“Wage growth up 2.9 percent in August. . . .”¹ – Fake News?

By Michael Sheetz
msheetz.aft1828@gmail.com

While this recent headline is not fake news, if you are a Ventura College District faculty member, it might as well be. The most recent jobs report is certainly a good sign for the economy as a whole but it certainly doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to the real economic conditions of individual citizens.​

Partisan politics aside, year-over-year growth in real wages for workers is a key indicator of the strength of an economic recovery. However, if you are a Ventura County Community College District faculty member, these numbers are little comfort. Our reality is that year-over-year wage growth for the past three years has been nothing. We cannot even come close to keeping up with the annual cost of inflation.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 2015 to 2016 the cost of living rose 1.4 percent.² From 2016 to 2017 the cost of living rose another 2.5 percent, and in our most recent year, the cost of living has risen 2.1 percent above that.³ By contrast, district faculty salaries have been flat, with full-time faculty, receiving zero percent increases over the entire period, and part-time faculty gaining some ground, but progress that is hardly worth celebrating.⁴ 

To say this is insulting is to grossly understate the obvious. But, until I examined some comparative data, I had no idea just how badly our faculty have been undervalued. Recently, the CFT research department completed a salary survey of all 72 California Community College Districts, which they have shared with us. These results confirm something that many faculty members in the district have instinctively known for years— when compared to our peers; we are grossly underpaid for doing equivalent work under equivalent conditions.

Just how underpaid are we? I have spent the last few days analyzing where we stand and what I have found shocked even me. Unfortunately, summarizing these results into a bulleted list simply doesn’t do them justice. At the risk of being cliché, these are results that you truly must see to believe. To that end, I am preparing a detailed slide presentation that I will be sharing with the members who attend the September 21, 2018 general membership meeting at the Marriott.
As we enter negotiations with the district this spring, it is more critical than ever that we remain engaged, educated and united. Please make every effort to join us on Friday for what I expect will be a very eye-opening discussion.

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References

1. Courtney Brown, “Wage Growth Takes Center Stage,” Axios, September 9, 2018, https://www.axios.com/wage-growth-jobs-report-5cc6c15d-45de-4a27-b511- a4425d60a02f.html.
2. As measured by the Consumer Price Index-all urban consumers, not seasonally adjusted
3. Measured year-over-year as of January. U.S. Department of Labor, Consumer Price Index 2008-2018, https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=wh&graph_name=CU_cpi brief.
4. Non-contract faculty received a 1 percent increase effective July 1, 2017 and a .75 percent increase effective July 1, 2018. Collective Bargaining Agreement between Ventura County Community College District and Ventura County Federation of College Teachers AFT Local 1828, AFL-CIO (July1, 2016 through June 30, 2019) p. 4.