David Martin chooses the nuclear option

​CCSF administration has just reaffirmed their intentions: the dismantling of our college. In an email sent today, David Martin explains to chairs that he is going to cut their department budgets to finalize the layoffs of most of the 38 FT faculty who received pink slips and the 136 part-timers in their departments. From Computer Networking, ESL, & English, to Floristry, Counseling & so much more, essential CCSF programs are under attack. 

The planned budget, the one the Board of Trustees voted for, was given to departments back in February. It included awful cuts. But still included enough FTEF to re-assign most of the pink-slipped full-timers and many of the part-timers. Administration could honor that. But now they have stated their intention to cut the budget even beyond what the BOT approved. AFT 2121 President Malaika Finkelstein sent an open letter to the Board of Trustees today to challenge this latest action to slash City College. 

Normally, there’s a budget and the departments assign faculty within that budget to serve our students. But David Martin has turned it upside down. He’s defined how many faculty he wants and he’s shrinking the budget to meet it. This demonstrates no thought for our students at all and is unconscionable. 

It’s hugely problematic that they would wait until after students have begun enrolling to announce this. It has been clearly established that they can not reappoint full-timers as part-timers. However, the BOT was assured that these cuts would not eliminate programs, since faculty would be reassigned. And this is one of the justifications given by the BOT for why they voted for layoffs, claiming they had been told no departments or programs would be destroyed. 

It’s time for honesty. These layoffs will throw students out of school and close entire departments. Board members, if you want City College to continue to serve students, you can push back against this. You can still demand that the budget you approved be implemented. You can show up for public education. If you can’t find a way to do that, you are welcome to step aside. 

​What comes next? 

Sign up & share with your students: Win revenue for our College:

The current layoffs & cuts are unnecessary and short-sighted. A stable and thriving CCSF needs local investment to meet the long-term educational demands of San Franciscans. Discredited agencies on the State level–the ACCJC and FCMAT–clearly want to shrink City College, and CCSF’s current leaders seem content to follow along. Now is the time to amplify your fight to combat this trend and bring more revenue to CCSF to support faculty, students, and staff.

Your union has been working with the CCSF Revenue Unity Coalition, a historic coalition of CCSF labor, student, & community groups, to launch a campaign to ask voters to pass the San Francisco Workforce Education Reinvestment in Community Success Act (SF WERCS), a progressively applied parcel tax, this November.

•  See a summary of the measure here.
  
  

• Sign up now to start talking to voters about City College, & encourage all of your colleagues, friends, families, & peers to join you!
  
  RSVP:https://bit.ly/ccsfREVENUE
  
  Signature gathering shifts will be 10am-1pm & 1-4pm weekends and 4-8pm weekdays beginning June 2. Each shift will begin with a short training, and focus on a strategic location from parks to groceries stores to Sunday streets. 

• Come out to the SF WERC Launch Party at Dolores Park from 11-2pm, Saturday, June 11. 

To get this measure on the ballot, you need 14,000 SF voters to sign a petition endorsing it by July 11. Join us in taking action to make this real.