Union Rep Calls Yuba Cuts Inevitable
Pay cuts for instructors are inevitable, a union representative of part-time faculty at the Yuba Community College District says of trustees asking for a 3 percent reduction in pay — which full-time professors oppose.
“I don’t see any other way out of it,” Jim Schulte, vice-president of the Yuba College Adjunct Faculty Teachers, said Monday. “Pay cuts are going to be the future.”
More employees will lose their jobs if pay reductions aren’t in place, said instructor Schulte, who is also a trustee for the Esparto Unified School District in Yolo County.
Contracts for 69 of about 300 part-time instructors were not renewed when the school year started, he said.
Further cuts will come when a new semester starts Jan. 19, added Schulte, who teaches plant science at Woodland Community College. The college is part of the Linda-based district.
College district trustees last week recommended all employees take the 3 percent reduction. Adrian Lopez, college district spokesman, has said that same voluntary salary reduction taken by two-thirds of the 45 managers saved $65,000.
The college district cites a $4 million deficit it faces because of cuts in state funding.
Trustee George Nicholau said of Schulte’s pay cut comments that, “I have a gut feeling that before push comes to shove that there will be some kind of settlement that will contribute to the saving of jobs.”
“I can’t use the word ‘inevitable,'” Nicholau added. “I sense that will happen.”
Lisa Jensen-Martin, president of the Yuba Community College Faculty Association, representing full-time instructors said Monday that the association “does not believe that a 3 percent employee salary reduction is either inevitable or necessary.”
Jensen-Martin said she hopes the college district administration and trustees will meet with full-time faculty to examine other possibilities.
The full-time faculty association in a statement Friday said concessions by employees are not a legitimate long -term solution and would be nothing more than a band aid.
Trustees should “rescind current decisions that cut positions and services which most directly impact students and the mission of the district,” the full-time professors had said.
