Coping with the Board

Dear Colleagues,

I too am very grateful for all of the hard work by our faculty union representatives. They have achieved something unprecedented in my 25 years at Cerritos College. However, it should not have been such a difficult and protracted process. There is no logical reason that we should have to struggle with the Board of Trustees, as some of you witnessed recently, to achieve ratification of our contract. If we had a more enlightened Board we would make even more progress in less time, and certainly less grief, toward a comprehensive contract.

As a way of saying thank you to the CCFF, I would humbly suggest to all of my colleagues that you take some of your new income and devote a very small portion to COPE. I have been donating since the inception of our Union and I consider it money well spent. You might think of it as a contribution to the mental health of our union leadership, especially the negotiating team. Currently, only 15% of our membership contributes to COPE. We would be even stronger if more of us participated. Attached is the form to contribute to COPE. Let’s help elect Board members that respect our hard work on behalf of the students.

In solidarity,

Steven Portigal
Professor, Art and Design
Cerritos College