Members of AFT Seattle Community Colleges, Local 1789, remain in negotiations with the Seattle Central College (SCC) administration, seeking increased teacher pay, nearly two months after negotiations began.
The two parties are in a “wage reopener” that is part of the overall contract negotiation, wrote SCC spokesperson Roberto Bonaccorso in an email. Wage discussions have been postponed to the fourth meeting of AFT and Seattle Colleges, set to take place on April 12, after the third session was dominated by discussions of open meetings, wrote Annette Stofer, Seattle AFT president, in an email.
AFT entered into contract negotiations with the school administration to increase teacher pay at SCC on Feb. 8. Rank-and-file (RAF) members requested a 40 percent increase, which was not the union’s opening stance, Stofer wrote.
The Chancellor’s Office wrote in an email in February that the administration was aware of concerns about COVID-19 mitigation efforts. A rally held in advance of the negotiations was attended by “a small group of faculty,” according to the office.
“The district administration has started a Wage Reopen negotiation with AFT-Seattle that represents the faculty. In addition, both sides are working on an [memorandum of understanding] for Spring Quarter, which will address the concerns faculty raised about Covid-19 mitigation measures,” the Chancellor’s Office wrote in an email.
The first rounds of negotiations were held behind closed doors, with the rank and file members (RAF) kept in the waiting room. The legality of the practice of closed-door negotiations is ambiguous and not settled case law, Stofer said. First rounds of negotiations are held between the two negotiating parties “[p]er standing practice,” Bonaccorso wrote.
Regardless, the decision to be kept out of the room is not sitting well with many union members.
“The most successful union actions in the last 5 years have been in open negotiations,” said Dr. Jay McLean-Riggs, a RAF member.
As RAF member Dave Ellenwood put it, “Transparency resonates with everyone unless you have something to hide.”
RAF members say a 40 percent wage increase reflects a living wage in Seattle rather than what they expect the college to fork over.
More so than the South or North Seattle colleges, Seattle Central is facing a budget deficit and thus cuts to programming. Central has already sold off two pieces of property.
“The administration’s goal is to cut programs and cut faculty, but that’s our source of income too,” Stofer said.
Part of the cuts has been a drive for consolidation. A search for “efficiencies” could include program consolidation between colleges, Bonaccorso wrote. The administration floated the idea of a possible single accreditation, a discussion which preceded the current budget situation, Bonaccorso wrote. This topic is nothing short of a lightning rod with the RAF.
RAF member Zahra Alavi doesn’t have faith in the contract negotiations.
“Truth be told, I fear Central will be consolidated and I’ll be without a job,” she said.
Ellenwood believes attempts by the administration to split faculty into groups “is about a trend to consolidate power at the top.” The goal is to “corporatize what was once a public good.”
Alavi finds herself asking: Why am I doing this?
“What I’d like to see is a stronger union, representative of RAF members. A union that is interconnected with other unions on campus,” she said.
(There are three unions on campus.)
“What calls me is the interconnectivity with students, community and ourselves,” Alavi said.
“I didn’t come to community college to have students piped into poor jobs with no upward mobility,” she said.
What do these budget cuts mean in a moment where professors are asking for a living wage and the school chancellor makes more money than Gov. Jay Inslee and five times that of an SCC professor?
“I can’t live where I teach. We have no upward mobility,” Alavi said.
Bellevue College professors earn nearly 10 percent more than Seattle Central professors, although, Bonaccorso wrote, a 2018 study found that part-time faculty earned nearly a third more than part-time faculty at Bellevue.
“So, faculty do not earn a living wage. It’s bad for full time, but extremely bad for part-time staff of which there are many,” said McLean-Riggs. SCC professors have the fifth-highest base pay of community colleges in the state, Bonaccorso wrote.
The 1970s saw the growth of contingent (part-time) faculty on many college campuses. This practice escalated enough that California passed a law in the 1990s stating 75 percent of faculty must be full time or on a tenure track. Washington never passed such a law and, Mclean-Riggs said, the failure to do so has helped lead to the present moment at Central.
In the early 2000s the teaching ratio at Central was heavily weighted toward part-time faculty over tenured faculty, she said. “That number should be reversed,” McLean-Riggs said. “The chancellor wants part-time faculty to save money and keep payroll fluid. This is the Microsoft way.”
The school says that it does not have the exact data on part-time faculty versus tenured faculty from those years.
The chancellor told professors and staff about the need for an efficient business model.
“Our mission isn’t efficiency, it’s to provide help to those who need it. Students are often in an unstable place when they come to Central. A more efficient business model is at cross purposes with our mission,” McLean-Riggs said.
“We do a lot of heavy lifting. We are not a factory that makes toilet seats. Central is where everyone can find a home,” she said.
When the COVID-19 pandemic set in, classes were moved online. However, some classes needed to be conducted in person. Memorandums of understanding (MOUs) have been drawn up quarterly since the beginning of the pandemic to reflect that working conditions must be different than under normal circumstances. The current MOU was drafted before Omicron had emerged.
“The draft could have been stronger in giving faculty more say in moving back to online learning,” Stofer said. That led to safety concerns.
A statement of no confidence in the chancellor was signed by more than 100 faculty and read by the faculty to the board in a meeting. Board members later said that the chancellor was doing a “great job.” That was “literal gaslighting in real time,” Ellenwood said.
In order to pursue the possibility of single accreditation, the administration hired a private focus group (NChems) to collect data and hold focus groups. NChems sent out surveys to administration, faculty, and students to assess their opinions.
For McLean-Riggs, the chancellor’s talk about Central shows he doesn’t understand why the school is special.
“SCC has the greatest debt, and they want to quantify it in terms of bodies graduated. Seattle Central specializes in serving the most diverse student body, students with the most holes in education and transcripts,” McLean-Riggs said. “Merging the schools only serves the people already best served. That is not what Central does.”
Central hosted the Occupy movement on the South plaza.
“The administration went nuts,” she said.
“Two summers ago, those were our students and faculty getting tear gassed and beat up by the police.” Alavi said.
“This all adds to the unique flavor of Central classes because of all the culture and community,” Ellenwood said. “Don’t erase the rich culture and history. Consolidation of power that has no roots in the community. It is not student facing.”
For faculty, what does success look like?
Salary increases, justice for faculty, and meaningful salary negotiations, Stofer said. Striking to achieve these goals is not off the table, Alavi said, but it will take coordination.
“The real question is how organized we are? The administration is counting on disorganization,” she said.
Reed Olsen is a student at Seattle Central Community College.
Update: This article has been updated to reflect when SCC classes moved online.
Read more of the Mar. 30-Apr. 5, 2022 issue.