What are these 1000 Days?

Your faculty, librarians and counselors are devoted to providing you with a quality education. We have managed to deliver a competitive education, at a reasonable cost, very effectively.

But we are also people, like you, with families to support and ever increasing bills to pay. The cost of living increases every year, but our salaries have not increased in three years. Put this in perspective: two classes have started at NSCC and graduated in this same time period.

For over 1000 days we have been waitingóHow much longer must we wait?

Six years ago, faculty agreed to take on an increased teaching load, in return for a promise to maintain salaries comparable to other states. This was supposed to be an on-going process after the contract expired. But with years of no raises, we have fallen far behind these other states.

Three years ago we negotiated a one-year agreement with the state Board of Higher Education that recognized the weak economy and asked only for a modest 1.2% raise for promised seniority steps. The Union and BHE reached an agreement, and the union members voted to ratify the contract. Then Gov. Romney refused to submit the contract for funding.

Comparison of Average Raises and Consumer Price Index Increases with Our Raises

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Average U. S. Raise*	4.40% CPI 2.85%	3.70% CPI 1.58%	3.40% CPI 2.28%	3.60% CPI 2.66%	3.70% CPI 2.5%
Mass Community College Raises	3.43%	1.2%	0%	0%	0%

* Source: Boston Globe Mar. 6, 2005 figures from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

We have patiently waited for the legislature to fund our contract on its own. They passed funding twice, and twice the governor vetoed it. Recently they overrode his veto for other higher education unions, but not for us. Now, there are no raises in sight!

Faculty and Staff morale is at an all time low. The governorís disregard negatively affects your education because the declining staff morale and despair severely impacts our effectiveness.

Why is faculty morale so low?

• We feel that we were misled by the state.
• We feel cheated by the state.
• We feel that the state does not respect us, what we do or the students we serve.
• We see our economic condition continue to decline: 9% below inflation and 14% below the average national pay increase.
• We see no hope in sightóeven if we do get a new contract, we have no faith that the governor will honor it.

We ask that you help us and lend your voices to our cause