NEGOTIATIONS: BACKGROUND AND UPDATE

By Teri Bernstein

We are still getting a lot of questions about what has really happened in negotiations. Basically in Spring, we were very conservative, with a high priority of settling by summer. Our proposals have expanded this Fall, preparing for impasse.

Here is the whole story:

December 96:In the final hours of arbitrated Fact-Finding , there was table agreement on the last contract, and Piedad announced a commitment to "interest-based bargaining" and a new realtionship with the Faculty Association.

December 96-December 97: The District reneged on life-insurance for part time faculty, and claimed that the across-the-board salary agreement did not include the department chair increment or coordinator schedules. It took an entire year to get the contract finalized.

October 97: Faculty Association Negotiating Council began meeting to develop positions for negotiating the contract that expired 9 months later, August 98.

December 97: Faculty Association opened negotiations by presenting the "sunshine" letter to the Board. District did not want to begin negotiations until new Human Resources Administrator was settled in.
(Comment: the Delay process begins)

March 98-May 98 Negotiations began. District expressed interest in restructuring Article 6, especially Department Chairs; department chair subcommittee presented its proposal to the Chairs and the FA. FA Load, Coordinators, and Part-time Committees worked on proposals. The District failed to provide financial and other information on a timely basis, but did come close to agreement on Overload banking fixes during this period. Faculty Association Negotiating Team presented proposals in four major areas:

1. Salary: Win/win Formula (COLA plus 50% of add-on funds) was presented as a FA priority. The Faculty Association gave the District a copy of Grossmont's contract language, and told them that we expected to develop the final formula in a negotiation process. We included all add-ons we could think of to start the negotiation. We expected that they would engage in real negotiations on this--exclude some of the add-ons, count step increases or new faculty toward meeting the goal, establiish a maximum. They did not. The District rejected it without discussion, saying they'd "done a full analysis, and it is not in their interest."

2.Part-time office hours: The state of California now has a "matching grant" for part-time office hours. The state has established a pool of money to subsidize half the cost, as even legislators recognize the positive effect on student success. One of our faculty members (See "thanks column") did an exact costing of the state's plan effect on SMC, based on Fall 97. Smester cost: less than $147,000. Annual Cost: UNDER $300,000. This was our proposal. The District rejected it "for cost, and on principle."

3. Domestic partner benefits: FA presented proposal for dental, vision and health coverage and presented ways to avoid PERSCARE limitation. District said its hands are tied by PERSCARE, but much later acknowledged that dental and vision are not subject to the same limitation. They still refused to grant benefit, worried about their "exposure."(Modified later)

4. Department chairs: FA presented orally the department chairs' proposal (willingness to provide year-round coverage), and gave the District the written salary schedule developed by the Chairs to compensate for the extra work (Contract pay for two intersessions, added on to a new Department Chair salary schedule, a 30% increase for 40% more duty days). District responded with proposal for a full-year's work in DAYS not weeks, and refused to talk about a salary increase "until the FA agrees to the work issues."

June 98: The FA was finally allowed to meet with Financial people--Tom Donner and Charyl Miller. We used this opportunity to ask for financial information we had not received, like detail for the 96-97 calculation of the 50% law. But at these meetings we learned something profoundly disturbing: the salary proposal which we had been told had been "fully analyzed" was never given to either Tom Donner or Cheryl Miller. They had "never heard of it, never seen it." This meant that our proposals were NOT being serously considered or discussed.

July 98: 50% law follow-up: After relentless pestering, Tom Donner finally gave us detail for the 96-97 50% law calculation. Prior to giving it to us, he must have reviewed it, and rather than waiting for us to dicover that it had been prepared incorrectly, he--in a show of good faith and integrity--revised the calculation from the one "reviewed" by the auditor, to reveal that $1.5 million in exclusions had been subtracted TWICE. This made the calculation appear more favorable than it actually was. The fact that the form was originally prepared incorrectly, and that the auditors had failed to detect the error gave us the idea that perhaps this calculation needed more investigation. If "out of compliance," the District would have SPEND MORE ON INSTRUCTION.

July 98: District proposal:The District presented us with a comprehensive proposal that included:

1. Salary: A 2% increase for 98-99. Put this in perspective. The classified had gotten a January 98 raise of 4.5%, and were scheduled to get a January 99 raise of 4.5%. The Administration had already proposed a budget and an administrative reorganization that increased academic administration by 39.5%(and would increase it even more if they got our raise on top of that, which has been the usual practice.)

2. Department Chairs: The District presented a proposal that included a 15% increase in salary for some department chairs and a 7.5% increase for others, for 6 weeks of required intersession work. Their proposal eliminated the department chair stipend and allowed for intersession teaching only at hourly overload rates. Although it was presented as an increase for chairs, this was DECEPTIVE. When we actually put the numbers together and compared what department chairs were making now with what they could make under the District's proposal, we found that it lowered the maximum they could make. (Later, when the District Chief Negotiator met with us with a hand-written list of the W-2 totals for a number of departemnt chairs, saying the amounts were "well over what managers were making" we knew what was behind their proposal. We tried to point out that when Department chairs make more money, it is becuase they WORK more, and that a revenue stream apys for their extra work many times over.)

3. Domestic partners: The District agreed to cover dental and vision; still refused to cover health or look at stipend as a way around PERSCARE. Delayed implementation to 1999.

4. Faculty Assignment: The District porposed new duty: academic advising for instructional faculty.

5. Part time faculty: The District proposed elimination of "Associate faculty" reemployment provision. District has no interest in substituting any other reemployment provision, or in listening to any proposals. No response and no interest in part time office hours.

July 98-August 98: 50% law research:administrative, and because of the previously noted problems in 50% law calculations, we calculated the 50% law ourselves, based on the preliminary final run for 97-98. TheD Because of the District's preposterous and unfair proposal to increase faculty salaries far less than classified or district was not in compliance according to our claculations. We asked Cheryl Miller, the District administrator most responsible for financial matters, about this and she said her calculations showed the District to be a 47.5% (also too low to be in compliance). She also indicated that the District planned to file an examption. However, the District did NOT file an exemption, which would have subjected District records to a limited state review. Instead, they made over $2.4 million of creative journal entries so that it appeared they were in compliance.

Meanwhile, we obtained a copy of the Budget and Accounting Manual, and, upon reading the descriptions of how reassigned time for Faculty Seanate, curriculum committee, program development and other funds were supposed to be classified as NON-instructional, we realized that the District was misclassifying over a million dollars in reassigned time every year. There were other problems too, which we brought to Charyl Miller's attention.

July 98-August 98--Contract preparations: Also during this period, the Negotiating Council met and established comprehensive objectives for each contract article, with alternatives and fallback positions. We hoped that our discovery of the 50% problem requiring more dollars be spent on instruction would put pressure on the District to engage in real negotiations with the aim of a quick settlement. We were ready!

August 27, 1998: (institutional flex day): We ran into Dr. Sammis who told us that his "parameters had changed" in negotiations and that we'd be "very pleased" with the package he was ready to put on the table. He apologized for the "misunderstanding" over the summer involving the 50% law. Dr. Robertson, too, was all warmth and smiles, ready to "move forward." We looked forward to our scheduled meeting on September1.

September 1, 1998: The District came to the bargaining table demanding a response to their July package proposal. We were in shock! We told them that 1) we were prepared to discuss all proposals, but had no written response; 2) their comments the prior Thursday had led us to believe that we could expect a revised proposal from them; and 3) common ccourtesy would have required that they state their expectations fo us at the meeting PRIOR to the meeting. Nevertheless...

Labor Day proposal: Fran, Alan and I worked all of Labor Day weekend to churn the positions the Negotiating Council had established over the summer into contract language. We presented the District with our proposal September 8, which we revised slightly before declaring simpasse last week. Because of intervening events--e.g. an increasing number of grievance and unfair labor proactice charges, the unilateral change in working conditions (which, thank goodness, was thwarted) involving the 11:00 Activity Hour--we added "maintainance of working conditions" clauses to our proposal. We also added a request for the sunsetting "golden handshake" provision, reiterated requests for increased Faculty Association reassigned time, distance education protections, and stipends, and introduced a Load Factor proposal that would put all new classes at 1.0 and increase technology classes to 1.0. We requested fixes on about 40 "minor" items as well and expanded our part-time office hours request. We changed our salary proposal first to 6% in each of three years, but revised it to 6% beginning 8/24/98, with our COLA formula kicking in for all subsequent year.

District response to date: The District did respond with a 3% salary offer for this year (still less than what classified staff are getting, and well under what all staff and faculty deserve, considering what our extra work is doing to increase revenue). Most of our other proposals were rejected. We still however have hope for a few things...The District seems close to an offer on domestic partner health benefits. We hope to get a memo-of-understanding on technology liaisons. They pressed for "brainstorming" meetings on Department chairs and Coordinators; we hope to get a revised proposal at some point during mediation. Their letter to faculty indicates they mitght reconsider a part time office hour proposal.

Summary: WE ARE AT IMPASSE. Regardless of what we may HOPE, our next step is PERB mediation--the impasse process. The District Chief Negotiator and Superintendent/President have had their "listening ears" completely closed. They seem to want to destroy faculty morale and obviously want to harm the union by forcing us to pursue impasse, forcing us to pursue litigation on the 50% matter and by increasing the actions requiring us to file Unfair Practice charges with PERB, as well as causing us to file an increasing number of grievances. We need your support and your help to convince the Board that FACULTY CARE. They forget that faculty generate all of SMC's FTE-based income, with our hard work and dedication. We need you to remind them. Contact them personally if you can, and be sure to come to our postcard party to sign cards to send them. Let them know you want their support!