This Tuesday and Wednesday, Modesto Junior College (MJC) faculty took to the openings of MJC’s East and West Campus to strike, holding signs for the cars passing by to honk in support, despite the windy and rainy conditions.  

Classes were cancelled for the professors who were on strike, but MJC administration assured students campus would remain open.
 Jim Sahlman, the President of the Yosemite Faculty Association, said that this was a protest strike to say, “We want the District to stop bargaining in bad faith.”
 “We finally said we have had enough,” Sahlman said. If the issues are not resolved by January, Sahlman said they will continue to strike, but this time it would be for a couple of weeks.
 When asked if classes would be cancelled during the possible weeks long strike planned for January, Sahlman said he didn’t know of any other way the district could cover the classes.
 With the cancellation of classes that took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, over 2,100 sections of classes had been closed, according to Sahlman.
 The Yosemite Community College District (YCCD), which is comprised of Modesto Junior College and Columbia College, and the Yosemite Faculty Association (YFA), which represents the faculty, have been at an impasse for a while.
 YCCD released a press statement on Nov. 21 regarding the threat of a strike. The district claimed they could not meet the demands of the YFA faculty members regarding pay because it would result in financial instability and would be unfair to non-YFA members.
 The YFA also released a press statement the day after YCCD released theirs as a response. In their press release, the YFA wrote that their press release was aimed “to correct the misleading and false representations about the YFA’s anticipated strike in the District’s November 21st statement.”
The YFA stated that the District continues to demand an “unsustainable” increase in class size, which would leave professors teaching classes up to 45 students. “The Union is pushing instead for a pedagogically driven process with class size determined by faculty and administrators together,” the YFA wrote in their press release.
 With the strike not only affecting faculty but students as well, the students at MJC had a lot to say about the protest’s occurrence. Melissa Ramirez (freshman, Social Work) said that even though the strike may not be affecting her as much as faculty, it is the right of a professor to go on strike. “Many unfair things were done by the District to the teachers, so therefore it’s right that they’re making their voice be heard,” Ramirez said.
Even though class time may be lost, Ramirez also said she is happy that the faculty is standing up for their rights. “Their jobs are so important to my education at the end of the day, and they deserve fair treatment,” Ramirez said.
Some other students either are not informed or do not care for the strike. Victoria Lopez (freshman, Undeclared) said the strike has not really affected her since she was not really informed about it. Lopez also added that she does not care how the strike ends, but that it needs to eventually end. “It will start to have an affect on everyone’s education,” Lopez said.
 Other students such as Carlos Argueta, (Kinesiology) a Stan State Alumni who is taking two more courses at MJC before moving onto his doctorate, said that even though it is affecting him in a positive and negative way, that this is the professors way of expressing their First Amendment rights.
“If they’re getting treated unfairly, I think it’s fine for them to strike,” Argueta said. Argueta added that the professors are receiving unfair pay for their work. “They’re teaching the future, and that is such a big responsibility,” he said.
 The District stated in their press release that their “last, best, and final offer” they put forth in April raised their salary at a 2% increase in the school year 2017-2018 and a 4% increase in the school year 2018-2019.
 In regards to what the District commented on in their press release regarding salary increase, the YFA stated that the District has not provided any good faith compromise proposals and instead wants to lock faculty into another “bad deal.”
The YFA stated that they have been trying to compromise with the District, but they will not meet them halfway. The YFA also stated that their doors will always remain open to proper negotiations with the District on addressing unfair labor practices.
You can read the District’s rationale proposal here.