Time to Resolve College Dispute

We welcome a sign--however faint--that a faculty strike at Ventura County’s three community colleges may not be inevitable.

Negotiators for the college district and faculty union should redouble their efforts to resolve this long and acrimonious dispute well before students arrive to begin the fall term Aug. 17.

College trustees last week postponed action on strike preparations, suggesting that there is still hope of avoiding a threatened work stoppage by 1,400 teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians represented by the California Federation of College Teachers.

For nearly 18 months district officials have fought to eliminate guaranteed work for part-time employees, to allow administrators to visit classrooms to perform evaluations and to give district officials rather than faculty members the power to select department heads. Union negotiators said the teachers would be willing to accept those changes if granted a 5.7% raise, the amount an independent fact-finder had suggested in May--but the district offered only 2.9%.

With tentative agreement within reach on those tougher issues that will reshape the colleges’ culture of faculty-management relations, resolving the money matter should not be an impossible task.

A far greater challenge will be healing the animosity and bruised feelings from a year and a half of public sniping and perceived disrespect from both sides. That hard work cannot begin until the negotiators find a compromise that both sides can live with.

It’s time for the Ventura County Community College District and its faculty union to finish up the business of negotiating and get back to the business of educating.