Teachers to Picket College Trustees

The union representing Ventura County community college teachers--who have not had a contract since the end of June--is asking members to picket district trustees this week.

According to Larry Miller, president of the American Federation of Teachers Local 1828, the district’s 1,200 teachers are being asked to picket outside the workplaces of trustees Pete Tafoya, Bob Gonzales and Norm Nagel on Monday. Protesters will be picketing Nagel’s second dental office in Thousand Oaks again Tuesday.

Trustee Allan Jacobs will not be picketed this week because he does not work, Miller said. If the teachers’ union decides to picket trustees’ homes, Jacobs will be on the list.

Trustee President John Tallman will not be picketed because he has not done anything to upset the union, Miller said. Tallman has dissented from the other trustees on many recent votes, such as a decision to give Chancellor Philip Westin a raise last month.

None of the trustees to be picketed were available for comment Friday.

“This is just to irritate them,” Miller said. “They won’t talk to us or reason with us. The silence is getting us nowhere, and their negotiators are stonewalling us. This is good old-fashioned union tactics.”

Among other concessions, the union is demanding an annual increase in salary, improved health benefits and pro rata pay for part-timers, in which the hourly rates would be equal to those of full-time teachers.

The district wants to cap health benefits; have supervisors, instead of peers, evaluate teachers; recover control over the “right of assignment,” which essentially would allow the district to transfer teachers to any location; and do away with “load banking,” under which teachers could increase their course load in order to take a later semester off.

Both sides’ negotiating teams are at an impasse.