Contract Negotiations

(10/23/13)  Here’s a summary of the highlights from our most recent negotiation table with district management.

Professional Development – Continued refinements to this article were discussed.  There is support for unused dollars to be rolled over for use the following year.  We are also discussing adding the taking of college classes to the list of reimbursable professional development activities.

Budget – Teams agreed that in order to address money issues in many of our articles (for example, additional professional development dollars, improving loading factors, reduction in maximum class size, improved compensation for Department Chairs, salary, improving compensation in large class factor classes, health benefits, etc.), we need to concur on the Coast budget and how much money is available to CFE members for our next bargaining unit agreement.  The state has given each district a 1.57 cost of living (COLA) increase.  For the first time in our history, the District suggests that out of our portion of the COLA must first come the cost of providing annual step and column increases to CFE faculty.  Additionally, the ACCJC-required retiree health benefits set-aside dollars increase this year year be funded out of our COLA.  Based on their calculations, that would eat up most of the COLA, resulting in no raises for our CFE faculty.  The District further indicated its intention to use any remaining faculty COLA dollars to hire two new full-time faculty, which would leave zero dollars to fund any costs associated with our current contract negotiations.  CFE inquired about general fund savings from the passage of Measure M, the district’s 20% reserve (currently there is $37 million in the reserve), and the ongoing savings generated from the 33 faculty who left in 2012 and who were replaced by 29 faculty who are still lower on the salary schedule than those who left.  Further, CFE shared that its researched showed 20 districts so far that have negotiated raises with their faculty unions, ranging from 1.25 to 5.30%.  Management believed several districts negotiated at 0% raise for this year.  Discussions about money will continue.

Class Size – We continued a discussion regarding the challenges some of our members are facing in classes with greater than 54 students.  In many cases the faculty do not have adequate support to ensure student success in those classes, and in the absence of negotiated large class size limits, management is increasing the size of those classes annually for at least one college.  Several creative approaches to improving the working conditions of such faculty were discussed.  This year there has been improvement at the college where there was previously the least support for faculty teaching large classes.   Both teams explored models with smaller increments for large class factor pay, but all options presented too many cases where faculty would receive significantly less compensation to make any of these options viable.  Discussion on class size will continue next week.

Your CFE team welcomes your input.

Bob Fey, CFE Executive Director, Chris Hamilton, GWC, Ann Holliday, CCC, Dan Johnson, CCC, Marilyn Kennedy, OCC, Dean Mancina, CFE Chief Negotiator, Marcella Norling, OCC, Rob Schneiderman, OCC

(9/18/13)  Your team met with the District from 9am-5pm on Friday, September 13, 2013. 

ACCJC – As you know, ACCJC issued a warning to the three colleges stating that they want faculty evaluations tied to student achievement of learning outcomes.  Currently they are not part of the evaluation process.  Part of the reason is because of the controversy surrounding them: some faculty find SLOs useful,  other faculty find student learning outcomes are not indicative of student learning; many faculty feel that ACCJC is overstepping its boundaries by insisting that evaluations (a negotiable item by state law) include the element of achievement of SLOs.  Members report their concerns to us, that their evaluation should not be tied to students who do not achieve the SLOs due to students’ own personal failures to attend class, read the texts, or complete required assignments.  As reported in an earlier Update, both negotiations teams agreed on contractual language, but CFE has concerns based on members’ statements that a majority of faculty may vote against the adoption of this change to evaluations.  We want to hear from  you.  Watch for an upcoming short survey from CFE asking you to provide confidential feedback to us.  Please contact us immediately if any manager asks you about this matter, or tries to influence you for or against voting for this contract change.

Professional Development – We are very close to agreement on several positive changes to current contract language regarding professional development. 

Evaluations – In addition to the ACCJC matter above, the teams got closer to agreement on a new process for tenure track evaluations which will make important changes.

Class Size -  We discussed classified support for large classes, the need to negotiate maximum class size for large classes, and having more large class size/ compensation increments.  We have explored mutual interests in this regard and are in the process of evaluating options.  The District has indicated all negotiations must be cost-neutral, which suggests the Board of Trustees has not authorized one penny to be spent on faculty to settle contract negotiations.

Our next session is on September 27, 2013.  We welcome your input.  Send input to cfemancina@yahoo.com.

Your Team:  Bob Fey, CFE Executive Director; Chris Hamilton, GWC; Ann Holliday, CCC; Dan Johnson, CCC; Marilyn Kennedy, OCC; Dean Mancina, CFE Chief Negotiator; Rob Schneiderman, OCC.

(updated April 23, 2013)  Your negotiation team met with the District most recently on March 22 and April 12.  Click on the title of this article (above) for the complete summary of those sessions.