Subject: Re: Reasons to Reject LCC Salary Take-back!

Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 11:09:01 -0800

From: "Dan Armstrong" <armstrongd@lanecc.edu>

To: LCC Faculty

I want to add my voice in support of all those in the past couple of weeks

who have spoken to reject the salary take-back, but I especially want to

second Mike Samano's remarks about salary erosion at LCC. The loss of step

increases is the most immediate and egregious problem to be addressed, one

that will require our solidarity to prevail. But beyond the issue of this

loss of the step, we need to bargain hard next time to make up for lost

ground. I realize that other issues were a priority last time, and I

applaud our contract and the important gains made on so many issues, but we

are not being adequately compensated as a faculty for the quality of our

work. Mike is right 6^th [actually, we're 9th in the state is not good enough for
the faculty of a college rated in the top five or ten community colleges in the country.

We can't afford the loss of the step for many faculty to further erode our

salary base. Not succeeding will only make harder the long-term goal of

improving salaries for all faculty at LCC--including those of us who didn't

get hammered on this bad-faith effort by the college to take back a step

already agreed upon.