Some faculty may not be aware that their good jobs, pay, and working conditions were attained through years and years of dedicated effort by others to prepare the way and maintain these benefits. Below is a brief history of that effort.
Back in the sixties and early seventies at Foothill-De Anza (FHDA), instructors taught and managers managed and students studied. A typical faculty day could start with an 8 a.m. class and end with one at 4 p.m. with others in between. Faculty were expected to be “on duty” throughout the academic day, preferably in their office. Senates created “negotiation councils” under the provisions of California’s “meet-and-confer” law, which required the two parties to discuss working conditions including salary and benefits. But a simple “no” fulfilled a board’s “meet-and-confer” obligation. And, if meeting and conferring didn’t prove successful, there were no other options. Trustees could unilaterally adopt or rescind any action, including salary increases if budget prospects worsened. When faculty reached 65, they had to retire, despite their wishes or student demand.
In 1976, after the state Legislature authorized collective bargaining in schools and community colleges, faculty at FHDA immediately formed the Faculty Association (FA), a non-profit corporation and the exclusive bargaining agent for District faculty. And the faculty chose independence rather than the established CTA/NEA. Unlike the weak “meet-and-confer” law of old, the new Public Employment Relations Act included strong provisions. It consigned representation to a single group, bound the parties to negotiate employment agreements “in good faith,” and provided remedies when either side disregarded the contract. FHDA’s first contract, or Agreement, took nine months to negotiate and was remarkable for its brevity (eight pages) as well as its content. Signed on November 23, 1977, it included a 5 percent COLA, agency shop (everyone must pay representation fees), and one full reassigned position for union leadership. Fortunately, the chancellor at that time believed in professional organizations so said that, if faculty thought they needed a union, he wanted to negotiate with one that had the support of the faculty and one whose leaders had the time to take care of their duties.
With the second contract, 1978-80, faculty won binding arbitration of grievances, re-employment preference for part-time faculty, summer sick leave, extra days for personal leave, $50,000 for professional retraining, 2.5 reassigned time for faculty leadership, and a 15 percent COLA, the largest ever (7 percent for 1978; 8 percent for 79). Expanding to over 30 articles, the new Agreement became a much acclaimed new model for the state.
Empowered by this success, FA proposed more faculty rights and benefits with its third contract (1980-83), but the state financial situation was in flux: Proposition 13 had passed, effectively shifting power from local districts to the state; Proposition 9 threatened to limit state expenditures; and inflation was out of control, totaling 42 percent just for the years 1974-79, plus an additional 23 percent for 1980-81. Employing positional (industrial/adversarial) bargaining techniques and worried about wage-price controls, FA put together an omnibus proposal full of “bargaining chips” that equated to an 80 percent increase in faculty compensation and benefits. Equally outrageous, the District proposals for 1980-83 included a severe reduction in sabbatical leaves, a reduction in step and column placement as punishment for certain infractions, a transfer of up to 10 percent of faculty as necessary to meet program needs, and language requiring faculty to meet office and committee assignments on time and be in the classroom a “reasonable” time before classes begin.
Faculty-management relations in 1980-81 plummeted to the lowest point in the District’s history. In June, management impounded 160 faculty paychecks for failure to turn in mid-term attendance reports. De Anza’s president threatened to deny funding for the Academic Senate’s Research and Innovation project. The Trustees rescinded their 6 percent COLA and substituted 3 percent at a time when the inflation rate had soared to 16 percent. If faculty wanted more salary, the Board negotiator suggested tying pay to “productivity.” FA filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) complaint with the Public Employee Relations Board, and the chief faculty negotiator revealed “secret boxes” where he believed the District was stashing thousands of dollars. At a Board meeting that fall, several hundred faculty protested loudly to the chancellor and pleaded with the Board to end the strife. Frustrated and disgusted, a state-assigned mediator called for fact-finding then left. To prepare for fact-finding, FA staff worked all through the 1980 winter recess to compile a 147-page book which described every article in dispute, gave both FA and the Board’s positions, and argued the merits of FA’s proposal. Factfinding did not go well for FA. On most issues, the state fact-finder, allegedly an anti-faculty bureaucrat, found for the District. Agreeing with all of the fact-finder’s recommendations except his recommendation for an 8 percent increase in salary (instead of FA’s 18 percent), the Board unilaterally imposed its “last best offer” of a miniscule 3.5 percent and put the package to faculty vote. Insulted, faculty predictably rejected the package. There was no alternative except to return to the negotiation table and start all over.
But within FA, serious changes were underway. Positional bargaining—the Board’s 3.5 percent vs. FA’s 18 percent—was increasingly recognized as a bankrupt strategy. As faculty support for confrontational bargaining eroded, FA’s chief negotiator resigned and was replaced by faculty keenly interested in “mutual gains,” or “interest-based” bargaining strategies. After a series of lowprofile meetings with the District chancellor and a conciliatory dropping of its ULP complaint, FA negotiated a contract that included a 5 percent COLA, a re-opener if the state budget increased more than predicted, and preservation of the sabbatical program that the Board had wanted to weaken. Perhaps even more important, the Agreement guaranteed FA a slot on a new District budget planning and development group (BPDG) that had yet to be formed. After a slow start, it grew during the 1980s into a collaborative decision-making body that helped make the District one of the most progressive and successful in the nation. FA, playing a major role on the panel, participated with enthusiasm and in good faith. In response to the prior clash between the Board and faculty, the FA News (9/18/81) concluded: “Regardless of personal feelings, collective bargaining is here to stay. The greatest danger for the future is inflexibility and extremism whether it comes from arch conservatives nostalgic for old-time authority or arch radicals crusading for anarchy.”
Since the early 1980s, FA and District negotiators have officially engaged in mutual gains bargaining; however, the level of success in adherence to this ideal has varied greatly. Following a financial crisis in 1990-91 centered on cost overruns in the construction of De Anza’s first parking structure, some top administrative resigned, a new Board of Trustees was elected, and BPDG was disbanded. At the negotiation table, FA found itself bargaining with a legal “expert” who participated mostly by simply stating an emphatic “no.” The early 1990s were financially difficult for the state, and the new Board, focusing on fiscal responsibility, engineered a severe reduction on retiree benefits. In a battle that took several years, FA fought against a declaration of impasse, offering a wide variety of alternatives to a complete elimination of retiree benefits for newly hired faculty. The Board stood firm, bolstered by the support of an anti-union legal firm, and forced the issue to fact-finding. In that process, FA supplied a copious amount of data in an attempt to show that fear of a massive future liability was unfounded, but the fact-finder took the side of the Board, recommending a “bridge to Medicare” program for faculty hired after July 1, 1997. This was short of the Board’s desire for full elimination of its responsibility to retiring faculty, but this two-tiered state of affairs remains particularly offensive to FA. Unfortunately, this episode set the tone for faculty/District relations up to the present time. While a massive faculty march on a Board meeting in Spring 1997 forced the replacement of the anti-union negotiator/lawyer with a District administrator, the District has continued to rely heavily on legal maneuvers. These are not the days of 1977 when an enlightened District administration supported a professional faculty union; rather than seek a mutual gains resolution, the administration is more inclined to thwart faculty influence and assert its own rights at any opportunity. In recent years, faculty have been forced to meet District positional bargaining with two “work to contract” job actions.
Today, it is more important than ever to maintain vigilance through the Faculty Association. Uncertain state funding, increasing medical benefit costs, and campaign to reactivate fear of liability for employee retiree benefits threaten the quality of working conditions for Foothill-De Anza faculty. With each new trustee elected to the Board and each new appointed Chancellor, FA is hopeful that the confrontational tone of faculty/management relations can be replaced with a style reminiscent of those days when Foothill-De Anza first emerged as a model for shared District governance.
While it was helping to repair governance bridges at home, FA created a Political Action Committee (FA-PAC), participated in the formation of the Bay Faculty Association (BFA), and persuaded hundreds of District faculty to join the statewide Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCC) as another way to help protect the tradition of open access for the state’s community college students. In addition, FA co-founded the California Community College Independents (CCCI), a mutual support network for independent unions. Involvement at state and regional levels helped FA to grow in stature and to achieve influence in the political process. Even so, FA is most proud of the work it has done in the District and always glad to hear from FA members at both colleges they are grateful that faculty in 1976 had the foresight to opt for collective bargaining and to encourage the development of a strong, independent union whose resources have brought to District decision-making a strong, effective faculty voice.