M.P. Hassel
August 26, 2024
The college president is strangely uninterested in paying faculty and staff fairly. At the last bargaining session on August 21st, the Faculty and Staff Federation of Community College of Philadelphia (FSFCCP), Local AFT2026, presented new contracts for full-time and part-time faculty, and staff. These contracts, drafted as memoranda of agreement, were intended to finalize negotiations before their expiration on August 31st. However, the college administration chose to extend the bargaining process, scheduling the next session for mid-September.
The current proposals from the federation reflect what members need based on a bargaining survey. The union and CCP administrators have been bargaining since January. FSFCCP Co-President Junior Brainard has said, “what we want largely reflects what we want for our students.”
From the audited financial report on CCP, the college has $57 million in “cash or cash equivalents” and over $11 million in “short-term investments” as of June 30th of 2023. This is to say that the college has a surplus of money to comfortably pay faculty and staff modest salaries and fair wages.
The union’s contract proposals have five major goals: raises in wages, proper staffing, reduction in class sizes, subsidized or free SEPTA transportation, and on-campus childcare.
The raises in wages should reflect the current cost of living with inflation, especially for newer, younger hires. Staffing has been down since the Covid-19 Pandemic, meaning counselors, advisors, and course program coordinators are often not compensated for the extra work of helping you on your degree path. Class sizes are too large for students and teachers, but administrators profit from the practice of packing in students.
Transportation includes a proposal for free SEPTA TransPasses for CCP students and faculty to get to and from campus. Driving to Main Campus entails either paying six dollars a day in the ever-full parking garage or looking for metered street parking. These TransPasses would allow students to park closer to their local train or bus line, paying less for parking or not at all.
The childcare proposal includes not only the reinstatement of the childcare center on the main campus, but faculty members’ rights to paid parental leave and taking sick days when their kids are sick.
President of Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) Dr. Guy Generals appeared in testimony before City Council on April 30th where he made several remarks regarding the union AFT Local 2026. He appeared composed early in the hearing saying “We’re anxious to negotiate with the unions right now and you know I think if they would negotiate with us, we can come to a happy medium and that’s our goal.”
During testimony to City Council (at 1:30:00), Councilmember Rue Landau cited the MIT cost of living calculator, noting the living wage for an adult in Philadelphia is $22.29 an hour, then asked Dr. Generals, how much the lowest paid staff makes. Dr. Generals, looking over his shoulder to check, responded, “The lowest hourly paid is we moved it up to 15, I believe, you know that Jacob, 16.40.” Over half of staff and faculty do not make living wages due to the rising cost of living. The union’s proposed contracts would raise the minimum wage at the college to $20 an hour immediately.
Dr. Generals and the administration at CCP are quick to tout certain student support services such as the I Am More Re-entry Engagement Program, Food Collaborative, Center for Male Engagement, Women’s Outreach and Advocacy Center, and MarcDavid LGBTQ Center, but systematically underfund counselors, advisors, and course program coordinators. These specific support services are incredibly useful for several students and should be utilized. However, during the semester, students toil to grab the few available appointments with academic advisors and counselors while student support offices cannot help students academically. Academic advisors and counselors handle far too many students in a day. Course program coordinators, the faculty members that make sure students are on their way to graduating with their degree, are often paid little if anything for their extra work to help their students.
When asked about the current contracts for teachers, Dr. Generals acknowledged before City Council that the administration is “obligated based on the federation’s contract to have class sizes of 22, and our average is 20 for the most part.” Of course, if you are a student here, you will know that the cap for classes is 36 people, and most courses will drop unless class enrollment is at least in the double digits. Excessively large class sizes lead to burnout for teachers and students.
When asked by Majority Leader Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson asked about the childcare center, Dr. Generals said, “our students and faculty were not using it,” because the number of children at the facility were “less than double digits in some semesters.” The administration realized that little children were not getting packed in as efficiently as the students were and permanently revoked parents’ on-campus access to childcare.
Councilman Isaiah Thomas was more direct in his inquiry (at 2:04:05). “You clearly have a contract issue taking place right now. This is the legislative branch of government that wants to help you solve it. I listened to Councilmember O’Rourke’s questions and I’m kind of disappointed that you didn’t come here today with a number saying ‘city council if you give me this amount of money, it will put me in a position to solve our contract dispute.’ So, am I wrong in that assessment? We clearly know you have a contract dispute. You could clearly tell by the councilmembers’ line of questioning that we want the contract dispute settled, and we want to be able to pay the people who work at CCP a quality wage. We can’t go back to the mayor and say CCP needs this much money to get rid of the contract dispute if you don’t give us that dollar amount.”
Dr. Generals responds, “In terms of the contract, I’m at a little bit of a disadvantage because we were negotiating and I thought we were negotiating pretty much in good faith… Their contract is not up until August, so this was you know my experience with negotiations: it’s a process.” He then became frustrated that students showed up to the meeting. “I don’t want to talk about them, but they came to the negotiations Friday with students, students. We’re not negotiating with students.”
Without much help from Dr. Generals and his administrators, the union took initiative in conjunction with The Action Center on Race & the Economy (ACRE), AFSCME DC 47 Local 2187, Amistad Law Project, Treatment Not Trauma, National Domestic Workers Alliance-PA chapter, One PA, Philly Black Worker Project (PBWP), and Tax the Rich PHL asking for $20 million in funding from the city. The city, state, and tuition from students fund the college, theoretically in equal thirds, but the city and state have been chronically falling short of their marks. While tuition has remained unchanged for eight years, the faculty and staff foot this bill either in their salary, courseload, or class sizes.
The argument the union coalition brought to City Hall was that CCP, Philadelphia’s Public College, serves a primarily Black, female, and working-class student population but has faced chronic underfunding from the city for over four decades. As a result, Black and Brown students have been forced to take out “nearly $20 million in loans annually,” while dealing with inadequate support services due to understaffing, poor working conditions for faculty and staff, and deteriorating campus facilities.
Still, when the union approached Dr. Generals to join the campaign, the president of our college Dr. Generals declined to ask the city for more money. Dr. Generals only specifically mentioned $500 thousand would be necessary for the dual enrollment program for high school students and $10 million for a new Northwest Municipal College, for which Mayor Cherelle Parker has allocated funding.
In early June, City Hall approved $5 million annually in funding for the CCP general operating budget. However, that money is not directly allocated for faculty or staff though fought for by the federation. With faculty and staff contracts expiring, administrators could, of their own volition, allocate that funding.
Now that the current contracts are sure to expire, the union is prepared to escalate demands at the next Board of Trustees meeting. The meeting is in the Isadore A. Shrager Boardroom of the Mint Building, M2-1, on September 5, 2024 at 2:30pm. The MyCCP website has further information.
Join via Zoom | Meeting ID: 978 2821 1903 | Passcode: CCPBOT
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