Dear Editor:

I am a faculty member at Cerritos College. I pride myself on putting students first. I do everything I can to model strength, support, ethical behavior, and care for others in my classroom. I expect that the Cerritos Community College District will do the same for me, as an employee.

However, Cerritos Community College District doesn’t care about me. As a Cerritos College faculty I have been working on the same salary since 2019, even though inflation is at its highest level in 10 years.

While I am lucky that my spouse and I both have full time jobs in education, I am watching my colleagues struggle with historic inflation and no economic relief in sight. And at the same time, the Cerritos College Board of Trustees has given themselves a 10% raise. This same Board of Trustees has also provided the Cerritos College President with a $40,000 bonus, an amount more than double what the average annual salary for my part time colleagues at Cerritos College.

My part time colleagues, who make up 70% of the faculty ranks, are some of the lowest paid in the Los Angeles area. However, the Cerritos College District has more than $40 million in accessible reserves and more than $30 million in unspent federal COVID relief funds.

Cerritos College District has the ability to provide appropriate compensation for its employees, it just won’t. Cerritos College faculty have engaged in good faith efforts to bargain for an increase and a new contract for more than 16 months. In this same time, the Cerritos College District was found guilty of engaging in illegal bargaining tactics and bad faith bargaining. And another unfair labor practice charge was recently filed against the Cerritos College District.

Cerritos College faculty have ensured that students have access to education before and during the pandemic. As a result, Cerritos College had more students who earned a degree or certificate than ever before. But at this year’s graduation ceremonies the Cerritos College District did not thank faculty for continuing to provide high quality education, even when the world felt like it was crumbling around us.

As a faculty member at Cerritos College I will continue to put my students first. I will continue to model strength, support, ethical behavior and care for others. But I am also human and I won’t be able to continue this much longer without support, ethical behavior, and care from my employer, the Cerritos Community College District.

April Bracamontes
Norwalk

Editor’s note: Cerritos College provided the following statement regarding contract negotiations with faculty members:

The Cerritos College District (District) and Cerritos College Faculty Federation (CCFF) have been engaged since February 5, 2021, in contract negotiations following the Board of Trustee’s ratification of both parties’ initial proposals. On June 2, 2022, the District provided a significant contract offer concerning salary to CCFF President Wang, representing a substantial increase over the prior offer made on October 29, 2021.

The district’s formal official contract offer of June 2, 2022, proposes to provide all full-time and part-time faculty employees with annual on-schedule pay increases, including increases to already excellent benefits. In contrast to claims of no pay raises and only one-time bonus payments for three years, the latest District contract offer proposes to increase on-schedule salary for full-time faculty by 10% over three years, in addition to providing one-time payments each year that total 8% over the three-year period. Part-time faculty are provided even higher increases to bring them closer to parity. The latest contract proposal by the Cerritos College District is outlined below:

Salary Increases

18% in increases over three years for full-time faculty and part-time faculty (non-instructional), broken down as follows:

Year 1: 3.5% on-schedule + 3% one time

Year 2: 4.0% on-schedule + 3% one time

Year 3: 2.5% on-schedule + 2% one time

21.67% in increases over three years for part-time faculty (instructional), broken down as follows:

Year 1: 5.335% on-schedule + 3% one time

Year 2: 5.835% on-schedule + 3% one time

Year 3: 2.50% on-schedule + 2% one time

The Cerritos College District had already signed an agreement to provide a $6,000 increase to the health and welfare benefits cap, bringing the total to $29,000 per full-time employee. Follow the link for additional details about the compensation proposal.

The goal and objective of these proposals are to balance the unknown future of funding in the state should statewide enrollment continue to decline, the robust funding currently enjoyed from the state, and recognize our faculty’s hard work and ensure they remain among the highest compensated community college faculty in the region.