[img]1769|right|Dr. Mark Rocha||no_popup[/img]Dateline Pasadena – In a stinging slapdown of one of the most disliked community college leaders in America, the state’s Public Employee Relations Board declared Pasadena City College and President Dr. Mark Rocha in violation of a California employee law for unilaterally altering the academic calendar, eliminating the popular winter intersession.
For the first time in months, faculty members all across the sprawling urban campus not only were smiling but feeling jubilant and validated.
“Faculty are ecstatic,” one prominent professor told the newspaper. “In addition, an article in the Pasadena Star-News confirmed that Warren Swil will return to his job in January. Today is the first day that I saw faculty smiling and rejoicing. How sad that it had to be over a legal decision.”
The following note was circulated to all PCC staffers:
Dear PCC Faculty and Staff,
It is our sincere pleasure to report that
the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) of the State of California has found in favor of the PCC Faculty Association's Unfair Practice Charge over the change to the 2012-2013 academic calendar.
In short, PERB found that the District
violated the Educational Employment Relations Act (EERA) for the following reasons:
1) implementing the calendar change altered its own established past practice;
2) said change was implemented without fulfilling its duty to negotiate;
3) the implemented change was not merely a breach of contract, but amounted to change in policy;
4) said change in policy affected the union’s scope of representation.
PERB hereby ORDERS the District:
1) Cease and desist from:
a) unilaterally changing the calendar without notice or opportunity to bargain;
b) denying the PCCFA the right to represent bargaining units in their employment with the District;
c) interfering with the right of a bargaining unit employees to be represented by their employee organization.
2) Rescind the implementation of a trimester calendar… and restore a semester calendar.
3) Compensate affected employees for any losses suffered… including interest at the rate of 7 percent per annum.
4) and post in all work locations
in the District a notice that the PCC administration violated the law and remedies ordered by PERB.
Please take the time to read the decision for yourselves in the link provided below:
PERB Proposed Decision on Unfair Practice Charge (Nov. 27)
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1vecM4OAfy7bE9fLUlGalhFcWs/edit
Below is the administration’s response, announcing that it will appeal:
December 3, 2013
The Pasadena Area Community College District has reviewed the decision of the state Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) administrative law judge on the issue of the PCC academic calendar. The PACCD expresses its strong disagreement with the proposed decision as wrongly decided and insupportable. The District believes the proposed decision ignores well established legal precedent and misconstrues the facts of the case.
The PERB process allows for the filing of an appeal to the proposed decision, and the District intends to do so. Such an appeal will take an extended period of time.
For PCC students, registration for the spring semester that begins on January 13, 2014, will continue as usual. Spring registration is now more than 70 percent complete. The District anticipates maintaining the current academic calendar pending appeal.
The PACCD has made many proposals to the PCC Faculty Association at the negotiating table to resolve the dispute over the academic calendar. The facts are that the vast majority of California community colleges – 87 of 112 – do not have a winter intersession. The recently released data on PCC student persistence and completion since adoption of the three-term calendar also showed marked improvement. From the outset, one fundamental problem for students created by the creation of the winter intersession in 2003 is that the number of weeks in the spring semester was reduced from 17 to 16 without also reducing the number of seat-time hours from 54 to 48. This created a logjam of overlapping course start times that still makes it very difficult for students to obtain a full and convenient course schedule. The facts are that during the ten years of the winter intersession, the state Chancellor’s Scorecard showed that most PCC student success outcomes declined, especially for historically under-represented students.
All of these issues related to the academic calendar have been before the District and the PCCFA at the negotiating table for over nineteen months. The District strongly believes, and has believed from the beginning, that the issue of the academic calendar is a matter for negotiation and not the law courts. On November 6, 2013, the District made another new contract proposal to the PCCFA. To date, the District has received no response or offer to negotiate.
The District has always been open to negotiating on all matters related to a new collective bargaining agreement, including the academic calendar. The PACCD urges the PCCFA to return to the negotiating table to conclude a new contract agreement, including the resolution of the academic calendar, for the good of all the faculty, students and the college.
