Breaking news!

As a result of our hard work as a community—many months of organizing, electing new trustees, expanding and strengthening your community, many conversations with colleagues, the rally on October 26, and your strike card organizing–your Bargaining Team was able to reach a Tentative Agreement on a new contract a 1a.m. this morning. It includes a 14% raise over three years (9% this year, 3% next, 2% in final year 25-26), with the full restoration of salary cuts from 2021. (See the TA here.)

To reach this agreement, you had to overcome an administrative bargaining team that had been unwilling to truly negotiate, a Chancellor who unilaterally transferred some $15M from the budget you were negotiating over, and the delivery of a severance petition to divide your faculty union at a critical moment in negotiations. All of this made your struggle for a fair contract more difficult, but last night, your bargaining team was finally able to break through.

We want to be clear: This agreement is far from everything faculty deserve, particularly after so many sacrifices and so much disrespect. However, this agreement is progress and the best deal we feel we can accomplish at this moment. Your bargaining team unanimously endorses this TA.

Here’s a quick overview of the TA, with more details and explanation to come:

• A three-year contract with compounded raises of 14.5%

  • 9% for 23-24, 3% in 24-25, and 2% in 25-26

  • Full restoration of salary cuts from 2021 (a lump sum payment)

  • Retroactive pay back to July 1st of this year to reflect the 9% increase (a lump sum back payment)

• Coaches paid for previously uncompensated off-season coaching work and adjustments in Nurse Practitioner pay

• Adjustments regarding online instruction and training

• Further enforcement for rehiring laid off full-time faculty

What’s next?

• Members will vote whether or not to ratify this deal.

  • Your union will soon have more details and information about the TA and its implications (including calculators to estimate your 2021 restoration, retroactive pay, and what your pay increases would be)

  • We’ll share a schedule for the ratification vote and informational meetings to discuss and explain the new contract

  • Stay tuned!

It is a critical moment to take action for a fair contract and a more competitive salary.

AFT confirmed that Thursday your bargaining team will meet with the District for a final session of pre-impasse mediation. We urge the Board of Trustees and the Administration to offer faculty proposals that respect our commitment and sacrifices, and that recognize our right to be treated at least as well as other employee groups. For the good of our programs and community, we urge the District to make faculty salaries competitive and settle a fair contract. AFT is ready to make that deal, and you can support this process by signing your strike commitment card right now.

Now is the moment to sign and show the Board and the Chancellor that faculty stand united for competitive salaries and a fair contract: https://bit.ly/WillingToStrike4CCSF

Strike Vote Kick Off & Holiday Party

Date: Friday, December 8, 2023
Time: Strike Vote from 12-7:30pm & Holiday Party from 3:30-7:30pm
Location: Cafeteria at Ocean Campus
Buffet and beverages from 3:30 to 7:30pm
Music by Danny Halford

AFT’s Salary Proposal is What CCSF Needs to Attract and Retain Full-Time Faculty

Full-time faculty salaries at CCSF were already substantially below most of our peer schools last year, and the situation has only gotten worse this year. This disparity impacts full and part-time faculty, students, and our entire college community.

If CCSF wants to retain its reputation for academic excellence, if it wants to be able to staff departments like Chemistry, Nursing, and Construction Management, then it is going to have to pay faculty competitively. This is an investment in our students and our mission, and it is high time the Board of Trustees take responsibility for addressing this problem.

To take one fairly typical example, the median full-time faculty member was in step 17 and column F+30 last year. If you were in this step and column, your salary last year would have been 7th in the Bay 10. This year, your counterparts at Contra Costa and Foothill-de Anza (along with five other Bay 10 districts) have received raises. Now, you’re at step 18 but still making ninth in the Bay 10, ahead of only Peralta (and Peralta may yet receive a raise this year). Your highest-paid counterparts are now at West Valley-Mission, where you’d be making 32% more. Most full-time faculty at City College are in this situation—salaries about 20% lower than our counterparts at peer colleges.

The core reason for these discrepancies is that CCSF’s full-time faculty salaries were competitive in the last year of our last contract—2020-2021. But we haven’t seen raises since then, while our counterparts at other colleges have. AFT’s salary proposal would rectify this, by giving a 5.07% raise (and full back pay to restore concessions) retroactive to 21-22, a 6.56% raise retroactive to 22-23, and a 5.74% raise this year—for a total of an 18.4% raise (with another 4% next year). This would mean under AFT’s proposal, your salary last year would actually be retroactively set very slightly above the Bay 10 median. And your salary this year would be 99% of the Bay 10 median.

Making full-time faculty salaries competitive would be good for our whole college: part-time faculty, students, and programs all would benefit. However, the administration has proposed no change at all to your 22-23 salary, and only a 5% increase in your 23-24 salary—leaving you far below the median of other nine Bay 10 schools, and with your salary still ranked 7th in the Bay 10.

The Board of Trustees have a special meeting tonight at 6pm. SF Voters demanded change, and that means the Board needs to step up to ensure CCSF’s administration invests in the core of our mission and settles a fair contract with faculty.

Faculty, stay tuned for the results of this meeting, and sign your strike card today to support the fight for a competitive salary and fair contract. All faculty can sign (members, non-members, Department Chairs, etc.): https://bit.ly/WillingToStrike4CCSF

Dear Faculty,

I have several important announcements to make regarding our contract negotiations, and, more than anything, a call to action.

Other groups on campus have received raises of upwards of 14% over the past few years, while faculty have received only pay cuts and layoffs. To state the obvious, this is completely unacceptable.

• Sign your strike commitment card today: The majority on the Board of Trustees have so far been unwilling to direct Chancellor Martin and his team to engage in genuine negotiations for a reasonable agreement. It is an essential moment for faculty to show that we are absolutely united for a fair contract and more competitive salaries. Sign your strike commitment card, and attend the Strike Vote on Ocean Campus Dec 8, where you will vote on the type and duration of the strike necessary to defend our livelihoods and our college.

• AFT has declared impasse: AFT filed ‘impasse’ with the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB). Chancellor Martin and his team have refused to explain their bargaining proposals, refused to show their work, and refused to make reasonable compromises for the good of our college. Impasse will initiate a ‘fact finding’ process that lasts up to 30 days and will produce a non-binding recommendation. Both parties may agree, form their own separate agreement, or AFT may declare a strike.

• Tentative additional voluntary mediation session with the District Nov 30: The AFT Bargaining Team agreed to save the date for one more mediation session with professional mediator Paul Roose and the District’s team. Because of your organizing on Oct 26, up to 3 Trustees and Chancellor Martin would again be at this session. The decision to hold mediation will be made following a Special Board of Trustees meeting this month.

What does all this mean? It means you need to sign your strike card and prepare to strike for the good of your contract and your college. You deserve the respect of real, meaningful negotiations. Now is the time to stand together. See the graphic below detailing where we have been, where we are now, and remember that the solution is to stand together and say enough is enough.

In Unity,

Mary Bravewoman

AFT COPE Endorsement Results

Appreciate everyone who joined their Committee on Political Education meeting on Tuesday and participated in voting this week. With voting closed, AFT 2121 would like to announce that members have voted to endorse the full DCCC Labor and Working Families slate. In addition, members also voted to endorse H.R. 1134 as proposed by Barbara Lee, and to oppose the proposed “Election of Members of the Board of Supervisors” and “Substance Abuse Screening, Eval, and Treatment for CAAP Assistance” ballot measures.

Our next COPE meeting will be held on December 12th. Be sure to keep an eye out for the official announcement and official agenda

To our Community Allies, Local Leaders, and City College Community Members,

We’re sorry to have to share with you that we have uncovered Management Fraud here at our college. We did not, initially, want to believe what our investigations had uncovered. But here are the facts.

There is clear evidence that Chancellor Martin and the District have engaged in what is technically referred to as Management Fraud, or “the deliberate material misstatement of financial statements by top management” (see more). Martin recently fabricated a budget policy document by inserting information he received in 2023 into a 2020 Board report. This created the impression that recent, unprecedented transfers from the General Fund were rooted in long-standing policy. They were not.

Because of this evidence, AFT 2121 has filed yet another Unfair Labor Practice against the District for misrepresenting financial information. See the evidence and the Unfair Labor Practice here.

Of course, AFT 2121 recognizes that tensions frequently run high in the midst of protracted contract negotiations. There are differences of opinion and direction, arguments over spreadsheets and budgets and what is possible or probable.

Unfortunately, evidence of Management Fraud is not just about a difference in priorities and what we believe. For instance, we believe that the college deserves a transparent and clear-eyed discussion of its budget and its priorities. We believe that students deserve access to quality programs and services. We believe that workers should not be unnecessarily or casually laid off in the middle of a pandemic.

That is not the point here. The point is the deliberate and unlawful misrepresentation of information. It’s what that means for the ongoing health of our college and its ability to make transparent, responsible, and honest decisions.

One result of this misdirection is that the College has put away as much as $10 million dollars in new state revenues (including unprecedented COLAs), so that is not accessible at the bargaining tables with employees who are currently suffering from record inflation (which the COLAs are meant, among other things, to address).

Nor is it available to add courses in much-needed areas with student demand, to ensure heat for our classrooms, or campus access to library and counseling services.

We want to be clear: AFT supports balancing financial stability with fulfilling our mission to students and the community. What we do not support is choosing to lay off faculty and staff and deny students access to educational opportunities in order to requisition extra funds beyond what the state requires and our Board of Trustees have approved.

How does this relate to what’s happening at the Bargaining Table between AFT 2121 and CCSF Administration?

In bargaining, AFT 2121 is asking the District to share the State’s cost of living adjustments (COLA) with faculty. This is a matter both of fairness and of ensuring key departments have the staffing needed to serve students. City College’s Nursing and Allied Health departments cannot continue to train the essential healthcare workers our city needs if they are not paying their faculty competitively.

From quality education to Free City, from multiple ULPs to negotiations, AFT 2121 is committed to ensuring City College leaders responsibly use our college resources to fulfill our mission as San Francisco’s largest and most accessible source of quality higher ed, quality jobs, and hope.

Bargaining News for the Week

Reminder–there is no open bargaining today, Monday 11/6. Instead and thanks to pressure from our Rally for a Fair Contract, your Bargaining Team and the District Bargaining team–including up to three Trustees and the Chancellor–will be spending the day in voluntary, pre-impasse mediation.

For the good of our college and our families, salaries are AFT’s top priority in bargaining. Full-time salaries at City College are not competitive and are currently near the bottom of the Bay 10 community colleges–this puts the reputation of our college at risk and makes properly staffing departments, particularly in health care, extremely difficult.

The District’s first economic proposal was a 9% raise over three years and a reimbursement to faculty of only 38% of our concessions from 2021/2022. Over the last 6 months, the District’s position has remained essentially unchanged, with its latest proposal being a 9% raise over two years and a reimbursement to faculty of only 38% of our 2021/2022 concessions. The District’s unwillingness to make reasonable compromises on economic matters represents a refusal to bargain in good faith.

With key decision-makers in the room, we are hopeful our two mediation sessions scheduled for 11/6 and 11/13 will lead to significant movement at the bargaining table. AFT’s latest salary proposal is:

• 100% pay back of the 2021/2022 salary concessions. Despite the District’s dismal budget projections in bargaining, CCSF ended the year with a surplus.

• Retroactive raise of 5.07% for the 2021/2022 fiscal year

• Retroactive raise of 6.56% for the 2022/2023 fiscal year

• Raise of 5.74% for the 2022/2023 fiscal year

• Raise of 4% for the 2023/2024 fiscal year

• Raise of 1% for the 2024/2025 fiscal year