PAGE 2 | December 20, 2019 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
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Clark College faculty vote to authorize strike
By Don McIntosh
Instructors at Clark College
could go on strike next month if
administration doesn’t agree to
long-overdue catch-up raises. In
a Dec. 7 meeting attended by as
many as 300 part-time and full-
time faculty, the vote was unani-
mous to give the union executive
committee authority to call a
strike.
Clark College Association for
Higher Education (CCAHE), an
affiliate of the Washington Edu-
cation Association teachers
union, represents 550 faculty
members at the college, includ-
ing 188 who are full-time and
363 who are part-time. They’ve
been in contract bargaining for
14 months, and the two sides
have been in mediation since
June.
The top two union priorities
for the contract are salary in-
creases that catch up after years
of wage freezes, and linking part-
time compensation to full-time.
Full-time professors at Clark
make $53,416 to $76,339 a year
for year-round work. That’s the
lowest of any community college
in the area, and less than nearby
K-12 public school teachers.
Clark faculty haven’t had more
than cost-of-living raises in
decades, and for six years in a
HOW TO HELP
The Clark County faculty union is
raising a strike fund at
gofundme.com/f/ccahe-strike-fund.
Funds raised will be used for signs,
food, and other essentials needed
on the picket line in the winter. If
there’s no strike, the funds won't be
used, and donations will
automatically be returned to the
donors in less than 90 days.
Photo courtesy of Washington Education Association
NORTHWEST
row didn’t even get the cost-of-
living increases. Now they say
it’s time to catch up — making
up for those missed increases.
Clark also pays faculty who
are classified as part-timers half
as much — per class — as full-
time faculty. That has given the
college a big incentive to shift
more and more classes to be
taught by part-timers. To stop the
drift, CCAHE initially proposed
that part-timers be paid the
equivalent of 80% of full-time,
but now says it would settle for
70%.
“This is about more than
salary. It’s about trying to get
Clark back on track, and priori-
tizing teaching,” CCAHE presi-
dent Suzanne Southerland told
the Labor Press.
Clark College is proposing to
raise wages 3% for full-timers
and 5% for part-timers in addi-
tion to a state-provided cost-of-
living increase of 3.2%. CC-
AHE’s latest proposal is 9%
above the cost-of-living increase
over two years.
Whether a strike happens de-
pends on Clark College adminis-
trators,“It’s their turn in negotia-
tions,” Southerland said. “Our
goal is to avoid a strike. We are
willing to do what it takes to get
a fair contract.”
If a strike happens, it would be
a first at Clark College. In Wash-
ington, public college faculty
have only been allowed to bar-
gain over salaries since 2018 un-
der state law.
A mediated bargaining session
is scheduled for Dec. 27. Winter
term begins Jan. 6.
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