We, the above listed faculty of the Florida Community College at Jacksonville urge a "yes" vote for Florida Community College Faculty Federation.

We have a five-point program to improve conditions at FCCJ:

1. Reform FACULTY SALARIES, including any pay freezes, low entry-level pay, and excessive steps in the salary plan, etc.
2. Attain normal WORKLOADS for the fall and spring semesters.
3. Improve the RATIOS for labs, studio hours, etc.
4. Protect and represent VULNERABLE PROGRAMS (counseling, media services, nursing, allied health, technology, etc.), to ensure that the faculty and students have fair hearings about the health of the programs.
5. Create a TRUSTWORTHY GRIEVANCE PROCEDURE that protects both due process and academic standards.

Collective bargaining through union representation will provide a powerful tool that we do not have now: the legal right to participate in solving our problems. FCCJ is one of the few major public community colleges in Florida without collective bargaining.

Bargaining has strengthened faculty governance through the legal force of their contracts at Brevard CC, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Pensacola, Chipola, Edison, Indian River, and North Florida JC. ALL faculty members at those schools vote on their respective contracts, and no one is made to join the union or pay a service fee. Moreover, they are doing it collegially since C.B. has begun to stand for "Collective Collegiality."

So, it is time for us to go to the table with the administration as equals, and reach a legally binding agreement to address the problems that face FCCJ. President Wallace has said that he hopes the election will produce a consensus and that one side will win convincingly.

To achieve that consensus, we encourage our colleagues to give their full commitment to collective bargaining and to vote "yes" for Florida Community College Faculty Federation (UFF, FEA, AFT, NEA).

This will give us our best opportunity for gaining greater faculty voice through strengthened governance structures, and protecting the quality of education at FCCJ.