At last Thursday’s board of trustees meeting, John al-Amin presented a document that he called a tentative budget for the coming year. And the board approved it.
But it wasn’t a real budget document. In reality, the college has entered into a legally binding agreement with AFT 2121 to provide 520 instructional FTEF for Fall and Spring. But the document al-Amin brought to the board doesn’t provide any money for part-time faculty. That would indicate massive cuts. Cuts at that level would be a violation of our agreement and will not be permitted. Nothing that John al-Amin writes can change that.
This looks like an attempt to drive a wedge between faculty and our classified colleagues. The implication is that upcoming SEIU negotiations would impact faculty jobs. This is false. Faculty jobs are protected under AFT 2121’s agreement to the level of 520 FTEF.
The leadership of our two unions, AFT and SEIU, have been talking about this, and we reject administration’s attempt to divide us. It’s not right.
We are a community college, and we need administrators like John al-Amin to start acting like it. We are here to serve our students and our city, so let’s stop acting irresponsibly and start talking about how we can restore and grow our college.
For more about this so-called budget, see our latest video. https://youtu.be/cBO5Q-iTwVk
In Solidarity,
Malaika Finkelstein
AFT 2121 President
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