April 22, 2010
Contact: Sylvia Watson, AFT Washington, 206-261-3603; 206-432-8084
On April 9, with little notice, the Board of Trustees at Bates Technical College called a special meeting when college employees were on spring break. The purpose: to take advantage of a technicality in a little-known law that allowed them to declare a "financial emergency" and thereby contravene portions of their contract with the faculty at the college. The vote was 3-1 in favor of the declaration. The board acted at the behest of the interim college president, Lyle Quasim, who had served on the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges when that board took steps to allow the colleges in the system to take this dramatic step.
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