In the spring 2008 semester the administration of NCC in its infinite wisdom decided that the economic crisis facing Nassau County and the college required extraordinary steps to preserve the fiscal integrity of the institution.

Nassau County had come to its public employee unions and sought relief from the crisis by asking the union leaders to convince their members that it would be wise to accept some kind of reduction in income in order to save jobs and avoid large debt burdens for the county. One suggestion was that union members should accept a furlough of a week or two. Some unions bought into the idea others did not. One exception to the appeal of the county was the faculty unions at NCC. Neither union was approached nor did they expect that the furlough idea or any other cost cutting of this type would apply to them.

The college on the other hand stole a page from the county bean counters and decided to implement a furlough for some members of the staff at NCC. These staff people were members of the Adjunct Faculty Association. The union had not been contacted about this and therefore had never agreed to allow any of its members to be furloughed or penalized to help the college solve its monetary difficulties.

The furloughs took place during the recess periods in February and April 2008. The reason given for choosing these time periods was that no teaching faculty would be on campus at that time and no students would be expected to be around either so there would be no work for the staff to do. This argument is irrelevant. The expectation of the employees was that they would work and be paid for the time that was indicated on the contracts they signed. They came into work, did what they were directed to do and expected to be paid for their time. They had actually come to the campus and put in the time.

The college summarily docked each of them, some 20 or so, several  day’s pay. When the union protested the college backed off and restored their pay.

A second group of AFA members was also furloughed or docked pay at the same time. This group is employed in the area of counseling and advising. They were told before the recess periods to stay home because they were not going to be paid for the hours that they agreed to work during the recess periods. The theory was that there would be no students to advise or counsel Each of these staff members lost several days pay.. The total amount of money saved by the institution was in the neighborhood of a few hundred dollars. Once again the union protested and filed a grievance when it became clear that the college was dragging its feet on making these people whole.

Now the college has decided to take the matter to the 3^rd step of the grievance process. The cost to the college will be in the thousands of dollars. This passes for fiscal sanity. The time of a least six college administrative employees will be spent defending the right of the college to stick it to the least of its staff members.

The AFA has a suggestion that might really solve the problem of dwindling resources at the college.

Suppose for a moment that the college needed to save a few thousand dollars to help balance its budget. Where could a few thousand be found really fast? One solution could be to jam pack classes and burden the faculty both full-time and adjunct. This might only harm some students and who among that group would know or protest.

A better solution would be to have several administrators take a day’s furlough. The pain would be slight given their salaries and few if any would notice that they were missing for a day.

Sounds like a plan to this observer.