The Maricopa County Community College District governing board voted to eliminate an employee bargaining option Tuesday.
After outrage at a previous board meeting, the college district board voted to cut a faculty “meet and confer” program.
The program was used as a bargaining tool for employees, but board members say it’s outdated and ultimately not useful.
Scottsdale Community College faculty Rhonda McDonnell said the district’s attempt at transforming for the better won’t be helped by this decision.
“How are we going to put this transformation into place when the morale of faculty has just been destroyed,” McDonnell said after the vote.
Board president Laurin Hendrix said once the fervor dies down around the decision, community college employees won’t see any major difference.
“There’s been a lot of misinformation spread by the faculty association or the union or whatever you want to call it. They told them they’d lose their jobs, they told them their compensation was going to change, their benefits, their tenure," Hendrix said. "Any list of things that there is no reason to think any of that’s going to happen.”
The district chancellor will create a new faculty policy manual effective this November.
KJZZ is licensed to the Maricopa County Community College District.
