Colleagues:

As previously communicated to all of you, on April 18 representatives of the three employee unions at Montgomery College wrote to Dr. Jermaine Williams about our concerns with the administration’s decision not to drop students who are unvaccinated from classes.  Allowing these students to attend classes weakens the safety net that we all agreed to create when we voted in favor of a COVID-19 mandate for all employees and students. A copy of that communication is posted on the Chapter’s webpage, mcaaup.org.

Dr. Williams responded to our concerns and explained the administration’s rationale for its decision.  We replied with a request that faculty and other employees who need flexibility to teach or work remotely be given that opportunity. We also requested that the administration rethink the unrealistic goal of 10% for remote classes for the Fall 2022 semester. 

Below is our reply to Dr. Williams. We sent this reply on Wednesday May 3. Directly below that is Dr. William’s original response to our April 18 memo.  Please take a moment from your busy schedules to read both.  

You can post any comments you may have about this on the Chapter webpage or you can send them directly to me.  In addition, we can discuss this at our virtual meeting during Professional Week on Wednesday, May 18, from 11:15 am to 12:15 pm.  Here is the Zoom link to our end-of-year meeting:  https://montgomerycollege.zoom.us/j/91786425815.

Thanks for your support. 

Harry Z. 

---

May 3, 2022

Dr. Williams:

We appreciate your thoughtful response to our concerns about the change in the vaccine mandate for students. The improvement in health conditions in Montgomery County and other areas around the country is encouraging.  We hope that Dr. Anthony Fauci is correct in his estimation that the U.S. is now in a “transitional phase” that may ultimately lead to a future in which COVID-19 is as controllable as the seasonal flu. 

But, as Dr. Fauci noted, the pandemic is still with us.  Vaccines have gotten us this far, and vaccines continue to be the most critical tool we have to fight this deadly disease. We have seen COVID-19 spawn many variants, each more contagious than the previous one. Although the rate of deaths has declined, new cases and hospitalizations have recently increased. The fact that the overall COVID death toll in our country will soon reach 1 million is a sober reminder to remain vigilant.  

Montgomery College currently employs many faculty and staff members who are at higher risk of COVID because of age, medical condition, or the condition of family members. As the union representatives of these employees, we should have been brought into the discussion before the decision to rescind the student mandate was made.  We have heard from many of our constituents who oppose the college’s decision. Here are excerpts from two letters we recently received:

“I will be returning to f2f classes this summer.  I have been teaching online and am freshly recovered (I hope) from cancer surgery this past Jan 24th.  I am not thrilled to be immune-compromised with unvaccinated students roaming the halls.” 

I “will not be returning to MC if this policy will be adopted as I have several health issues which take precedence. Just as other immunizations are required, COVID should be necessary to protect the health of all in the community. I also have disabled family members that I must protect.”

As leaders of the unions that represent almost all of the employees at Montgomery College, we respectfully disagree with the college’s decision not to drop students from classes for failure to get vaccinated.  Now is not the time to go backwards.  Even if students continue to be advised that vaccination is expected, the knowledge that they will not be dropped from classes if they do not follow through is a disincentive to comply. 

This decision is likely to undermine the safety net that all of us agreed to create when we overwhelmingly voted to support the mandate.

Therefore, we request that the administration make the following adjustments:

• Employees at high risk should be given permission to teach remotely or do telework if they so desire.  The current policy allows for up to 3 days per week of telework, but in many offices, specifically Student Affairs, employees have been instructed that the limit is one day per week.  Considering the change in the student vaccination mandate policy, this is unacceptable.

• The college should rethink its target of 10% for structured remote and online classes for the Fall 2022 semester.

The 10% limit will make it difficult for employees to get the flexibility they need to stay safe and do their work effectively. If this limit is imposed, there will be insufficient remote classes for all the faculty who will request them due to their medical and/or personal circumstances. A target of 35% for remote classes would be more realistic.

Thank you for considering our views and suggestions.  We look forward to your response.

Sincerely, 

Harry Zarin, President AAUP

Lori Ulrich, President AFSCME

Victoria Baldassano, Director SEIU

——————————————————————————————————————–

From: Jermaine F. Williams, President, Montgomery College <President@montgomerycollege.edu>

Sent: Friday, April 22, 2022 2:31 PM
To: Baldassano, Victoria A <victoria.baldassano@montgomerycollege.edu>; Ulrich, Lori A <Lori.Ulrich@montgomerycollege.edu>; Zarin, Harry <harry.zarin@montgomerycollege.edu>
Subject: Your recent message

Dear Victoria, Lori, and Harry:

Thank you for your April 19, 2022, email message communicating your concerns about the College’s decision to adjust the vaccine requirement for students. As I noted when we last met, I am pleased that the unions are engaged in these critical topics, and appreciate hearing your views, individually and collectively. Our conversations with the three of you prior to adjusting the masking requirement highlighted several coronavirus concerns among employees that were also considered in our decision to adjust the vaccine requirement for students. The two mitigation strategies both share some important impacts on classroom and workplace health, enrollment, and student success.

I want to assure you that the health and safety of the College community continue to be paramount, as they have been from the start of the pandemic. The College has demonstrated this commitment in multiple ways. We established one of the most rigorous requirements for student vaccination among community colleges in Maryland. Only one other community college required student vaccinations, and we were the only two colleges that removed students from face-to-face classes for failure to be vaccinated during the spring semester. As you may know, more than 700 MC students were deleted from classes for failing to comply with the student vaccine requirements.

The College’s recent decision to remove the penalty for non-vaccinated students in the summer sessions and fall semester was the result of careful consideration by my senior leadership team. At the same time, we are redoubling efforts to continue to educate and encourage all in our College community to be vaccinated, get boosters when eligible, practice good hygiene, and wear masks in certain venues. By informing students that they are expected to be vaccinated and directing them to our system to upload their vaccine cards, we contribute to the robust vaccination culture established over the past two semesters. These efforts build on the reported student vaccination rate of more than 90 percent accomplished thus far.

Our commitment to ensure equitable access and opportunity, as well as fuel the economy and drive economic mobility, rests on enhancing access for the diverse populations we serve and seek to serve. We believe the College can increase access in ways that continue to follow evolving health guidance, are safe and healthy, and meet the needs of our students and employees. As you know, masks continue to be required in classrooms and learning spaces.  Employees are also empowered to request masks be worn in their personal office spaces.

The process by which the student vaccination decision was made included consideration of the following.

• Health conditions are now very different than when the vaccination requirement was announced in September 2021: there is a high vaccination rate, medications are available for infected individuals, and state and county COVID conditions have vastly improved.

• The Montgomery County vaccination rate is very high: 95 percent of residents have at least one dose, 87 percent are fully vaccinated, and 54 percent are boosted—our students’ vaccination rates are comparable.

•  The transmission rate in Montgomery County remains consistently low.

•  The hospitalization and ICU bed utilization rates for COVID cases in Montgomery County are very low (and these are the key indicators informing updated CDC guidance).

•  Masks are required in classrooms, but even if the requirement is dropped in the future, a mask can be worn by anyone, anywhere, anytime.

We have also benchmarked what other higher education institutions are doing for comparison. And, most importantly, if conditions should change significantly, we are prepared to pivot as needed.

As health and safety conditions continue to change, we must appropriately respond. We look forward to engaging union leadership in this conversation.

As you know, the College has a full-time public health director whose expertise includes interpreting data on local conditions to inform real-time decision-making and advise senior leaders about evolving conditions. I have found her to be very adept with these issues, and well-equipped to guide us through directions from national, state, and local health authorities on topics such as masking.

We are dedicated to communication and transparency. Respective members of the senior team remain committed to meeting with each union to discuss matters of interest related to the collective bargaining agreements. Furthermore, I look forward to our meeting later this semester when we can continue our conversation about relationship building and a positive path forward that advances the mission of the College.

I very much appreciate your concern for the health and safety of faculty, staff, and students. My senior leadership team and I hold this as our highest priority and welcome your collaboration on meeting our shared goals—empowering students to change their lives and enriching the life of the community.

Regards,

jfw

Jermaine F. Williams
President
Office of the President
Montgomery College
9221 Corporate Boulevard
Rockville, MD 20850
240-567-5264
Jermaine.willams@montgomerycollege.edu  

(published with permission)

Dear Mr. Roop.  I wrote this as soon as I received your email regarding the AAUP contract agreement and the court’s decision to deny arbitration.  I hesitated to send it for obvious reasons, but when I sent a draft to several colleagues on the faculty, they urged me to do so.  Typical of their responses was “Well said sir. I agree with every word. In fact, I think you stated it fairly mildly. Thanks for sharing.”

So I am sending the letter without the hope of it accomplishing anything, but I thought you might like to understand what some of us on the faculty are feeling.

I suppose congratulations are in order.  By refusing to honor a signed agreement with the AAUP and obtaining the support of the courts, you have destroyed the effectiveness of our union.  The recent Supreme Court decision allowing non-union members to opt out of paying union dues will drive the final nail into the coffin. You may already be planning to replace our AAUP chapter with a company run union that will allow your employees to petition for minor changes in the circumstances of their employment.

This is the culmination of a trend that I noticed shortly after I began teaching here in 2005.  In my first couple of years, I felt the administration was here to support its teaching staff. Thirteen years later, I feel I’m a distrusted employee of a growing and apparently insatiable administration, which seems to feel that my teaching load is too light, my teaching methods are poor and I’m not sufficiently focused on student success, which MC seems to narrowly define as going on to a four year college.

Montgomery College now mirrors other contemporary American institutions, with increasingly high salaries for its senior executives and lower and lower pay for what you seem to consider your work force.

I only have experience in three other educational institutions, Reed College in Oregon, Bennington College in Vermont and Columbia University in New York City. Reed and Bennington, which were effectively faculty run, provided by far the best educational experiences. There was no HR, no elaborately expensive commitment to faculty training, no unresponsive administration with requests for self-serving and largely useless self-evaluations and other measure of success.   I do come with a bias. We teachers in the classroom actually know better than you folks in administration how to effectively teach our students and prepare them for the difficult future they face. That’s what we do while you have meetings, send emails, and think up new things for the faculty to do.

MC is far too large to be faculty run, but it could be faculty oriented. The only way to ensure that orientation is to make sure the faculty has real power over its working conditions through its union.  There is a great deal of evidence that the healthiest institutions in our country are those with strong unions.  Of course, there’s also a lot of evidence in our country that institutions without unions offer cheaper (but frequently inferior) goods and services for their consumers and higher salaries for their executives. A cheaper shirt or the indifferent service of a minimal wage employee may not make much difference, but it’s not the same with teaching.

Someone in the administration told one of my colleagues who was trying to get the contract honored, “if you don’t like it here move on to somewhere else.” It’s a comment that speaks volumes about MC’s administration.  I had a similar experience when I contacted a senior administrator about an exciting new educational software I’d discovered at a conference. He told me I could come and talk to him, but he wasn’t going change anything. I didn’t expect a dramatic change, but I did expect curiosity and respect.

I’ll stay at Montgomery College because I have a commitment to my students. I can’t really praise it to the skies as I once did.  I think in time you’ll realize this union busting was a mistake, a truly serious blow to teacher morale that will inevitably (even if unconsciously) be passed on to our students.  I’m sure you’ve all convinced yourselves that this isn’t union busting, but a inevitable result of insufficient funding that you also feel terrible about.  It’s not.  It’s about an allocation of resources and decisions about what’s important.

Respectfully,

Christopher Koch

___________

To:	Montgomery College Colleagues
From:	Robert Roop, Chief Human Resources Officer
Subject:	Montgomery County Circuit Court Ruling on AAUP Lawsuit
Date:	June 22, 2018
The College and the College’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) have worked collaboratively since April 2017 to resolve a disagreement regarding the contracted full-time faculty compensation increase for FY18. The disagreement arose because the College was, regrettably, unable to meet the original negotiated salary increase for FY18. These financial constraints are primarily linked to a shortfall in the College’s funding from the county, despite spirited advocacy by the College leadership and faculty representatives, coupled with a contraction in enrollment. In February, AAUP asked the Montgomery County Circuit Court to force the College to resolve the issue via arbitration, under Article 3 of the collective bargaining agreement between AAUP and the College. In March, the College filed a motion to dismiss AAUP’s lawsuit based on the position that the “financial exigency” clause of the contract applied to this situation, not the grievance process. This past Tuesday, June 19, a Circuit Court judge ruled in favor of the College and agreed with the College’s interpretation of the dispute resolution process, saying that the disagreement should be properly dealt with under the “financial exigency” provision of the agreement. Following this ruling, the College will continue to work with the AAUP negotiating team to resolve the salary issue through direct negotiations and/or with the assistance of a neutral, third-party mediator, as stipulated in the collective bargaining agreement. Doing so expeditiously is critical since the fiscal year ends in eight days, when we risk losing the funds for any salary enhancement for this fiscal year. The work of the College’s full-time faculty is essential to the success of our mission. I am hopeful that we can soon craft a resolution that is fair and fiscally sustainable and allows us all to remain focused on our common mission of supporting our students.

Many thanks to the AAUP leadership and members for their willingness to fight this worthy cause on behalf of full time faculty and the college community as a whole. Everyone benefits when all are treated respectfully and are appropriately rewarded.

I was able to make it to the Rockville meeting last night, and I just wanted to chime in with those below and encourage everyone who couldn’t make it to that meeting to attend the TP/SS meeting tonight. There is a lot of new information about what is happening with both our contracts for 2017-18 and future contract negotiations.

I agree that we need to stand united as a faculty union right now. We discussed ideas about how to show support, and I hope—with many faculty engaged—we will see actions as well.

Hello, I also attended the AAUP meeting last night.  I am so proud of the work our executive committee is doing on behalf of Full Faculty.  We support their efforts 100% and will continue to attend update meetings where we discuss all matters related to the important role the Faculty play in the success of the College.  Please take the time to attend the TPSS meeting this evening.  Our team has important information to share with you.

AAUP Works for me.

I too attended last night’s update meeting in Rockville. Our AAUP chapter is in an important battle for our rights against an administration uninterested in negotiating in good faith. The chapter executive committee representing us works tirelessly to make sure that each of us is paid fairly, receives decent benefits, and that we are able to work under as favorable conditions as possible. We have MUCH to be grateful for in terms of the committee’s work and unflagging support. We are also fortunate to have a competent attorney representing the chapter. NOW is the time to support them in return, to become informed, and to get involved in your own future here at MC.

I would like to chime in with my faculty colleagues and emphasize the fact that we all need to stand behind our union at this time and show solidarity as one united body of faculty who care about our students and about each other.  I attended the AAUP meeting last night and learned so much!  I would like to urge everyone who could not attend the meeting last evening to please, please attend the TP/SS meeting tonight.  It is crucial that the administration sees that we stand together.

As faculty, we were supposed to receive a 6.25% raise this year, 3.5% increment and a 2.75% GWA. As chief negotiator, our team signed this contract 3 years ago with Management and the BOT in good faith.  Management and the BOT decided last year not to honor our contract, because of their claim of no funds. However, look at all the contacts that were signed recently after our contract was in place, including IT contracts, coaches for our classes and probably many others. Management and the BOT had a fiduciary duty to honor our contact first before signing any other contract. This is truly an administration and BOT uninterested in negotiating in good faith.

Thank you all.  Last night’s meeting was very important. I encourage all faculty to keep Bill’s salary percentages in mind and do the math. This is very serious. Thank you Harry and the whole team for your tireless efforts on our behalf.  Our AAUP attorney is outstanding, seasoned, and clearly concerned about the legality of the College’s avoidance tactics. It’s unfortunate that it’s gotten to this point.  It didn’t have to.

I would like to add my voice to those urging faculty who were unable to attend last night’s AAUP meeting to attend the meeting tonight at TPSS to learn more about the status of negotiations for both our 2017-2018 contract and our 2018-2019 contract. Last night’s meeting was very informative, and it’s more information than could be easily communicated in an email.  Our union reps have been working tirelessly for us. I am grateful for their diligent work to ensure fair contracts and treatment for faculty.  These negotiations affect us all, and we need to stand united with our union. 

I didn’t see many of my Germantown colleagues last night at the AAUP meeting, and it really was important information about several different initiatives. One of the major points was how important it is to be visible in our support of AAUP and its leadership right now. (Also, having done the reverse commute to DC for years, I can vouch for 270 South not being bad at the end of the day when you’re going against traffic.) I think it’s well worth the trip!

Thank you to the union leadership for advocating so fervently on behalf of the faculty. The meeting on the Rockville campus last night was very informative. Please try to attend the Takoma Park meeting tonight if you were unable to attend Wednesday’s meeting. Our strength comes from our solidarity.

If you weren’t able to go last night, go tonight. Spending the time listening to colleagues and leaders helped clarify much of what has been happening.

Yes the meeting was fantastic, great information provided. I really enjoyed meeting the attorney. Please attend tonight if there is anyway you can.  Your paycheck depends on our support for AAUP!

I can’t echo enough the appreciative comments that have been offered to our AAUP team, or the sense of urgency that goes along with the issues discussed last night.  There’s no better time than now to ask questions, talk with one another, and generally keep on top of developments.  I think those sorts of activities will have a useful momentum of their own.

I support AAUP.  They speak for me and I am incredibly thankful for all there hard work.

Thank you to the AAUP, which in serving faculty, serves our students and the well-being of our institution.

Now is a crucial time for all of us to be aware and to support our union. AAUP works for me.

I also want to echo the sentiments of my colleagues.

The AAUP Team has represented us well and they have our full support.

Great meeting last night! I am grateful to have AAUP representation in the current climate nationwide.  We must not take our union team’s hard work  for granted.  Let’s advocate for ourselves and our students with one voice through support of our MC AAUP.

Montgomery College AAUP chapter speaks for me and I will not fall for any external “divide and conquer” tactics.

I want to thank AAUP and all the faculty that are pulling together to allow us to work in a productive and healthy atmosphere. We deserve respect. We deserve dignity. We deserve honesty. Let us strive to hold those in power accountable so that those after us won’t have to fight these same battles.

I’m wearing the button.  I urge the union to stay strong in this extremely urgent and difficult situation.

Thank you to all of our AAUP representatives for your efforts.  Thank you for keeping us informed every step of the way through this unfortunate series of events.  Lets hope at some point responsibility to agreed upon commitments will prevail in the mindset of the college.

I have always been impressed by and happy with the college, Administrators, Staff, and Faculty all working in a collaborative effort for the good of the college and the students.  Student success, College success, Employee success and a harmonious friendly work environment have always been the hall mark of Montgomery College.  We don’t want an “us or them” atmosphere to infect our college.

The AAUP supports me and I support it.  My hope is that we can arrive at an expeditious resolution within the scope of integrity.

I also support  AAUP and I would urge those who are paying just the service fee (which is $7.70 per pay period) and not the full membership dues to consider filling out the paperwork to do so. Here is the link

https://mcaaup.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/AAUP-Dues-Service-Fee-Deduction-Form-AY-2017-2018-Reader-Enabled-Fillable.pdf

I’ve repeatedly heard MC leadership profess a commitment to social justice, but negotiating in bad faith and questioning the integrity of union leadership undermines that commitment. Social justice is more than a talking point. It’s more than catchphrase. A genuine commitment to social justice mandates that the administration honor our contract and treat our well-organized faculty with respect.

Many of us walked paths through life and encountered obstacles that aren’t dissimilar to those faced by our students. Our students know those stories and are inspired by them. They’re hopeful that if they persevere, they, too, will achieve comparable levels of professional success and recognition. What message do they receive about their potential—and their power—when they see the administration devalue our contributions by dishonoring its commitment?

Like so many others, I support our union and appreciate the efforts of Harry and the rest of the executive committee. AAUP stands for social justice, and I stand with AAUP.

The irony of their social justice initiative and how they are treating faculty might be lost on them but I encourage you to echo these sentiments at our AAUP closing meeting. You articulate this so very well and other faculty members should hear this too as we are dealing with these types of inconsistencies way too often.

I also support AAUP and encourage my colleagues to become full members.  Thanks for all you do.

I would like to echo my colleagues’ thanks to our AAUP leadership for keeping us informed and working on our behalf for a fair outcome to our contract situation. I greatly appreciated getting such a clear explanation at our meeting last week of the events that led to where we are now. After hearing that, I’m even more confident that the AAUP executive committee is doing the right thing by us. I will be there at our meeting in May. I encourage my colleagues to attend as well, and to join our AAUP chapter as full dues-paying members.

I really praise the hard and dedicated work of AAUP leadership to guard and improve our working conditions and compensation. I felt so sad to see the humiliation that our representatives have been through during the process of negotiations. On the top of this, it is a very challenging task to contest a court against this management. Brett: Harry Zarin is going to post the complaint and the management’s motion to dismiss on the union web site that will answer your questions.

For many years, the management has cancelled or reduced our contracts and I am hoping that justice will prevail on June 14th. This looks so unfair that they the management mostly argue that they have power not to honor the contract.

Now that we are doing so much more work, including

• Enhancing face to face classes with blackboard
• Having additional office hours
• Substituting for our colleagues when they are called by the supervisors for additional
• tasks (such as search committees)
• Sacrificing our winter break to teach the winter sessions
• Creating course materials to eliminate the cost of text books
• and in return the management does not even want to honor a contract that they signed.

United we stand

I am grateful, professionally and personally, for the work of the union leadership and the tenacity of the negotiating team. Thank you!

As a daughter of life long union members (garment workers, railway), I am grateful for AAUP representation and its defense of my professional welfare.  Thank you.

A heartfelt thank you to AAUP for all the work they have put in to have fair practices in place here at MC.

Dear fellow AAUP members,

I’m writing to call your attention to a recent essay appearing in MC’s Governance Connections, authored by Mr. Jason Rivera, College Council Chair.  A link to the essay is found here:

http://cms.montgomerycollege.edu/EDU/Department.aspx?id=56199.

Mr. Rivera reminds his readers three times in the first three paragraphs that “Academic Redesign is a Management right”.  He also reminds us that redesigns need not be done “in a collaborative or inclusive manner” and that Management is to be commended for having nonetheless conducted the redesign in such a manner.

The essay as a whole gives cause for concern on several fronts.  For one, it is clear that, contrary to Mr. Rivera’s assertion about the Redesign process, significant portions of the campus community in fact do not regard the process as inclusive or collaborative.  Also, his (strained) analogy between the circumstances surrounding the Federal Government Shutdown and those surrounding our Academic Redesign is troublesome; if I read it correctly, Mr. Rivera’s argument is that concerns about the Academic Redesign are somehow akin to the government shutdown tactic.

Leaving aside these issues, though, there is another concern raised by the essay that may be more substantial.  It involves Mr. Rivera’s repeated emphasis on Management rights.

Since their beginnings American colleges and universities have, for better and worse, shied away from embracing a Management/Labor dynamic, even to the extent of pointedly avoiding those very terms.  There are a lot of reasons for this aversion, but mostly it boils down to a sense among those involved in Higher Education – staff, faculty and administrators alike – that our enterprise is unlike that of other organizations.  To define a college’s key players as “Management” and “non-Management”, it has been assumed, causes problems.

Not the least of these problems is that Management is typically associated with a set of objectives – profit, cost reduction, ensuring easily replaceable labor, enhanced control, efficiency, to name a few – which, while more or less accepted in the world of commerce, have not been seen as appropriate to the mission of Higher Education.  Also, when they are invoked, these categories (Management/Labor) engender an oppositional stance in organizations, as Management’s objectives are usually at odds with workers’ interests.

And yet Mr. Rivera in his essay is unabashed in defining us here at MC via a Management/Labor relationship.  It is not a stretch to surmise that our Montgomery College administration is coming to see things that way as well.  This path is inconsistent with more than a century of Higher Educational culture.  What is worse, I fear it is recasting previously productive relationships in terms that can only lead to entrenched camps.

If staff and faculty are urged (as Mr. Rivera urges us) to see administrators – many of whom are former faculty or staff – as capital-M Management, it imperils a good deal of what our college – what any college- is all about.

Regards,

Daniel Santore, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Montgomery College – Rockville
Daniel.Santore@montgomerycollege.edu