Fresh Start for College Talks

After a full year of impasse and deepening acrimony, any sort of move toward dynamiting the deadlock at Ventura County Community College District looks like progress.

So we hope for the best after a state-appointed mediator last week gave up trying to settle the contract dispute between the district and its 1,200 teachers on three campuses.

State labor laws were designed to untangle just this sort of knot, so let the process begin.

Under those laws, the mediator’s departure means that issues including faculty pay, teacher evaluations and job security will go to a “fact-finding” procedure. The two sides must make their case to a fact-finder, chosen from a list offered by the state. If either side rejects the fact-finder’s report, the district could legally impose its own work rules and the teachers could legally strike. The report could come as soon as this summer.

At the very least, we hope the fact-finder can find some facts on which the two sides can agree. There have been very few of those in recent months.

The standoff has triggered teacher sickouts, heckling at board meetings, cancellation of campus events and a 99% faculty vote of no confidence in Chancellor Philip Westin.

The management side welcomed last week’s development, saying the faculty union has failed to address the issues or budge toward compromise. The teachers say the district thwarted mediation efforts as part of a campaign to bust the union, take back concessions won by the faculty in previous contracts, hold down salaries and weaken job protection.

One thing asserted by both management and union is that the real bottom line should be what is best for the students who spend their time and money to study at Moorpark College, Oxnard College and Ventura College.

At this moment of transition to a new phase of negotiations, we encourage both sides to think hard about those students and to redouble their efforts to start moving toward common ground.