California Federation of Teachers on Building Power

by Justin Smith (Building Power Data Manager) and Zohara Kaye (Guild President)

Justin Smith (Building Power Data Manager) and David John Attyah (Building Power Coordinator)

Glendale College Guild @GCCGuild

The Guild’s Membership and Mobilization (MnM) Task Force joined efforts with CFT’s Building Power project this Winter.  David John Attyah (GCC professor of Studio Arts) is the Building Power Coordinator and Justin Smith (Adjunct professor of History) is the Building Power Data Manager, and together they co-chair the newly formed Organizing Committee with the goal of increasing membership and member engagement.    David and Justin attended the Building Power Organizing Institute - a two day training seminar led by CFT.

We also held two training opportunities for our MnMers on having one-on-one conversations with new members. Building Power has set a goal to meet and sign up 120 new Guild members by the end of the spring semester.  Winter and early spring blitzes have yielded 34 new faculty members to date. Currently our membership percentage is 77%, up from 69% in Fall 2015. This is a start, but we aim for larger solidarity and involvement of campus faculty, allowing our collective voices to be heard and solidifying support for the contract negotiations.

Our goal is to provide every faculty member with the opportunity of having her/his voice heard in our union, and we’ve got custom M&Ms to prove we are serious!

If you are interested in helping out by joining our MnM Task Force or gathering signatures for the extension of Prop 30, please get in touch with David or Justin (mailto: gccbuildspower@gmail.com).

Through membership drives, “Hot Lunch” seminars, and mobilization around the efforts to extend Proposition 30, we aim to create a lively discourse between faculty, students, and the campus community.

We have three “Hot Lunch” events open to all campus constituents and the public. 

On Thursday, March 17, we have Dr. Tony Dunbar leading a discussion on Racial Equity.

On March 23, we are co-sponsoring a panel discussion with the Art Gallery on “Art and Activism.”

On April 21, CFT Communications Direction, Fred Glass, will present a talk on labor history in three movements “Dream, Act Up, and Occupy!”

Please join us if you can.

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