CNM Governing Board Members Forced to Cross Picket Line to Attend Monthly Meeting

This evening at 5:00 p.m. was the monthly board meeting for the Central New Mexico Community College. The college went to impasse with the Security Guard Unit on their contract this evening. Members of the Unit show up in uniform and stood at the doors forcing Governing Board Members to cross a picket line in order to attend the meeting. I arrived at the end of the meeting. Noted was the presents of State Union AFT President Christine Trujillo who was there to show her support for Union members. Union members all wore red shirts to show support for the security unit.

At the meeting President Winograd was given in her new contract another 3% pay increase for a year on top of the $15,000 increase announced in the Albuquerque Journal last Saturday the results being an 11.35% increase from her base pay in one year. Here is a national faculty and presidential Salaries Comparison. Employees earning under $30,000 per year are clearly disappointment with the college for holding to a flat 3% increase and the college has also agreed to keep up paying up to 80% of the cost of health insurance for the employees.

UNM announced a 5% increase on Saturday for employees earning under $30,000 per year and raised starting salaries by a dollar per hour in order to reduce the impact of inflation on working families. The state gave Educational Assistances for APS a 5% increase in their pay this year but left out higher education employees earning under $30,000 per year. Employees at the higher education level want to know why once more they ended up on the short end of the stick for pay raises when this should be the year of change for education wages.

I spoke with all but two of the board members this evening to get their reaction on why the hard stand against giving low income staff higher raises.

Carmie Toulouse (266-0881) said that you could not compare UNM and CNM because the colleges were just too different. She was clearly upset about having to cross a picket line because she was a union member herself at one time. She said that they had gone 1% over what the state had given employees and that they were forced to cut the general budget by 1% across the board for the college in order to hold the line on tuition rates. Carmie Toulouse also reminded me that she had in the past been one of the board members who had supported giving my unit what they call 2080 which would result in paid holidays and paid annual leave like the other staff members. At present my unit does not get those benefits.

Blair Kaufman (kaufman@aps.edu) said that as an employee of the APS system that he was also disappointed that he had only received a 2% pay increase this year. Blair Kaufman also pointed out that they had managed a 1% increase over what the state had supplied to the school for employees.

Jeff Armijo (urfirst@jeffarmijo.com) said that he would get back to me with a reaction because he did not have a prepared statement but he did say that he was just supporting corporate models of raises.

Penelope S. Holbrook (holbrook@highfiber.com) said that she supported the raise for the president of the college and gives credit for leadership to the new president. She was also unaware of the other raises around the city.

Dr. John Mondragon (jbmondra@unm.edu) said that there were processes for giving raises and that those processes were not complete and he would prefer to wait until the processes were closed to see the results. I tried to press him on the fact that the school was holding to three percentage raises for low income staff but he would not move on any other comment. He did admit to not being aware of the other schools giving higher raises to low income staff.

Robert P. Matteucci (268-8678) made sure to say hello and then ran away before I could ask for a comment.

Board President Richard Barr (294-6635) the one republican on the board did not stay to speak with me on any issues. Just like a republican who has far too much inside friendship with the local news media to run away from a democratic blogger.

I reminded each of the other board members that they were democrats and they were setting a bad example in my view of how democrats should be treating educational employees. I still feel the need to lay most of the blame at the feet of the new president because it is up to her to set an example as the retired president did during his time in office.

As an employee of that college who will be getting that 3% raise I feel that the college should support their low income employees and that as democrats there can be no real excuse for such ground holding. I hope that the board will look at raises around the city and reconsider their hard line stand on raises for low income employees. I reminded them that projected inflations rates were 4.5% this year.

I am in the process of getting reactions to the news of the presidents rise and the hard line on employees raise from a number of state representatives and I will be naming any that refuse to comment on this because it is up to them in the future to decide pay increase for higher educational employees. I am warning them now that I will hold their feet to the fire on this issue. I totally admit to having a personal stake in this issue. I have been friends with a number of the board members for years and still I am holding them accountable for their behavior toward low income staff members and their pay. This is the year of change and it can not just be another campaign slogan.