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Union Employees May Need To Make Concessions In Order To Plug Budget Gaps

COVID-19 put Jamestown Community College and its employees in a bind.

College officials made difficult decisions in not filling some positions as well as furloughing employees. Give credit to the JCC Faculty Association and the college’s Professional and Supervisory Alliance for working with the college administration and making concessions to help the college reduce costs.

JCC was looking at a $4 million deficit because of the pandemic, an amount that could not have been closed without the help of union bargaining units.

Community colleges can play a key role in educating a community, whether that is retraining workers who need new skills to thrive in a changing economy or providing a low-cost option for high school graduates to attend college close to home before transferring to a four-year college.

Give credit to the employees as well as Daniel DeMarte, college president, for coming together to make sure JCC can fill its role in our education infrastructure this fall.

There is a bigger lesson to take away from JCC’s budget agreement. Municipalities and school districts across the county could be looking at similar situations. Direct federal aid to local governments and school districts has been slow to be approved and no one knows the status of the state budget. It is going to be nearly impossible to plug budget gaps and retain services without union employees making some concessions. Those discussions will have to be a give-and-take on the part of both the unions and management. They’re hard discussions to have — but they are absolutely necessary.

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