Here is a PDF of the March 4, 2015 issue of Table Talk: TableTalkMARCH2015FINAL.

The full text of the issue is also reprinted below (without photos or captions or charts/graphs) so that articles may be found using our website’s search engine.

Table Talk

The Newsletter of the United Faculty of Contra Costa Community College District

March 4, 2015

 

 

News at a Glance

  •  UF/CCCCD Reach Tentative Agreement on 2014/2015

•  Salary Increases Top UF Goals as 2015/2016 Negotiations Begin

•  Union Meetings Scheduled to Discuss TA and Negotiations

•  UF Survey Shows Faculty Feel Overworked and Undervalued

•  George Miller to Speak at UF Benefits Conference March 20

•  Load Task Force Completes Review of Science Courses

•  Part-Time Faculty Participate in National Adjunct Walkout Day

•  UF/CCCI Bring SMC Faculty to Discuss Compressed Calendar

•  President’s Message: “When to Call Your Union”

 

UF/CCCCD Reach Tentative Agreement for 2014/2015

Ratification Vote Starts Now

After months of discussing and reviewing revenues and expenses as they relate to the 2014-2015 salary formula, the UF and CCCCD have reached a Tentative Agreement that will close the books on 2014-2015 compensation and set the stage, we hope, for productive negotiations going forward. The full text of the TA has been emailed to faculty along with a “joint statement” from the bargaining teams, and a copy is also available on the UF website. Highlights include the following:

•  Last year’s 2% salary increase will

not sunset as a “bonus” but will

remain on the salary schedule as a

permanent ongoing raise.

•  Last year’s load adjustment factors

for part-time faculty (which put

“parity” on the salary schedule) will

also remain permanent & ongoing.

•  All faculty will receive a one-time,

off-schedule salary increase for

2014/2015, calculated as 3% of

spring “A” and “C” load. This

money (about $890,000 out of

District reserves) will be paid at the

end of the spring semester (in June).

Every faculty member, in other

words, will receive an additional

3% of his or her spring “A” or “C”

load at the end of the semester.

•  The full contract (which would

otherwise have expired June 30,

2015) will be extended through

June 30, 2017.

Although the TA does not include a new ongoing salary increase, which is a top priority for the UF, our negotiating team decided that closing out the 2013-2014 agreement and making the raise from 2013-2014 permanent strengthened our position going into 2015-2016 negotiations. Also, our 2015 Negotiations Survey, in which more than 400 faculty participated, showed that while faculty want ongoing salary increases, the majority preferred that we agree to take some one-time money this year rather than negotiating backwards as we seek a raise next year.

The United Faculty Executive Board has voted unanimously to recommend to our members that we ratify the Agreement. And a ratification vote will begin Wednesday, March 4 using our on-line voting system. UF members should receive an email to their campus email address on or before March 4 with a voting link and instructions.  Faculty who prefer may also vote by phone or email, as the emailed instructions will explain. Votes must be submitted by Tuesday, March 17 at 12noon to be counted.

 

420 Take UF Survey: Many Feel Overworked, Undervalued

At press time, 420 faculty had completed the 2015 Negotiations Survey, our largest response ever.  Alarmingly, only 16% of those responding described themselves as “valued” for the work they do. For full-time faculty, “overworked” was the most common answer to our question about morale, where part-timers overwhelmingly described themselves as “undervalued.” Since most of the questions concerned subjects related to current negotiations, we are not yet publishing the full results of the survey, but any member who wants to review the data need only send an email to ufjeffmichels@gmail.com.

In general, faculty supported the approach that we took in reaching the TA. And while the majority of respondents warily favored shifting some money from benefits to salary in theory, none of the specific options was at all popular. Many faculty commented that “good pay and good benefits should not be mutually exclusive.” The UF E-Board agrees. We were happy we received so many thoughtful comments; E-Board members read all the comments and will continue to discuss them.

 

Salary Increases Top UF Goals as 15/16 Negotiations Start

As we head into the third year of California’s economic recovery, many UF members have expressed frustration that there seems to be money available for everything these days except faculty. Having lost nearly 18% against the cost-of-living during the last recession when salaries in our district were frozen, the fact that the 2% raise in 2013-2014 and now the off-schedule spring bonus in 2014-2015 are a bit higher than the statutory COLA amounts seems small consolation.  As UF President Donna Wapner told the Governing Board at their meeting last week: “faculty in other districts seem to be sharing in the general recovery. We need to do better at CCCCD in 2015-2016.”

Too many senior full-timers are looking towards retirement with fear.  Salaries at the top of our schedule rank only 55 of 72 statewide, yet we live in one of the most expensive areas in the state. The idea of trying to make ends meet with a pension based on a percentage of top salary has a lot of faculty wondering how they will ever afford to retire. At the other end, too many of our newer full-time hires can’t figure out how to raise a family or buy a house in the Bay Area on what faculty get paid. After years spent on education and training (often incurring substantial debt along the way), they finally find a tenure-track job, but it doesn’t offer the security such jobs used to provide. They wind up working lots of overload and still struggle financially.

The picture is even worse, of course, for our part-time faculty. Many work without benefits, job security or a living wage. Some piece together work at several Bay Area colleges or work in the private sector just to make ends meet, but with part-time pay only about 60% of full-time pay on average, many part-timers are essentially working poor.

Despite these facts, and despite our ongoing efforts to educate our legislature and the public about the need to invest in teachers as an investment in students, much of the money flowing into the colleges is now in two new categorical programs labeled “student success” and “equity.” If the Governor’s initial budget for 2015/2016 goes forward, our district’s allocation of “student success” and “equity” money next year will top $10 million (including rollover from 2014/2015). But this money is restricted and mostly cannot be used for faculty salaries. This is why some areas seem flush today while money for raises is proving a challenge.  Our district is also not growing, as some others are, so “growth” dollars in the new budget may offer little for CCCCD.

2015-2016 is still likely to be a good year for faculty, since there is some new money in the proposed state budget that can be spent on compensation (such as COLA of 1.58% and $125 million allocated statewide for “increased operating expenses” such as increases in STRS and PERS employer contributions). The UF will be pressing for a meaningful salary increase despite the challenges. Last fall, we hired forensic accountant John P. Johns (a researcher for the Service Enployees International Union) to help us review the District’s books, and based on his report as well as work by UF Budget Analyst Mike Anker, we have been pressing for some budget reforms and innovative ideas that might help the District afford raises.

We are also looking at ways we could reform our salary schedule to serve faculty better, such as adding a longevity bonus or additional steps (which would ultimately raise not only pay but pensions for faculty who devote their careers to CCCCD). We are seeking compensation for faculty who coordinate certificated programs and better pay for department chairs. We think some “equity” money could go to expanding paid part-time office hours. And we’d like to make it easier for part-timers to get credit for years worked and move up the salary schedule. We plan to address many equity issues in negotiations this year: raising lab load; release-time for coaches in season; proportional pay for proportional work. But salary increases still top the list

Our UF leadership would love to hear more from you about priorities and goals. Come to one of our meetings (listed on page one). We’ll be there to listen. Or send an email to any E-Board member with your thoughts on negotiations, pay and working conditions.

 

George Miller to Speak at UF Benefits Conference March 20

 

Recently retired Congressman George Miller will be the keynote speaker at this year’s annual UF/FACCC Benefits and Retirement Conference to be held at Diablo Valley College on March 20, 2015, from 8:30am to 2pm in the Main Street Bistro (the ground floor of the new cafeteria). California Community College Independents (CCCI) lobbyist David Balla Hawkins will be the breakfast speaker, and the conference will include workshops on investment strategies, retirement planning, health benefits and wellness, social security, STRS, PERS, FACCC member benefits, and more. There will even be a panel of retired faculty sharing what they wished they had known before they retired. The conference is free and open to all district employees and spouses (and counts as a 4-hour Flex Activity for those who pre-register on-line). The UF will supply a Continental breakfast and lunch buffet. To register for the conference, go to the FACCC website (under events): www.faccc.org/events. To get flex credit, you must also register with staff development using the link that was emailed to all faculty by UF Benefits Director Deborah Dahl-Shanks. You can email Deb if you need the link again at deborahdahl@aol.com.

 

 

Load Task Force Completes Review of Science Classes

Load Task Force members will begin meeting with the negotiating teams soon to discuss data and recommendations compiled in this semester’s first round of Load Task Force meetings with science faculty. Local task-force groups met with every science department in the District throughout February and compiled a master list of science courses, including class size and load, as well as recommendations for changes based on faculty workload. Although there was quite a bit of variety in faculty recommendations, on the whole, as we expected, science faculty reported that many labs, which currently count for less load than lecture for full-timers, are actually more work than lectures to teach and involve more work outside of class for faculty. The Task Force will begin reviewing department recommendations in dialog with the negotiating teams with the aim of improving workload equity throughout CCCCD.  The Task Force will also discuss next steps (including what areas to review next).

 

UF Attends Faculty Lobby Day in Sacramento

Eight UF E-Board members and five student interns attended the Faculty Association of California Community College’s Advocacy and Policy Conference last weekend, and the UF helped to sponsor and organize two busloads of CCCCD students to attend the “March in March” on Monday, March 2. Students and faculty met with legislators and staffers throughout the day advocating for better community college funding and especially more full-time hires, expanded part-time office hours, and expanded COLA to help improve faculty salaries.

 

PT Faculty Participate in National Adjunct Walkout Day

Wednesday, February 25, marked the first-ever “National Adjunct Walkout Day,” an event that began on social media but that quickly gathered support throughout the US. Although only a few institutions apparently saw wide-scale walkouts, part-time faculty across the nation participated in other ways, with teach-ins and local marches, and with protest and advocacy of all kinds. Our UF part-time leaders traveled to Sacramento and met with key staffers to discuss education policy and particularly the overuse and exploitation of part-time faculty in the CA community college system. The concept that students deserve “full-service faculty” (faculty who hold office hours and are available outside of class and who have a hand in designing and reviewing the curriculum they teach) seems to be gathering steam.  Organizers have labeled National Adjunct Walkout Day a success for helping to bring more attention to the inequities in academia.

 

UF/CCCI Bring SMC Faculty to Talk Compressed Calendar

With financial support from both the District and the California Community College Independents, the UF is bringing faculty from Santa Monica College and El Camino College to LMC on Monday, March 23, from 4-5pm in L-109, for a meeting with the Academic Senate (open to all faculty) to discuss the Compressed Calendar. Our guests will also be at DVC from 2-3pm on March 23 in the Diablo Room. SMC and ECC have both made the switch to a 16-week calendar, so we invited several faculty to come share their experiences and talk about how the compressed calendar has worked at their colleges. We will video-tape the meetings and post the discussions on the UF website as well.

The UF has scheduled a similar meeting with the CCC Academic Senate on March 16, from 2:15-4pm, in LA-100, and we hope to have guests there too from other districts that have compressed their calendars. We are continuing to post information related to the compressed calendar on the UF website: www.uf4cd.org. In April, the UF will conduct a survey to help guide us in negotiations on the calendar. So far, the UF has not taken any position on the compressed calendar. Management has indicated that they will bring the idea to the bargaining table, so we are trying to organize education and dialog on the subject.

 

President’s Message

Maybe the thing that’s most striking about becoming United Faculty President is how often the phone rings. It doesn’t seem to matter what I plan; my day is always diverted by phone calls. But this is actually the core of union work, and if anything, I suspect our faculty call less than they should. As your union representatives, the UF Vice Presidents and I are here to advocate for you and to help you navigate rough waters at work. You do not need to file a formal grievance or appeal to get your union involved. Has there been a problem with your evaluation process?  Have you disagreed with your department or with management over your schedule?  Has there been a payroll mistake or do you think you have been placed at the wrong step on the salary schedule? Are you thinking of taking leave but not sure which form to fill out?  Call the UF.  We help with those sorts of issues all the time.

Sometimes serious issues come up at work, and the earlier you bring in the Union, the better. Certainly if you are ever contacted by a district lawyer or investigator or even if a dean seems to be asking you about something he or she thinks you did wrong, you should contact the Union. You have a legal right to Union representation whenever anyone who works for the District wants to ask you questions that might conceivably lead to discipline. You can’t be punished for asking to delay a meeting until you talk to the Union. Retaliation for bringing in the Union is against the law. Most managers in our district, fortunately, understand that Union representatives help to resolve disputes. So management does not usually get bent out of shape when the Union gets involved.

Even small issues can be resolved with some Union help.  We work closely with Human Resources staff, so if you’re confused about a workplace issue, we can usually make a call on your behalf and help. This is why you pay dues, not only so that we’ll negotiate contracts and engage in political action that supports faculty but also so that you have someone to call who is paid to be on your side. We have a lawyer on retainer who can help us answer legal questions. And we have experts on our staff who know about STRS and PERS, can help answer questions about retirement,  reduced load, banked load or sabbaticals.  Yes, my phone rings a lot.  But it could ring a little more, so please call if you have questions.

On another note, I’d like to ask that everyone vote yes on the TA. I know it’s not the raise we want…yet. And we know from our survey that some faculty would rather we had waited until the next TA had a real raise.  But we went with what the majority of members seemed to prefer, and having made the Agreement, it’s important that faculty back the negotiating team by ratifying. We will seek permanent raises in 2015/16. It’s clear that faculty workload has increased, and we need more full-timers. Part-timers need more office hours and fair pay. Faculty are feeling exhausted, undervalued – and are losing their patience. My hope is that in 2015/16 the Administration and the Governing Board understand these real concerns and join with us to look at the budget in a way that allows for the reinvestment in one of the major ingredients of student success – our faculty.