In This Issue:

Classification Professional Staff

Verification On The Way

written by Cathy Boudreau

During the week of December 14, the professional staff will receive their verification sheets for their review.

The data will include seniority, degrees, and prior experience. The professional staff should check their information immediately and return it before Christmas. Once these data have been returned by the professional staff, the college's Human Resource Office will forward them to the Board of Higher Education (BHE). Like the faculty verification forms, the BHE will then review the comments and make changes, if appropriate. Since there may be disputes, the MCCC has requested that the BHE put in place an appeal process.

Once the verification information for the faculty and professional staff is completed, the MCCC expects to receive an "interim" report for both faculty and professional staff Since this entire process has been so slow, the MCCC will probably not receive the interim report until sometime in January. When the interim report is received, the MCCC will have a tentative time table for the final report.

In addition, the BHE is attempting to get the remaining monies from our three and one-half percent that was held back for the classification study. Out of the $2.7 million, $2.3 million belongs to the MCCC. That, of course, is but a very small piece of the expected cost of this classification study. Not until the study is completed will the MCCC and the BHE know how much money will be needed. But, we do know that the $2.3 million needs to be allocated now before a request is made for supplemental funds.

This has been an excruciatingly slow process, but when the study is completed, the more thorough the study, the better our chances of getting legislative and administrative support. Dr. Robert Marsh who has been hired by the BHE to assist has been working diligently on this study as have the consultants. Like most projects of this magnitude, it always takes longer than anticipated.

Be assured that the MCCC leadership is monitoring this process very closely and is working with the consultants and BHE to move this study to completion.

Three Percent The Check Should Be in the Mail written by Cathy Boudreau At long last, on Wednesday November 25 the House and Senate passed the funding bill for our contract, as well as a number of other settled contracts, and the governor signed the bill on December 4, 1998. The Board of Higher Education (BHE) notified the colleges to incorporate the increase into the December payroll. All part-time day faculty and professional staff are entitled to the three percent increase retroactive to July 1, 1998. The three percent increase provides a minimum hourly increase from $16.23 to $16.72. The col-leges should have received money for the part-time (01) professional staff increase in this year's budget; therefore, hourly-wage professional staff unit members may have already received their increase in July. If not, colleges will need to issue retroactive checks to these unit members. If the college prepares separate contracts for the part-time day faculty, e.g. clinical, then their contracts will not reflect the three percent increase and will have to be adjusted retroactively. On Monday, December 7 the BHE sent the necessary paperwork to the Comptroller's office. Since the computer system was shut down for a week because of the year 2000 conversion, everyone is working on a constricted time line. The increase, therefore, should be in unit member's December paycheck along with the five months (July to November) retroactive money. There would be only two reasons that the increase is not reflected in the December check -- thc college did not get the information submitted to the Comptroller's Office in time or the Comptroller's Office could not turn around the information quickly enough. Each chapter president has a copy of the new salary schedule that includes the old and new weekly amounts as well as the amount of increase in the December check. Below is the present and new yearly salary schedule. Thanks to all members who called their legislators urging them to move our funding bill along.

Present Salary New Salary 27,059 27,871 28,236 29,083 29,465 30,349 30,691 31,612 31,918 32,876 33,145 34,139 34,373 35,404 35,599 36,667 38,826 37,931 38,054 39,196 39,282 40,460 40,508 41,723 41,734 42,986 42,962 44,251 44,189 45,515 45,416 46,778 46,643 48,042 47,871 49,307 49,098 50,571 50,325 51,835 51,552 53,099 52,779 54,362 54,005 55,625 55,234 56,891 56,460 58.154 57,688 59,419 58,914 60,681 60,142 61,946

Season's Greetings and Best Wishes for a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year your MCCC leadership team

Negotiating Teams Impaneled

Congratulations and best wishes to the members of the new Day and DCE negotiating teams. Tish Allen of Mass Bay CC, Priscilla Bellairs of Northern Essex, Rick Doud of Middlesex, Carol Mathison of Springfield Tech, and Abe Sherf of North Shore will compose the Day team. Marcia Blanchette of Springfield Tech, Nancy Morello of Mass Bay, Lorraine Murphy of Bunker Hill, Scott Oury of Holyoke, and Tom Salvo of Northern Essex will constitute the DCE Negotiating Team.

On November 30, the MCCC Board of Directors approved the recommendations of the nominating committee composed of a subcommittee of the Executive Committee. The teams were selected from a pool of what MCCC Vice President Phil Mahler described as very high quality applicants. The nominating committee made the selection after long (30ish) hours of structured interviews, review of credentials and applicants' essays on negotiating philosophy and lengthy deliberations. The final teams reflect attempts to balance representation between colleges, and experienced and journeyman negotiators, in the context of the applicant pools.

The MCCC has filed the demand to negotiate the successor agreement to the DCE collective bargaining agreement. There is no hold over clause for the DCE contract. The current contract contains a memorandum of agreement that provides for a 3% salary increase in September Of 1999. The DCE negotiators will soon survey the membership regarding the upcoming contract bargaining.

The terms of standing negotiating committees expire when the agreement expires. Because of the ratified one-year extension, the Day agreement expires in June of 1999. By statute, negotiations may begin 6 months prior to contract expiration.

Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission

Roxbury and Quinsigamond Community Colleges - Day DCE

Submitted by Joe Rizzo

The Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission has issued a complaint against the employer in a matter regarding the conversion of day part time courses to the Division of Continuing Education.

In 1995, the MCCC DCE unit and the employer engaged in impact bargaining concerning the transfer of day part time faculty work to the auspices of DCE at Roxbury and Quinsigamond Community Colleges. Part of the agreement that was reached established a group B list of unit members with reappointment rights. When making assignments in DCE, management was first to assign a course to those individuals on the DCE seniority list as pro- vided in the contract. If courses remained, the college(s) would then appoint faculty from the group B list. This list would be composed of those individuals who had reappointment rights as day part faculty under the day contract. It would also include any part time faculty at either college, who had three consecutive years of teaching, part time in any combination of day and DCE teaching assignments. Whereas most of the transferred faculty were day part-timers, it was expected that the B list would be essentially the same as the day part time faculty list. Over time, it was noticed that the Roxbury list was not growing and changing as was expected.

After initial discussions with the Roxbury administration concerning the day DCE group B list yielded little positive results, the issue escalated in intensity.

Eventually, Roxbury claimed that only those with day part time contractual status were recognized as being on the DCE group B list. As attempts were made to settle this problem, the situation only worsened.

Three unit members at Roxbury, whom the MCCC maintains has reappointment rights, were not given all assignment for the spring 1998 semester. In addition, the group B list at Quinsigamond also appeared to be in error. However, there does not seem to be anyone who has not received a course assignment as a result.

An MLRC charge was filed alleging failure to provide reasonable and necessary information and repudiation of The agreement. The Commission issued a complaint on the count of not providing information. The Commission found probable cause that the employer failed to bargain in good faith, and derivatively interfered with, restrained, and coerced its employees in the exercise of their rights.

The Commission dismissed the count concerning repudiation of the agreement. It stated that this was a dispute of differing interpretation of the agreement The MCCC believes the action of Roxbury Community College to be in blatant disregard of the relevant memorandum of agreement. Given the determination of the MLRC, the MCCC is considering all appeal of the dismissed Count and/or will file a grievance concerning,, the interpretation of the language. The MLRC Hearing is scheduled for January 26, 1999.

Distance Ed Faculty:

We want to hear from you

The joint MCCC/ management Distance Education Statewide Implementation Committee was established under the terms of' the Distance Education Agreement. Its purpose is to devise a means of evaluating distance education faculty, deal with the UMass/Commonwealth College Honors (distance education) Program, and address other distance education s that may arise. Meeting with the employer will commence on November 30, 1998.

If you are already engaged in distance education, or are contemplating becoming

involved in distance education, we would like to solicit your opinion and thoughts on the evaluation of distance education faculty and the UMass Program. Please contact Joe Rizzo at m3c-dce@msn.com or at 603 898-6309.

Letters to the Editor, We are dismayed at the response of the MCCC leadership to James Carlin's position to increase faculty work load, from four to five courses a semester. His rationale is that many full-time faculty now work overtime in DCE. Although this may be true, it is because they need to Supplement their low full-time salaries and have the necessary flexibility in their personal schedules. However, an increase in the standard teaching load is simply forced overtime that will force all of us to cut corners for our students. Community college students, on the average, need more support and attention from faculty, not less. Carlin's position shows contempt and disregard for student as well as faculty needs. That contempt has long been shown by the higher educational system's use of part-time faculty. If the full-time faculty work load were increased, part-timers, who are already working too many hours, at poverty wages, would be one step farther from getting fulltime jobs with benefits. For years now, college administrators have used part-timers to undermine the 'job security of full-timers and to exploit them as a Source of cheap labor. The Board of Higher Education's (BHE) intention is to intensify this, and it is made clear by their position in the contract talks going On currently with faculty in the nine state colleges. The BHE is calling for "unlimited temporary and part-time appointments and unlimited use of non-unit instructors, but no added consideration for unit members applying for other positions in the unit." (MTA Today, 9/l/98) This would legalize the reduction of full-timers by attrition. It is nothing less than downsizing at the expense of faculty and Students. When the MCCC leadership disregards the interests of part-timers, they are setting full-timers up for deeper attacks down the road. Why would the MCCC leadership agree to even negotiate around an issue that would further divide our union and hurt our students! We, the undersigned, full and part-time faculty at RCC, demand that the MCCC leadership refuse to negotiate any changes in the full-time faculty workload, fight for more full-time jobs for the hardworking, dedicated, part-time faculty who do the same job as full-timers, and work diligently to upgrade the working conditions of part-timers. Nancy Teel and 60 Roxbury Community College Faculty signatories (11/27/98) Unit members wishing to join a petition based on the above letter should contact Nancy Teel of Roxbury CC at SunshineNT@aol.com.

Editorial Suspended The MCCC Board of Directors voted in its November 20th meeting to suspend Editorials until such times as an editorial committee is established, and editorial policies approved by the Board. The BOD will meet again in January. Letters to the editor will continue to be published. Letters to the editor are subject to editing, should be concise, and the name and college of the writer must be included.

Community College Conceptualized

Dr. Penelope E. Herideen's book, Policy, Pedagogy, and Social Inequality:

Community College Student Realities in Post-Industrial America (Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, Critical Studies in Education and Culture Series, November 1998) fits within the project of how education and schooling can remedy rather than reproduce existing social inequalities. "in the wake of educational reform and a dynamic post-industrial economy, at issue is who the community college will serve and the type of education it will offer," she comments. To address these questions, her book contextualizes the "controversiality" of the community colleges' social role and challenges Current wave of higher educational reform by showing the limitations of the human capital model for education. She discusses the community college as set within all ideological battleground of negative public imagery and political vulnerability, showing the impact reforms may have on the community college's large nontraditional student population. "Despite the fact that 39% of the nation's college students attend community colleges, there is almost no literature using student voices to explore the dilemmas of nontraditional students." "But, she emphasizes, the book is not only about policy, it's about pedagogy as well." Drawing extensively from critical educational theory, feminist perspectives and the writings of community college insiders 'well as from her three years of classroom research, Professor Herideen develops the concept of' Critical Mainstreaming. Her work both documents community college Students' everyday lives and educational experiences, as well as experiments with the insights of critical pedagogy. The concept of Critical Mainstreaming transcends traditional dichotomies such as vocational vs. liberal arts education and education for critical consciousness vs. training for upward mobility, providing a unique pedagogy designed to maximize educational and career success for nontraditional students.

Dr. David L. Levinson, Associate Dean at Massachusetts Bay Community College, calls this book "a must read for all those concerned with understanding and unlocking the hidden potential of disparate learners." Dr. Dan Clawson, Professor of Sociology at UMASS-Amherst, notes that, "both Herideen's teaching, and analysis in this book, go way beyond description, tackling the problem of transformation..."

Penelope E. Herideen teaches at Holyoke Community College

Nomination Form for NEA Representative Assembly Delegate (Orlando, Florida: July 1 - July 6, 1999) MTA Annual Meeting Delegate (Boston: May 14, 15, 1999) This form is provided in PDF format for downloading and printing. Click here to download the PDF version. I never heard of PDF...

Contact Information for 1998-1999 MCCC Statewide Leadership

MCCC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

OFFICERS

AT-LARGE MEMBERS

Know Your Day Contract 

Dec. 11	Last day for student evaluations
Dec. 15	President forwards Fall sabbatical applications to committee
Dec. 30	E-4 and E-5s Due
Jan. 15	Sabbatical recommendations due
Jan. 18	Martin Luther King Day

N.B. Dates may vary depending on first day of classes. Also, most of these dates are "last date" standards. In many instances, the action can he accomplished before the date indicated.