Teachers Plan to Protest Stalemate

Teachers at Ventura County’s three community colleges will hold informational pickets Tuesday morning to protest stalled contract negotiations, union representatives said.

The instructors will picket only when they are not in class, to avoid disturbing student schedules, union representatives said. Faculty members had originally discussed staging a one-day walkout Tuesday, but said they decided to hold off after the disruption of last week’s earthquake.

In the evening, faculty members say, they will crowd the entrance to the district headquarters, picketing as the district trustees arrive at 6 p.m. for the closed session of Tuesday night’s board meeting.

“This is to make us be real to (the trustees),” said Barbara Hoffman, teachers’ union president and a counselor at Ventura College. “We want them to know that these are real human beings that they are playing with.”

The teachers’ union and the district have been at odds for nearly a year over the faculty’s 1993-94 contracts.

The teachers, who have not received a raise since the 1990-91 school year, are asking for a cost-of-living adjustment and a 3% raise in salary.

The district wants to keep salaries at their present levels while asking teachers for cutbacks in their health benefits and other job concessions.

The teachers at Moorpark College will picket from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in front of the campus cafeteria, faculty members there said. Ventura College teachers will protest from about 9 a.m. to noon in front of the district headquarters, Hoffman said.

Organizers of the Oxnard College protest could not be reached Friday, but union officials said picketing there will take place in a central campus area during the morning.