teachers
Association. In March the Freedom Fighters filed a
petition to call a vote for independent representation
with PERB. The petition was supported by what Paiano
said he thought was 30 percent of the college's faculty,
but he said he was wrong.
SWC's Human Resources represntatives had told the
Freedom Fighters that there were 970 faculty members
working for the college, Paiano said. But when PERB
asked the college for a list of faculty, the HR list had
grown to 1,091 names, making the Freedom Fighters
short by 31 signatures.
PERB notified the Freedom Fighters of this shortage
April 27 and gave the dissident group 10 days to gather
more signatures. While Paiano was scrambling for
signatures, he said, the incident with Mazzarella
occurred.
Paiano said Freedom Fighters were able to add almost
50 signatures to their list in just two days and sent the
signatures back to PERB May 7. Three days later PERB
notified Paiano that the Freedom Fighters had attained
enough signatures and a vote to decertify the union and
to rescind fair share would take place sometime in fall
2007.
"Let's hope for a positive, constructive and informative
campaign by both sides," Paiano said. "I got involved in
this because of what CTA did to our adjunct instructors.
I collected over 280 signatures because I felt that they
were getting a really raw deal from CTA."
Paiano said that he had given the president of the union
the opportunity to avoid this vote.
"I told Janet Mazzeralla that if CTA lowered dues for
adjuncts from $20 to 5 that I wouldn't collect a single
signature," said Paiano. "She declined immediately."
Five days before the vote was called by PERB,
Mazzarella rebutted a Freedom Fighter e-mail.
"The statements that were sent out in the IFA (Freedom
Fighters) global e-mail are so misguided that we felt
compelled to set the record straight," wrote Mazzarella.
The Freedom Fighter e-mail accused the CTA of being
a primarily K-12 union disinterested in community
colleges and lambasted the CTA for its mandatory union
dues, known as fair share. It told readers that an
independent union could build a war chest just as strong
as the CTA, and build it up with less expensive dues.
Mazzarella said that every educational organization in
the country, to her knowledge, has fair share dues and
that an independent union could not create a war chest
comparable to the CTA.
"The cost to fight the firing of one tenured faculty
member is approximately $250,000 to 300,000," said
Mazzarella. "CTA spent nearly a million on three faculty
members here at SWC. It will take a local independent
organization years to build a war chest that big."
In the e-mail Mazzarella said that the members of the
current faculty negotiation team, executive committee
and recent officers agreed not to take part in an
independent union.
"Who is going to run the new union?" she said.
Mazzarell compared SWC to Grossmont/Cuyamaca, one
of California's 12 community college districts with
independent unions. Grossmont/Cuyamaca ranked
worst on a number of important measures.
"This is one of the reasons Grossmont's part-time
faculty just left the IFA (independent union) and joined
the ranks of (the CTA)," she said.
Joan Stroh, a Freedom Fighter, said Mazzarella is
comparing SWC to Grossmont, which is the only
independent union that has lower faculty salaries than
SWC. The other 11 community college districts that
have independent unions all have higher salaries than
SWC, she said.
"She keeps harping on Grossmont," said Stroh.
In an e-mail to SWC faculty Lopez said the SCEA
offered Freedom Fighters a vote on mandatory dues.
"We told Frank Paiano that if the IFA (Freedom
Fighters) would agree to be bound by this vote we would
open the contract ratification election to all faculty
members," Lopez wrote. "Paiano said 'no.'"
The movement for an independent union spearheaded
by the Freedom Fighters is not as strong as it seems,
said Lopez.
"They have sort of created this tempest in a tea pot,
which is way out of proportion to the number of people
they represent," said Lopez. "In reality what we have is a
very small number of people, six or eight, who don't want
to pay fair share union dues."
Union executives denied harassing Paiano. Mazzarella
said two union executives confronted him not for
soliciting signatures but because he was speaking badly
about the union's executive team.
"They can do what they want," Mazzarella said. "But now
they're making it personal. We walked up to him and
said we didn't appreciate that you're insulting your
colleagues."
Fusako Yokotobi, vice president of SWC Human
Resources, settled an earlier squabble between the two
groups over whether Freedom Fighters could solicit
professors for their signatures using faculty mail boxes
or by approaching them on campus.
In the March 28 e-mail to Paiano, she cited a California
government code stating that the Freedom Fighters
have the right to solicit employees at SWC and the right
to "use institutional bulletin boards, mailboxes, and other
means of communication."
"Please be advised," she said in the e-mail, "that
harassment of district employees or disruption of district
activities will not be permitted at any time."
SWC Professor of English Phil Lopez said that it was
Paiano who was being erratic and behaving
inappropriately. The Freedom Fighters, if anyone, are
the ones guilty of harassment, Lopez said, citing two
examples of when Freedom Fighters pushed social
boundaries while collecting signatures.
The Freedom Fighters are trying to dissolve the SCEA,
which is affiliated with the California Teachers
Association. In March the Freedom Fighters filed a
petition to call a vote for independent representation
with PERB. The petition was supported by what Paiano
said he thought was 30 percent of the college's faculty,
but he said he was wrong.
SWC's Human Resources represntatives had told the
Freedom Fighters that there were 970 faculty members
working for the college, Paiano said. But when PERB
asked the college for a list of faculty, the HR list had
grown to 1,091 names, making the Freedom Fighters
short by 31 signatures.
PERB notified the Freedom Fighters of this shortage
April 27 and gave the dissident group 10 days to gather
more signatures. While Paiano was scrambling for
signatures, he said, the incident with Mazzarella
occurred.
Paiano said Freedom Fighters were able to add almost
50 signatures to their list in just two days and sent the
signatures back to PERB May 7. Three days later PERB
notified Paiano that the Freedom Fighters had attained
enough signatures and a vote to decertify the union and
to rescind fair share would take place sometime in fall
2007.
"Let's hope for a positive, constructive and informative
campaign by both sides," Paiano said. "I got involved in
this because of what CTA did to our adjunct instructors.
I collected over 280 signatures because I felt that they
were getting a really raw deal from CTA."
Paiano said that he had given the president of the union
the opportunity to avoid this vote.
"I told Janet Mazzeralla that if CTA lowered dues for
adjuncts from $20 to 5 that I wouldn't collect a single
signature," said Paiano. "She declined immediately."
Five days before the vote was called by PERB,
Mazzarella rebutted a Freedom Fighter e-mail.
"The statements that were sent out in the IFA (Freedom
Fighters) global e-mail are so misguided that we felt
compelled to set the record straight," wrote Mazzarella.
The Freedom Fighter e-mail accused the CTA of being
a primarily K-12 union disinterested in community
colleges and lambasted the CTA for its mandatory union
dues, known as fair share. It told readers that an
independent union could build a war chest just as strong
as the CTA, and build it up with less expensive dues.
Mazzarella said that every educational organization in
the country, to her knowledge, has fair share dues and
that an independent union could not create a war chest
comparable to the CTA.
"The cost to fight the firing of one tenured faculty
member is approximately $250,000 to 300,000," said
Mazzarella. "CTA spent nearly a million on three faculty
members here at SWC. It will take a local independent
organization years to build a war chest that big."
In the e-mail Mazzarella said that the members of the
current faculty negotiation team, executive committee
and recent officers agreed not to take part in an
independent union.
"Who is going to run the new union?" she said.
Mazzarell compared SWC to Grossmont/Cuyamaca, one
of California's 12 community college districts with
independent unions. Grossmont/Cuyamaca ranked
worst on a number of important measures.
"This is one of the reasons Grossmont's part-time
faculty just left the IFA (independent union) and joined
the ranks of (the CTA)," she said.
Joan Stroh, a Freedom Fighter, said Mazzarella is
comparing SWC to Grossmont, which is the only
independent union that has lower faculty salaries than
SWC. The other 11 community college districts that
have independent unions all have higher salaries than
SWC, she said.
"She keeps harping on Grossmont," said Stroh.
In an e-mail to SWC faculty Lopez said the SCEA
offered Freedom Fighters a vote on mandatory dues.
"We told Frank Paiano that if the IFA (Freedom
Fighters) would agree to be bound by this vote we would
open the contract ratification election to all faculty
members," Lopez wrote. "Paiano said 'no.'"
The movement for an independent union spearheaded
by the Freedom Fighters is not as strong as it seems,
said Lopez.
"They have sort of created this tempest in a tea pot,
which is way out of proportion to the number of people
they represent," said Lopez. "In reality what we have is a
very small number of people, six or eight, who don't want
to pay fair share union dues."
| "They were trying to assassinate me," he said. "I call it the five minute hate. You ever read '1984'? It really upset me. I was useless for the rest of the day. I wasn't able to do anything else." |
| He said five SWC professors, including SCEA President Janet Mazzarella, confronted him in front of the 400 building while he was collecting signatures for the decertification petition. |
| SCEA President Janet Mazzarella |
| Frank Paiano |
| Professor of Business and Information Systems Frank Paiano said a group that calls itself the Freedom Fighters has collected enough signatures from faculty to force two votes in the fall. Paiano said the California Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) would oversee a ballot that would give faculty the choice to dissolve the Southwestern College Education Association (SCEA) and discontinue the "fair share" clause that requires faculty to pay union fees. |
| CTA mobbing of professor working to decertify union |
| Maura Larkins note: This incident reminds me of the 60 minutes story about the Yusuf Bey family in Oakland, CA.: "Over the years, the bakery had earned a reputation for intimidation. "One incident, which they called a 'show of force,' was taped by San Francisco's CBS station KPIX-TV. Members of the bakery could be seen outside an Oakland tow-yard, demanding that a car be released." |
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| Recent resignations and lawsuits, including sexual harrassment: CVESD Reporter |
| mauralarkins.com |
SAN DIEGO EDUCATION REPORT
| December 2007 Board Meeting 7:00 PM Wednesday, December 12, 2007 REGULAR MEETING,GOVERNING BOARD SOUTHWESTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT ROOM 214 SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE TERRI VALLADOLID, DAVID J. AGOSTO, JORGE DOMINGUEZ, PH.D., JEAN ROESCH, ED.D., YOLANDA SALCIDO, ADRIAN DEL RIO, STUDENT RAJ K. CHOPRA, PH.D., SUPERINTENDENT/PRESIDENT AGREEMENTS WITH LAW FIRMS FOR LEGAL ASSISTANCE... Authorize Agreements with law firms listed below, for providing legal advice to the District for the period January 1 to December 31, 2008, inclusive, at various hourly costs. Best, Best & Krieger, LLP – Agreement Approval No. A2281.07 At a cost of $235 per hour for work performed by partners. Atkinson, Adelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo, APC – Agreement Approval No. A2282.07 at a cost of $225 per hour for work performed by partners. Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz – Agreement Approval No. A2283.07 At a cost of $225 per hour for work performed by partners. Worley, Schwartz, Garfield, & Prairie, LLP – Agreement Approval No. A2284.07 At a cost of $170 per hour for work performed by attorneys. Rutan & Tucker, LLP – Agreement Approval No. A2285.07 At a cost of $265 per hour for work performed by attorneys. Garcia, Calderon & Ruiz – Agreement Approval No. A2286.07At a cost of $215 per hour for work performed by Partners. Parham & Rajcic – Agreement Approval No. A2287.07At a cost of $173 per hour for fact finding performed by attorneys. OVERVIEW The District requires legal advice on various administrative, personnel, and business matters during the year. All legal requests will be approved through the Office of the Superintendent/President prior to requesting services. FISCAL IMPACT/FUNDING SOURCE General Fund Account No. 5730-664000- 000 [Blogger's note: Taxpayers are paying these lawyers. This information shouldn't be hidden.] |
| The information below was erased by some unknown person, and has been replaced. |
| 2006 Election Board Member Southwestern Community College District Seat 2 Terri Valladolid 42895 votes 63.65% G. Michael German 24493 votes 36.35% Seat 4 Yolanda Salcido 43733 votes 64.58% Rebecca R. Sapien-Melchor 23988 votes 35.42% Seat 5 Jorge Dominguez 34961 votes 52.97% Christine Aranda 31039 votes 47.03% |
| Home Why This Website SDCOE CVESD Castle Park Elem Law Enforcement CTA CVE Stutz Artiano Shinoff Silence is Golden Schools and Violence Office Admin Hearings Larkins OAH Hearing |
| Ex-official at college files suit to return By Chris Moran San Diego Union-Tribune January 31, 2009 CHULA VISTA — A Southwestern College administrator who resigned last year amid allegations of sexual harassment has filed a lawsuit against the college to get his job back. Arthur Lopez resigned in June as director of financial aid. A student services assistant claimed in a complaint to the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing that she had sex with Lopez to keep her job. Martha Jimenez alleges that Lopez would tell her during their sexual encounters to remember who got her the job and that she soon faced a performance evaluation. Jimenez filed a lawsuit against the college, Lopez and two other administrators last summer. Lopez's attorney said at the time that the allegations were false. Lopez, who filed his lawsuit last month, seeks to be reinstated to his job, with its annual salary of $118,704. He also seeks an unspecified amount for damages. The most recent lawsuit paints a different picture of the relationship between Lopez and Jimenez. It describes their eight- month relationship as consensual. In 2007, a year and a half after the relationship ended, the college launched two investigations – one to determine whether Jimenez had received favorable treatment as a result of the relationship, and another to determine whether she had been sexually harassed. Both investigations cleared Lopez, according to his lawsuit. The college would not comment on the suit. Last April, college President Raj Chopra sent Lopez a letter informing him that he was being placed on administrative leave and being recommended for termination, according to the suit. The letter was sent a week after the college's governing board renewed Lopez's contract for the 2008-09 academic year. |