Officials Balk at 5.7% Raise for College Instructors

Called in to settle a bitter contract dispute, an independent negotiator Friday recommended giving community college teachers a 5.7% raise.

But administrators said they have no intention of abiding by the recommendation--an answer that provoked angry calls for a strike from the teachers union.

“They are making a very serious miscalculation if they think that this faculty doesn’t have the guts to strike,” said Larry Miller, president of the Ventura County Federation of College Teachers.

In his 20-page report, the independent fact finder--an attorney agreed to by both sides--supported the district on other key sticking points. He suggested:

* Eliminating lifetime medical benefits for faculty members employed on or after July 1, 1999.

* Giving district officials, rather than faculty members, the power to select department heads.

* Eliminating guaranteed work for part-time employees.

* Allowing administrators to visit classrooms at will.

But the negotiator recommended a much larger raise than the 1.5% the district is offering.

“It looks like the fact finder was saying to the district, ‘If you want to make a number of changes, I’m going to recommend you pay for it,’ ” said Richard Currier, the district’s chief negotiator. “Our response to that is, ‘Thank you very much for the advice, but we don’t want to take it.’ ”

Currier also questioned the credibility of the report, saying that fact finder Richard Anthony wrote it in haste, trying to meet a deadline.

“All he did was cut and paste from reports submitted to him by the panelists,” said Currier, one of two panelists who contributed to the report. The other panelist represented the union. “He didn’t offer any analysis.”

Reached at his Boulder City, Nev., office, Anthony said the district was avoiding the real issue.

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“He calls it cut and paste, I call it agreeing with their [the panelists’] opinions,” Anthony said. “All of this doesn’t have anything to do with the issues. And the parties do have major issues that they need to address.”

Both sides will meet Tuesday in closed session to discuss the findings.

Miller said the teachers plan to concur with the report.

“Those are big things for us to give up,” Miller said. “But we’re doing it for the students, so we can get back to teaching.”

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Currier said the district will flatly reject Anthony’s suggestions, a move that would allow officials to impose new working conditions while negotiations continue.

Such an action would leave teachers no choice but to strike, Miller said, adding that teachers supported the idea at recent union meetings. Community college teachers in California last went on strike when Compton teachers walked off the job 20 years ago.

“At this point, the morale couldn’t get any lower,” Miller said. “But the anger is growing again. The issue is not if we will strike, but when we will strike.”