We met with the District team today for our biweekly negotiations session. We made progress on our work on the 2022-2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and continued our streak of agreeing on articles at each meeting. At today’s session, we were able to Tentatively Agree (TA) on one article and received the District’s counterproposal for one article and one appendix:
Article 4 (Workload & Calendar)- TAed
Our work on this article is a good example of interest-based bargaining and collaboration. Although some initial proposals from the District were troubling, we were able to gather feedback from individual faculty and the Senate, present information and ideas to the District, and ultimately reach an agreement on language that works towards our shared goals, results in no takeaways for faculty, and clarifies expectations to the benefit of faculty and the District.
The District’s initial counterproposal for Article 4 included language that would have mandated a specific number of days of on-campus presence for full-time faculty. In our counterproposal (and subsequent discussions/counters during our meeting today), we reached an agreement on language that does not mandate physical presence but strongly encourages full-time faculty to maintain an in-person presence on campus relevant to their role. The District also initially wanted full-time faculty to complete a form listing all class hours, office hours, committee assignments, and institutional responsibilities each semester. We were able to agree that Deans can individually ask for this information (this information is already available to administrators, so there is no real change), but we did not agree to a blanket policy requiring full-time faculty to account for their hours in a form.
The District agreed with us, in part, because of the detailed and persuasive information you shared in your emails. They heard faculty concerns about weak campus Wifi, lack of common space for colleagues to gather, poor food and coffee options on campus, and that the majority of faculty want to be back on campus but it’s been less than inviting. Hopefully we’ll see improvements in these areas.
Other changes in Article 4 include clarifying the number of days worked (needed for STRS/retirement); documenting that job duties may evolve or change after hire, but significant changes will require agreement between faculty, PFF, and administration; outlining that the modality of office hours should mirror course modality whenever possible; verifying the length of time part-time faculty remain employees after their last paid assignment; adding the workload for the Articulation Officer; and some general language cleanup. Please see the linked article for all specific details and language changes.
Article 17 (Evaluation Procedure)
The District’s counterproposal accepted much of our proposed reorganization and clarifying language. In their counter, the District proposes an increased role for the Dean in evaluations, particularly those that could lead to discipline, legal involvement, or loss of position. Specifically, their counterproposal includes that the Dean have input on improvement plans for faculty who receive a Needs Improvement or Unsatisfactory rating, that Deans can request out-of-cycle evaluations, and that Deans must approve out-of-cycle evaluation requests for permanent faculty. They also want all evaluation documents to be provided to the Superintendent/President when a probationary faculty is not recommended for rehire. We will be countering the District’s counterproposal in March using the feedback we have received from TERB and Faculty Senate related to the idea of an increased role for Deans in the evaluation process.
Appendix H (Faculty Coaching Reassigned Time & Stipends)
The District’s counterproposal did not accept our proposal for non-traditional reassigned time for full-time faculty coaches but does include increased stipends for all coaches during the non-traditional season. We will be working with the coaching faculty before countering this counterproposal.
Remaining Items for the 2022-2025 CBA:
Article 1 (Agreement)- needs a date change and will occur on the last day of contract negotiations for this CBA
Article 15 (Compensation)- we will be bringing a proposal to the District in March
Article 20 (Working Conditions)- the District will bring a proposal based on our collaborative work in a separate, non-negotiating workgroup
Article 23 (No Concerted Refusals to Work)- needs a date change and will occur on the last day of contract negotiations for this CBA
Appendix F (Extra Duty Stipend/Reassignment Schedule)- goes with Article 15; we will bring a proposal to the District in March
Appendix G (Salary Schedules)- will be updated based on our Article 15 agreement
The end is in sight! Although we anticipate that negotiations on Articles 15 and 20 will take a few rounds, we expect our interactions with the District team to continue to be collegial and collaborative. Our next meeting with the District is on March 22, as we mutually agreed to cancel our March 8 meeting due to scheduling conflicts.