What a Strong Union Can Do--Keep Management Honest

A strong 4C’s can play a vital role in our system beyond advocating for members’ salaries, benefits, working conditions and job security—it can keep management honest.

This is not to say management is engaging in theft. Rather, we are simply acknowledging that human nature dictates that unchecked power leads to abuses. The BOT does not supervise the managers closely, but a strong 4C’s can publicly challenge self-serving management decisions that benefit them at the expense of our students. A strong union can bring checks and balances to managerial power.

A strong 4C’s can ask how the Resource Allocation Model, supposedly used by management to determine staffing levels, can allow Quinebaug Valley Community College to not have ANY counselors on staff while retiring managers all across the system return to work on endlessly renewable 120-day contracts?

A strong 4C’s can ask why managers’ annual raises since 1998 have averaged over 7.1%?

A strong 4C’s can ask why management’s reserve funds have grown from $4 million a few years ago to over $35 million recently?

A strong 4C’s can bring balance to our system.

We need a strong 4C’s. Our students need a strong 4C’s. Taxpayers need a strong 4C’s. Paradoxically, even management needs a strong 4C’s, so we can prevent them from destroying the system we all work in.

NEXT: Debunking a Few Myths.