Yesterday at the Faculty meeting, John Stratton President of the bargaining unit, handed out sheets showing the salary increases for the President’s staff this year. The average raise was over 10%. John also explained how negotiations were going. John allowed Effie Russell to read a statement about how she felt. That was followed by other comments from the membership. Then at 1:15, seventy-three somber Faculty showed their unhappiness with the lack of a contract by marching across the Mays Landing campus carrying signs that read “SETTLE NOW”. They marched in line from the Ruth Lee building, across campus, through the Culinary Academy, though the Cafeteria, though lower Administration building, through upper Administration building to the President’s office and then back to Ruth Lee for a debriefing. At the same time, Support Staff members on all three campuses posted red signs that said “SETTLE NOW”. I heard that in Cape May, Joe Rossi took down the signs and sent out an email to the membership telling them where on campus the contract says they may post.

Our protests so far are polite and have not interfered with classes. The coronation ceremony, by the way, has interfered with classes. The Academic Dean has cancelled classes on Thursday so that Faculty may attend the ceremony. That does interfere was classes. I am not sure how canceling classes is “for the students”. We hear “for the students” often at the table.

At the last minute, the Administration invited the part time faculty to attend and has ordered gowns for them probably fearing that the full time faculty may boycott the event. In addition, I heard that the College is spending $50,000 for two plasma TVs for the occasion so that the screen does not have to be dropped in front of the dignitaries. You can add the cost of the gowns for the part time faculty and the cost of the plasma TVs to the previous costs I posted.

I was chastised yesterday at the Faculty meeting by two people who were at negotiations Tuesday. They said, “My note sounded too optimistic. My hopeful tone could be because I know that negotiations could be settled easily if Joe Rossi would drop some of his demands and get the money in the range of other community colleges in New Jersey. Those are the biggest stumbling blocks. Apparently after I left Tuesday, it got a little ugly when the Culinary contract was being discussed. Emotions took over and the decibel level went up several notches.

The negotiations dance has been more erratic lately than it used to be. Bob Goudie always kept his eye on the prize – ratification of the agreement by both sides. Now the dance is one step forward and two steps back and three steps forward and two steps back. It is more difficult to predict the next step. During the last contact, after several hours of negotiations and after most of the team had left because we were getting nowhere, we very slowly began making progress. That session started at 1:00 in the afternoon and ended at 6:00 the next morning as it was getting light. At that session we had to call people and wake them up to come back to the table.

We are scheduled to meet again at the table 12:00 next Tuesday. Cross your fingers.
Will Parsons, United Negotiations Team Coordinator