A key issue in the negotiations, which have been ongoing for two years, are the benefits the union demands be paid to the part-time faculty who teach more than 55 percent of the classes. There are 250 full-time faculty and 800 part-timers.

The union is also demanding that the part-time faculty be paid to hold office hours so that all students would have the advantage of extra help. The Santa Monica College Faculty Association is also fighting for back pay. Their fact sheet explains how the number of administrators has grown by over 100 percent. The college president's salary has grown by 15 percent, plus receiving more than $20,000 a year for car and entertainment expenses. However, faculty salaries are the 34th lowest in the state.

In the spirited and vocal march around the campus, members of the California State Employees Association and students joined in. Student activists have prepared and distributed a fact sheet urging student support for the faculty. They point out that the Public Employee Relations Board found the district guilty on three counts of unfair labor practices that include failure to provide information, threats of retaliation, and bad faith bargaining. At the time this article was submitted the district has refused to return to the bargaining table.

Sarah Smith, a student leader of the support committee, said: "Students at SMC should actively support the teachers in their contract struggle with the administration for a few reasons: first, because a lot of the issues that the faculty are fighting for would directly benefit students, and second, because it would help the teachers' efforts to increase their standard of living, and to be treated with more respect."

Smith continued "For me, it's also a matter of continuing the fight against an unjust economic system that allows this sort of despotic stuff to take place, in addition to the desire to see my professors achieve better standards of living."

Mark Friedman is a member of the International Association of Machinists.  
 
 
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