Long Beach City College - CCA
Protecting Faculty Rights & Student Success!
Resolution of Support For CCA Negotiations (pdf)
The CCA Executive Board has developed a resolution addressing the District proposal regarding an immediate cut to ALL CCA bargaining unit salaries by 7.27% as of July 1, 2010. We invite you to read the resolution which can be downloaded from the link above. After reading, we ask that you print, sign and deliver the Resolution of Support for our Negotiating Team to:
LAC, Dewayne Scheaffer, or any member of the E Board
PCC, Phyllis Hall or any member of the E Board
Or Fax to CCA at: 562.420.2206
An Open Letter To My Fellow Faculty
When I got here in the Spring of 1979, the College had just recently separated from the Long Beach Unified School District (in 1976) which founded the College in 1927 at Wilson HS. The faculty had started the Academic Senate to deal with professional and curriculum issues, but the issue of collective bargaining, salaries, health benefits, etc. needed a collected bargaining unit to protect the professional rights of faculty to have a voice in their working life.
As several long-time faculty members told me in the early 1980s, the traditional way that administration dealt with faculty concerns echoed the traditional "principal-teacher" relationship in which the teacher brings concerns about professional matters to the principal and the principal listens, then agrees to think about it and nothing ever happens. This was known as "meet and confer"--faculty talk, administrators listen and nothing ever gets done. That's over. Forever.
Over the last 30 years the faculty has carved out a role for their concerns to be taken seriously. As long as we stay united, the union, the senate, the faculty in general, we can approach the Board of Trustees, the administration, the public with our concerns about the structure and future of the College and its mission for students. The key to this is participation by faculty at all levels of the College.
We go through these cycles when long-time faculty retire and younger faculty step up into leadership roles. This has to continue or we lose our credibility. While we often have had allies among administrators, deans and others wanting to work with us for the greater good of the College, we also must know that if we fold our tents and don't take an active role in matters vital to us, then we will return to the days of "meet and confer" and direction and decision making will be top-down.
We must protect the collaborative model that has been forged since the 1970s. I'll never forget when the Curriculum Committee changed from administratively driven to faculty driven. Some were appalled and aggrieved that faculty now took the lead in the important matters of curriculum and instruction. Let's not retreat. There's an honor roll of dedicated faculty who worked hard to achieve this success: Bob Barger, Mary Weir, Lowell Johnson, Eric David, Bonnie Brinkman, Charlotte Joseph, and a legion of others. Let's keep their legacy rolling.
Craig Hendricks