On June 5, the Mt. SAC Faculty Association protested on the intersection of Grand Avenue and San Jose Hill Road for COLA, a cost of living adjustment to their wages.
The protest was placed on the intersection pictured below as the Board of Trustees would have to go through this entrance to park in their spot. In negotiations with Mt. SAC, the FA received a 4.11% COLA increase which was half of the 8.22% COLA increase that was calculated by Governor Newsom’s administration.
Nikki Lewis, 48, Professor of Arts in the ceramics program was among the demonstrators protesting for wage compensation.
“I’m out here protesting with my colleagues—faculty, adjunct faculty, full time faculty—to hopefully influence the district to give us the cost of living increase that was awarded to us through the state of California.”
Brandon Gillett, 28, laboratory technician for the Business Division and first vice president of Classified School Employees Association 262 came to the protest in solidarity with the FA. CSCA 262 is a new union at Mt. SAC that represents non-managerial and non-teacher employees.
“We are here supporting the faculty’s protest for COLA,” Gillett said. “We are also having our own campaign going on simultaneously, so we’re just here supporting faculty.”
Similar to faculty, Gillett added that classified employees also received half of their COLA from Mt. SAC.
From 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., the protesters would cross the intersection, ask cars to honk and chant for COLA.
Joshua Christ, 32, Vice President elect for the FA and Theatrical work experience professor at Mt. SAC questioned the district’s decision to withhold COLA from faculty.
Transcript
JOSHUA CHRIST: I’m out here supporting faculty today because one, I’m a member of faculty, I’m a leader of faculty and the district in their infinite wisdom believes that even though they get the COLA and they get the budget and they get the allocation at the start of the fiscal year and they know what they’re going to get, that they should hold that out from faculty until the end of the fiscal year.
CHRIST: So the faculty are currently negotiating their 2023-2024 contract which runs from July 1st of 2023 to June 30th of 2024. And now on June 5th, 2024 faculty don’t actually know what they’re going to get paid for the entire year they just worked. And that’s wrong.
Mike Hood, 45, astronomy professor and co-chair of the Earth Sciences and Astronomy Department spoke more on the other form of protest the Faculty Association is doing this summer– “Mind the Cap.”
“Mind the Cap” is a movement from the faculty where they will not be adding students above the class’s capacity, which is a common practice within faculty at Mt. SAC.
“There’s a reason those cap limits exist,” Hood said. “There’s a limit to how much time you can spend with each student in a class.”
At 5 p.m., the protesters headed toward the Founder’s Hall where a special Board of Trustees meeting with only one item listed on the agenda took place. As it was not a full meeting, public comment was only allowed if the comment pertained to items listed on the agenda, which was about Kelli Forman’s hiring as Mt. SAC’s new Police and Campus Safety Chief.
The Trustees did not respond to the protest.
“This year in 2024, we have three or four of our seven Board of Trustees up for elections,” Christ said. “I would really encourage the communities that those Board of Trustees members are up for election in to take a look at what their [Trustee] has voted on and has done to support their students.”
After the meeting at 6 p.m., the remaining Faculty Association protesters stood at the entrance to chant at the Trustees.
The next Board of Trustees meeting that will cover Associated Students’ call for a ceasefire in Palestine, public comment from the Faculty Association and more regarding Forman’s hire as Campus Safety Chief will be held on June 12.
