NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 18 , 2005
Contact:
COLUMBUS STATE FACULTY
TAKE JOB ACTION
Faculty in more than a dozen technical programs and academic departments at Columbus State Community College have notified their department chairs that they will not continue their work as program coordinators and lead instructors when the college's Autumn Quarter begins September 21.
The action follows the August 11 collapse of contract talks between the Columbus State administration and the Columbus State Education Association (CSEA). The union, which represents the college's 260 full-time faculty, has been negotiating its second contract with the college since April. The first contract expired June 30.
The union has also notified the college's administration that it will begin informational picketing at the downtown campus August 25.
Program coordinators and lead instructors provide administrative support within their technical and academic areas. In return, they receive reassigned time from classroom duties to coordinate labs, supervise adjunct faculty, resolve students complaints, and direct curricular activities.
CSEA President Steve Abbott said that administration negotiators refused to discuss new proposals on salary and health care when the parties met with a State Employment Relations Board mediator August 11.
"Once inflation is factored in, the Board of Trustees is offering faculty a pay cut in the same year it lavished the college's CEO with an 8.3% raise," Abbott said. "Columbus State faculty already pay the highest proportion of health care costs of any public college faculty in the state, and on top of that the Board wants employees to pay an additional 75% in health care costs while freezing its own costs at current levels."
Abbott said that the faculty involved would take on additional teaching assignments in lieu of the reassigned time.
In a statement at the Board's July 28 meeting that was circulated to all Columbus State employees, Board President Dr. Susan Finn said that a 3.5% pay increase for faculty in the 2005-2006 academic year was too high. She also stated that the Board wants "one consistent healthcare plan for all employees" despite the fact that the college has three employee unions and several hundred non-unionized staff.
The statement followed the Board's rejection of an independent fact finder's recommendations to resolve outstanding issues from contract talks that reached impasse in early June. The fact finder recommended that faculty receive 3.5% raises annually for three years and that the parties continue to pay their current shares of health care premiums. CSEA members rejected the fact finder's report in voting that concluded August 1.
No date to resume negotiations has been set.
"The Board's tone has caused many employees to express growing concern about the management of Columbus State," Abbott said, "and the administration's take-it-or-leave-it attitude has unnecessarily created a confrontational situation."
He said, "Those with the responsibility to run the college are unwilling to effectively address Columbus State's terrible ratio of full-time to part-time faculty, the serious morale problems among employees, the ongoing frustrations of students due to problems with a flawed computer system, or the necessary investment in personnel that quality education demands."
################