San Mateo County Community College District teachers’ union demands higher raises

The ongoing negotiations are proving to be fruitless and frustrations are growing, Rika Yonemura-Fabian, the teacher’s union co-president and professor at Skyline College, said. 

“I feel like this is really bringing faculty together,” Yonemura-Fabian said. “The level of frustration is really going up.” 

As of Friday afternoon’s three-hour bargaining negotiation, the district was offering the teachers raises of 2%, 1.75% and 1.5%, respectively over the next three years, Yonemura-Fabian said. 

The district said it would not provide specific comment on ongoing negotiations, but is committed to finding a resolution, David McLain, executive director for Community and Government Relations, said. 

“While differing perspectives are a natural part of any collaborative effort, we remain united in our shared commitment to serving our students with excellence and integrity,” McLain said in a statement. 

The demonstration at the board meeting Wednesday hoped to show trustees and district administrators the need to pay faculty and staff livable wages for the communities they serve, Yonemura-Fabian said. 

The board chambers overflowed with union members and many made public comments sharing their hopes for quality pay. 

The union is also looking to establish an article in their contracts declaring the value and support for “academic freedom,” which many public commenters stated is “under attack” at a national level. Academic freedom is currently a district policy, but not contractually guaranteed and protected, Meredith Lanska said at the Wednesday board meeting. 

Lanska, a psychology professor at Cañada College, said including academic freedom in contracts allows for faculty to feel protected to engage in a “core condition of our work.”

Referencing the board’s approved 5% raise for themselves which was approved in February, Lanska said faculty, staff, administrators and the board all share a common goal of providing quality education to students. 

“Even though our jobs look quite different, we have the same goal,” Lanska said. “In that spirit of shared purpose, we should also share fair raises so that our contract reflects the values we both uphold.”

The unions have until the end of October to finalize negotiations, Yonemura-Fabian said. 

“We were hoping that would have had some impact on the counters they’d bring today, but we negotiated for three hours with no economic movement on the raise proposal,” Yonemura-Fabian said Friday.