SAN MARCOS — Palomar’s classified employees and supporters plan to hold a “Solidarity Rally 2.0” at the LRC Plaza, highlighting concerns over cost-of-living pay talks and staffing vacancies they say are affecting student services.
The rally is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 16 at the Learning Resource Center (LRC) Plaza at the San Marcos campus. Classified employees, faculty, students and community members are expected to gather for speeches on staffing shortages, leadership and investment in student needs. It is the second solidarity rally of the semester, following an October rally focused on cost-of-living pay, as trustees continue to face public questions about working conditions and campus priorities.
Why this matters for students
Union leaders say the issues at the center of the rally show up in students’ daily lives — how long it takes to get questions answered in financial aid, whether classrooms are clean and open, and whether the people who know how to run those services can afford to stay.
According to a press release, the rally is being led by the Council of Classified Employees (CCE), which represents nonteaching staff such as clerks, custodians, lab technicians and front-desk workers. The coalition also includes the Palomar Faculty Federation (PFF), Faculty Senate leaders, student representatives and community partners.
“At the center of this action is the Council of Classified Employees’ campaign for a fair COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) and the urgent filling of longstanding vacancies that impact student services and campus operations,” the release states.
In the release, CCE President Anel Gonzalez framed the rally as part of a broader push over how the college is run.
“This is not a reaction, this is a movement. The Board does not get to hold our campus hostage,” Gonzalez said. “We want a future built on respect, stability, safety and student success and we’re coming together to demand it.”
PFF leaders echoed the concerns in the press release and expressed their continued support.
“Our students deserve a college that works. Our community deserves a college that works. It’s our workers who transform that mission into reality. Empower them with the resources and recompense that actually work,” PFF Co-President Will Dalrymple said.
In a written statement responding to questions from The Telescope regarding the rally and the concerns being raised, the district said it is committed to working with employees.
“The district respects and values all of our employees and will continue to work collaboratively with all constituency groups to support student success,” the statement read.
From ‘COLA or Chaos’ to ‘Solidarity Rally 2.0’
The Dec. 16 rally will be the second major demonstration this semester. In October, CCE and its allies held a “COLA or Chaos” rally on campus, which Gonzalez said drew more than 200 staff, faculty, retirees, students and community members.
“This campaign is called COLA, or Chaos, not as a threat, but as a reflection of reality,” Gonzalez said at the October governing board meeting. “When the district ignores our contract, doesn’t fill vacancies and allows instability to grow, it’s the classified professionals who absorb the chaos.”
Gonzalez warned that classified staff keep much of the college’s infrastructure running, from opening buildings to keeping systems online.“I don’t want to be an alarmist, but you realize that with the flip of a key, classified staff have the power to unlock buildings, keep the power on, keep systems running,” Gonzalez said. “A day without classified does not seem like something you should want students to experience when you have the power to control the chaos you’ve caused.”
Months of COLA dispute and an active PERB case
The cost-of-living adjustment dispute at the center of both “Solidarity Rally 2.0” and the “COLA or Chaos” rally has appeared in some form at every board meeting since June. CCE filed unfair practice charges with the California Public Employment Relations Board over the issue in August, and that PERB case remains open.
Gonzalez’s public comment at the October meeting tied the dispute to the district’s reserves and long-term financial choices, arguing that end-of-year reserve numbers from 2019 to 2025 show the college is financially stable rather than in crisis. Gonzalez also pointed to federal data showing the consumer price index for the San Diego–Carlsbad area rising about 4 percent.
“The delta between 4 percent and 2.3 COLA adjustment is not trivial,” Gonzalez said. “It means even with this adjustment, our compensation would erode even while the work intensifies.”
During public comment at the November governing board meeting, CCE Vice President of Membership Jena Kruhmin told trustees she wanted to offer them “something refreshingly simple, an easy win.”
“We all know this board could use some good publicity right now. The campus climate has been tense. The headlines have not been kind. And trust in leadership is, let’s say, in need of a rebuild,” Kruhmin said. “So, here’s your chance to turn that right around, right here, right now. Give classified staff our cost of living adjustment, our COLA.”
Kruhmin framed the union’s ask as matching inflation, not exceeding it.
“We’re not asking for a bonus or a luxury, we’re asking to keep up with inflation. Only 2.3 percent, that’s it,” Kruhmin said. “Let’s have a headline that says, ‘Palomar College Governing Board votes unanimously to support classified staff with the full COLA.’ That’s good publicity. That’s leadership. That’s the kind of decision people remember and appreciate.”
Vacancies and custodial strain behind the slogans
Alongside pay, CCE has made staffing the other central theme of the upcoming rally. In union materials shared with The Telescope, CCE says there are 116 vacancies out of 455 classified positions districtwide. The district did not respond to a request to confirm that number.
In November, Gonzalez told trustees those empty positions translate directly into strain on services and safety.
“The remaining custodians are being told to do more with less, and to stop submitting work orders because it looks bad when they can’t clear them,” Gonzalez said. “How can we look at the students in their eye and claim excellence when we are not replacing the very workers who keep the spaces safe and operational?”
Custodial services has become one of the clearest examples union leaders cite.
This year, the union says custodial services has 9 vacant positions out of 42, about 21.4 percent of the department — the highest rate since 2021–22, when the campus was still coming out of the COVID-19 shutdown.
Custodial vacancy rates remain elevated even as Palomar has returned to near full in-person operations and added new facilities, including a softball field and football stadium, expanding the areas custodians maintain.
Despite the vacancy numbers CCE cites, Palomar’s main hiring page for permanent jobs listed only five open classified postings as of this week. On a separate Human Resources page for short-term employment, the college has posted a listing for a “Substitute Custodian I.”
For CCE, the gap between the number of reported vacancies and the number of permanent positions publicly advertised is part of its argument that the district has been slow to rebuild staffing.
“We have actually been talking to the board about short staffing for years, for a long time,” CCE Communications Officer Krista Lough said in an interview. “I’ve worked here for almost six years now, and I’ve been involved with the union for, I want to say, like, three or four of those years. And every board meeting I’ve gone to, we’ve talked at least a little bit about staffing.”
Lough described cycles where management announces plans to fill vacancies, then pulls other positions off the list or stops a hire at the end of the recruitment process.
“All of the promises and all of the steps they’ve taken have felt, you know, just like false,” Lough said. “Like they’re trying to appease us, they’re trying to appease whoever else is concerned about this, but they are not actually invested in taking any action.”
