The UF will begin our ratification vote today, Nov. 19, with votes due (either electronically or communicated by phone or email to the UF Office) by 12 noon on Wednesday, Dec. 3.  Later today, every UF member should receive a link to our electronic ballot via campus email.  If you do not receive your voting link by the end of the day on Tuesday, please call Lorena Cortez at the UF Office: 925-680-1771 or send her an email at uf@uf4cd.org.  Each voting link may only be used once, so don’t share your link with anyone else.  Faculty who prefer may elect to vote by phone or email simply by contacting the UF Office.

We have also scheduled open, drop-in Zoom forums to discuss or ask questions about the TA (see schedule below). If you have questions about the TA but can’t make it to one of these forums, please email any of the UF leaders listed at the bottom of this email or speak to any UF Executive Board member.  If UF members vote to ratify the TA, it will go to the District Governing Board for their ratification at their December 16 meeting.

Tentative Agreement Ratification Forums

Time: Nov 19, 2024, 03:30 PM to 5:00PM          Meeting ID: 834 5252 7542                   Passcode: 922587

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83452527542?pwd=ZUo9YEVVqFmRyJamKZchAlSTh6ztbf.1

Time: Nov 20, 2024, 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM       Meeting ID: 824 1096 8692                  Passcode: 391582

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82410968692?pwd=bsTr0ERva9PKqXLaizDYs30e0Ce0qe.1

Time: Nov 21, 2024, 01:00 PM to 3:00 PM         Meeting ID: 836 7976 9080                    Passcode: 877463

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83679769080?pwd=oIhI5Htb2mvRjKsbR9IL8mdgLJfwWg.1

Time: Nov 25, 2024, 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM         Meeting ID: 873 7437 9038                     Passcode: 477038

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87374379038?pwd=cc7rq8GMSMDG00x5WeFepBh8mwsTxF.1

Time: Nov 26, 2024, 04:30 PM to 6:00 PM         Meeting ID: 859 5604 8195                    Passcode: 071223

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85956048195?pwd=DOpgc39xJIbXzkXWxO70p5licIUl0X.1

Highlights of the Tentative Agreement

Summer Salaries:  This TA raises summer salaries for all faculty.  For Summer 2025, all summer salaries (both full-time AC and part-time C) will increase from 72% parity to 75% parity.  For Summer 2026, all summer salaries (both full-time AC and part-time C) will increase from 75% parity to 77% parity.  Our goal is to reach 80% parity in the Summer just like Fall and Spring semesters.

Benefits:  The District agrees to cover its share of benefits premiums for 2024-2025 (94% for full-time faculty; and 94-97% for eligible part-time faculty as described in the 2023 Agreement on Part-Time Faculty Health Insurance). This included approximately a 25% increase in Kaiser premiums for active employees and approximately a 9.5% increase in Anthem Blue Cross premiums for active employees.

Professional Development Funding:  Every fiscal year, the district will provide a $100k fund to match local professional development funding support.  Whenever any faculty member receives professional development funding support from any college within 4CD, having gone through normal local processes, and where that funding is not sufficient to cover the full cost of the approved activity, the District fund with match the college allocation, up to but not exceeding the total approved cost of the activity, so long as there is adequate money in the fund.

Faculty Evaluation Stipends:  Beginning in Spring 2025, there will be an increased stipend for evaluators who serve as the chair of a part-time faculty evaluation.  The stipend for being the chair of such committees will be 25% higher than the stipend for just serving on a regular part-time faculty evaluation process.

Academic Senate President’s Stipends:  Academic Senate Presidents receive a stipend for their work and this honorarium has historically been documented in HR policy.  With this contract, 4CD and UF recognize that this stipend is a form of negotiable compensation and is, therefore, being brought into the contract.  The stipend amount with be increased with these TA and will indexed to future increased of the B-1F salary schedule.

Hiring Processes and EEO Officers:  In the section of the TA covering hiring, we have mostly agreed to contract language that documents what is already taking place districtwide.  There shall be an EEO representative on all hiring committees and EEO training will be made available to all faculty.

Part-time Faculty Staffing Preference:  In this section, we change the application process for part-time faculty seeking Staffing Preference under Article 25.  Part-time faculty will no longer be required to submit an application form for staffing preference after their seventh semester but they still must meet the regular criteria for preference.  This agreement also requires management to share staffing preference status and load data prior to the completion of scheduling for each term.  We have also left this article open for the next round of negotiations to continue our work here.

Faculty Professional Responsibilities:  The negotiations regarding Faculty Professional Responsibilities took the largest amount of time over the past nine months.  The district came with a very specific interest of finding a way to bring full-time faculty back to campus and for them to participate in campus life in a way that will encourage students to have a full-service experience.  We explored many options such as limiting the amount of online instruction, addition of on-campus professional responsibilities, or filling out Professional Activity forms if a faculty desires greater remote work .  The UF told stories of faculty meeting students were they are and insisted that the contract not limit the amazing work faculty have done to create online learning and student services experiences.  In the end, the outcome is an agreement that requires all full time faculty to be on campus some each week while still maintaining faculty flexibility to do our work teaching and providing services to our students.  The details are different for each assignment but, in short, weekly on campus office hours for instructional faculty are required if one is teaching full (or nearly fully) online.  Counseling faculty will have half of their counseling work on campus and librarians will be typically scheduled on campus, though departments may propose remote hours after ensuring that their on-campus areas are staffed.

Coaching Assignments:  The agreement clarifies that head coaching assignments receive 55% load for their “in-season” class and that this load counts toward the 67% cap and towards eligibility for District benefits.  Associate coaches are paid under the F-Contract and do not receive load.  In all cases, coaching contracts will now reference the UF Contract and are also covered by all relevant provisions of the current CBA.

Online Synchronous Evaluations:  A large portion of the page length of this agreement is the incorporation of the Evaluation Guidebooks for Online Synchronous Evaluations.  This document was negotiated some time ago and will now be included in our contract as Appendix X7.

Conduct Investigations and STRS Reporting for Part-time Instructional Hours:  There are only minor changes in the section on Conduct Investigations (Article 29) and they mostly assure that the UF can effectively represent faculty accused of wrongdoing.  In the section on STRS reporting, we document the current practice of reporting 700 hours as the full-time equivalent for instructional part-time faculty service, and 1050 hours as the full-time equivalent for non-instructional part-time faculty service

Supplemental Sick Leave:  In this agreement, we clarify that any earned supplemental sick leave is specific to the employee who earned it and may be utilized for any absence by that employee only.  Also, beginning no later than January 1, 2025, Payroll will begin a person-by-person review of sick leave balances and utilizations to retroactively use supplemental sick leave for faculty before basic leave is used, and will recharacterize the balances appropriately moving forward.  Remember, unused basic sick leave is sent to STRS for service credit upon retirement in the define benefit program, whereas supplemental sick leave is not.

Statements From the Negotiations Team

In addition to a unanimous endorsement from the UF Executive Board, here are some statements of support from some of the UF negotiating team.

TJ Bansal (Lead Negotiator) – I think this tentative agreement meets the district’s interests while giving faculty the maximum flexibility and autonomy in doing their jobs along with the professional respect that comes with being an educator.  Faculty are able to make decisions in the best interests of their students and are provided with the flexibility to contribute to the campus community in a meaningful way.

Matthew Powell (UF VP DVC) – The UF and District negotiating teams have arrived at a Tentative Agreement that I think faculty can support confidently. The state handed us a lemon of a budget. Still, we were able to make some lemonade by increasing faculty compensation for conducting evaluations and by increasing professional development funds. The TA also provides increased compensation for summer work and a District commitment to further increases for summer and overload. Most significant, the District agreed to cover in their entirety recent and precipitous Kaiser and Anthem/Blue Shield premium increases (25% and 9% respectively). District and UF negotiating teams agreed on the need to increase faculty salaries in near-future negotiations. While I am disappointed in faculty salaries compared to other districts, the District and UF have a good relationship right now so I’m confident that future negotiations will take place in good faith and to good effect. 

The TA also includes other notable items. The negotiations teams committed to streamlining the process by which adjunct faculty obtain staffing preference. The District will take on the significant project of retroactively increasing the efficacy of sick leave/supplemental sick leave to the benefit of faculty. And the TA includes language regarding coaches that provides needed clarity and reduced liability.

Perhaps our biggest task for this round of negotiations was to address off-campus and on-campus faculty labor in our post-Pandemic circumstance. In consultation with the various faculty constituencies to whom we are responsible, the UF and District have negotiated a TA that I believe allows faculty necessary latitude and flexibility while maintaining the integrity of our work. 

Katie Krolikowski (UF VP CCC) – Overall, I think this tentative agreement is a good balance of positive steps in a time when the district budget appears to be limiting.  Of note is that this tentative agreement includes the district continuing to cover their full share of benefits premiums, which pencils out to a 2.5% increase in the salary and benefits package we receive.  

Aside from dollars and cents, I think two particularly good parts of this agreement are what I hope are the first of many steps to streamline bureaucratic steps for the benefit of faculty.  First, the district agreed that going forward, it would automatically utilize supplemental sick leave before dipping into a member’s basic sick leave.  This is important because basic leave benefits the bottom line for our pensions when we retire, where supplemental leave does not.  The district has also committed to reviewing past leave usage, and to substitute supplemental for basic leave when it benefits the member.  This is a considerable commitment of district time and resources on behalf of faculty!  

Second, the agreement also includes a slight shift in the process for part-time faculty staffing preference.  Currently, if a part time faculty is individually responsible for filling out a form requesting staffing preference, which they can do after their seventh semester evaluation.  The filled-out form is given to the department and division, and the result of the evaluation is analyzed to see if the faculty meets the criteria for staffing preference.  The new agreement would simply direct the department and division to always review the seventh semester evaluations of part time faculty to see if they meet the criteria for staffing preference. 

Finally, this agreement acknowledges the importance of us faculty spending time on campus and being available for at least two hours a week in a place where everyone can find us.  This is a very minimal obligation, which leaves to us and our professionalism to manage our time and balance of digital and in-person availability in the way each of us can best perform our educational work.  

This is a balanced tentative agreement, which I definitely support!

Doug Dildine (UF PT Faculty Advocate) – I am honored to be a member of the United Faculty’s E-Board as your Part-Time Faculty Advocate. This fall term my focus has been on the reopening of Article 25 – (Staffing Preference). Our UF has heard your concerns – so, we are happy to announce that Part-Time Faculty will no longer be required to apply for Preference after 7 semesters – but will be considered for preference after 7 terms without the need to file any forms. The United Faculty is continuing negotiations on this article in the spring; realizing that preference is a complex article and needs to be discussed in detail with departments and part-time faculty to develop a workable and fair plan that may serve all colleges, departments, and faculty in our district. More news to come this coming spring and fall! 

Professional Development is essential for faculty to become better teachers – we are pleased to announce that the District has agreed to supplement all professional development funding awarded using an additional $100,000 for all faculty – this especially helps part-time faculty who may attend a conference or complete a project with this additional funding!

Mary Johnson (UF PT CCC) – The District and the UF negotiating teams reached a tentative agreement. I’m pleased to say that this agreement includes the provision that part-time faculty teaching for seven semesters or more will automatically be submitted for consideration for staffing preference. Receiving staffing preference is contingent upon a successful evaluation in the seventh semester. This change is important because many part-time faculty members have been teaching effectively for over three and a half years with little or no understanding of what staffing preferences entail. I was one of those instructors who didn’t fully grasp the benefits of having staffing preference. It is essential to clarify that this change does not ensure automatic staffing preference for adjunct professors; rather, it indicates that adjunct faculty will now be taken into consideration.