Why I am Voting "Yes"

I am in favor of collective bargaining because I am a member of our faculty union. I joined the FJCFF because it was, and is, a professional organization.

As a naive foreign student attending graduate school, I was seduced by the then FJCJ administration because of my computer background in 1968. Each phone call from Jacksonville involved an increase in the salary offered. I was indecisive about coming to Jacksonville and didn't realize that I was negotiating a contract which was worth 14% more than what was then the standard offer.

The edge disappeared when we adopted the uniform salary scale. I felt particularly vulnerable when a student filed a discrimination lawsuit against the College and three of us in the Data Processing department.

In the 34 years I have been at FCCJ, I have seen presidents come with the best of intentions. Unfortunately the honeymoons soon ended and decisions became arbitrary and capricious. We were fortunate to have several members of the Board of Trustees who saw the abuses/misuses of several administrations and took action against the abusers.

The two-year freeze in faculty salary is a pay cut in perpetuity! This administration must have squandered the savings from the retirement of a large number of senior faculty in recent years because Dr. Wallace said that there are still more than 80 positions that we don t have money for.

Of the largest community college in Florida, we are dead last in direct cost of instruction. As our higher than normal proportion of senior faculty retire, the direct cost of instruction will continue to drop. How come these schools with collective bargaining can allocate more funds for instruction?

--Jonah Eng, Mathematics, NC