De Anza Service Employee International Union Chapter ChairJavier Rueda (center) and others look on as the Foothill-De AnzaBoard of Trustees made its decision to vote unanimously to lay off32 classified staff and reduce the work year by one month for 18others.

Last Monday, the Foothill-De Anza Board of Trustees votedunanimously to lay off 32 classified staff members in July andforce 18 classified employees to take one month off next yearwithout pay. The move will save the district approximately $4million in the face of the looming state budget shortfall.
Sixty Service Employee International Union members attended thedecisive meeting and stood for 1.5 hours to wait for the chance tospeak in defense of their jobs. After hearing thirty minutes oftestimony, the board of trustees expressed regret for having tomake the decision, calling it “very unpleasant.”
The District will receive May revised numbers from Gov. Gray Davisthis week that may necessitate more layoffs and hour reductions.The Board plans to release the May revised impact report at the endof the month.
By contract, the District must lay off the most recently hiredemployees through the seniority bumping system. For example,Barbara Brown’s administrative assistant position in theChild Development Center is being eliminated due to budget cuts.Brown has been in the district for 3,559 days, so she”bumped” newer employee Anne Adams from her position asadministrative assistant in International and Distance Learning.Adams will not have a job on July 1.

SEIU chapter chair Javier Rueda empathized with the tough budgetdecisions that the board had to approve this month. In the samebreath, Rueda tried to impress on the board that each employee onthe list had a name, a face and a family to support.

“I hope that you have at least taken a moment to think aboutwhat your vote will do for each one of the people affected,”Rueda said. “Also, and ultimately, the effect their departurewill cost in achieving our mission.

“On behalf of the people who, by no fault of their own, willbe leaving this district, I would like to tell you: pleasedon’t forget who we are. And as we depart, do not forget whatwe have done while we were here.”

Fifteen classified staff members and students spoke after Rueda, attimes emotionally attacking the proposal.

Lily Espinoza was hired six months ago in Foothill’scounseling department, where she works with transferring studentsas a program coordinator. While speaking, her eyes welled up withtears as she contemplated losing her job to budget cuts.

Espinoza graduated from high school with a 2.0 GPA and enteredcommunity college where she received guidance from her counselorsand earned an AA in liberal arts.Espinoza went on to receive a BAat UC-Berkeley in Women’s Studies and a Master’s atColumbia University in Higher Education.

Instead of applying to work at a private institution, she chose toreturn to community college students the same experience that shereceived out of high school. After working with Foothill’scounseling program for six months, she’ll leave in July tofind another job. “The timing’s bad,” sheexplains. “None of the colleges in the area are hiring rightnow due to budget cuts.”

The board of trustees heard comments from four politically activestudents who stood up for classified staff members on campus beingaffected by the cuts.

De Anza student trustee hopeful Adam Welch decried the apparentdisparity in layoff practices, saying “Though we’reseeing a lot of layoffs for staff, we haven’t seen many forthe management and administrative positions at the colleges. Ithink that we should be cutting the fat, and not the muscle of thisdistrict – the people who work to help our education.”

Foothill student trustee Andrea Liederman cautioned the groupagainst demonizing the board of trustees.
“It’s easy to try and create a bad guy scenario,”she said. “But the economy’s to blame. A series ofbad
budgeting [decisions] at the state level is to blame.”
With that, the motion to approve layoffs was quickly passed, andthe attending SEIU members and supporters filed silently out intothe hallway to reconvene.

Speaking after the meeting, board member Paul Fong described campuslife after the budget cuts.

“There’s definitely going to be a reduction inservices,” he said. “When you see the real cuts to thebudget, they’re in the neighborhood of $10 million.There’s no way you can operate the district in the samemanner. I’m sure that we’ll see it in some of the hoursof operation and in the number of people that we have to helpstudents.

“You can look at it one of two ways. You can say thatwe’re losing ten percent of our workforce, but you can alsosay that we still have 90 percent of our workforce. Our mission inthe coming days will be to maximize the effect of that 90 percentto provide the best education possible for our students.