May 9th, 2024

Negotiations Update

Your PFF Negotiations Team has worked diligently since October to negotiate the 2023-2024 reopeners for the 2022-2025 District/PFF Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA, aka “the contract”). The full contract was NOT open for negotiation–we were focused on only a few articles in this round of negotiations. We finalized negotiations on all reopeners with the District this week and will send the ratification vote to all PFF members on Monday 5/20/24. The vote will run through Thursday, 5/23/24 at noon. If the contract is ratified by our members, it will go to the Governing Board for final approval at the 6/11/24 meeting. As you prepare for the upcoming vote, please see the attached PDF for a detailed overview of the negotiated gains and changes in each of the reopeners, as well as items we will continue to fight for. Details of each previous negotiation session can be found on our website. 

Highlights in the 2023/24 Reopeners:

• Horizontal movement on the salary schedule for CTE/vocational colleagues- industry experience and related trainings, licenses, and certifications can now be counted towards grade advancement.

• 137% increase in compensation for FT who must take reassigned time as OVL and for PT in reassigned time positions (Appx F positions only). Each 20% will now be paid 8 hours (20% of a 40 hour workweek) instead of 3.375 hours per week. For those impacted, compensation will be more than two times what it was.

• Doubling paid office hours for PT faculty- we’ve been proposing increases to PT office hours for years!

• Large class stipends for faculty teaching courses with caps over 42.

• A pilot program providing a faculty department chair for the Disability Resource Center.

• Successfully resisted the District’s interest in having Deans approve FT faculty schedules.

• A new appendix codifying and clarifying faculty responsibilities. This has been requested by faculty since COVID, especially when considering evaluations, which mention “contractual obligations,” and for our newer colleagues. 

• And much more! Our gains outweigh the gives/concessions we made–and any gives were carefully considered with faculty guidance through shared governance and with an eye towards improving efficiency and support. 

Remember–ratification is a full-contract vote. PFF members will be asked to vote electronically with a yes/no vote on the entire contract as a whole. You cannot vote yes on some parts of the contract and no on others. 

Next Steps:

• May 20-23, 2024: Ratification vote by PFF members on the 2023/24 District/PFF CBA Reopeners. Union members will receive the electronic ballot via email on 5/20 from BallotPoint, our external elections vendor (look for an email from either notice@ballotpoint.com or notify@ballotpoint.com at your personal email. If you have not provided your personal email, the ballot should come to your “other” inbox of your Palomar account).

• May 23 or 24, 2024: Faculty will be notified via email of the results of the ratification vote.

• June 11, 2024: Governing Board approval of the 2023/24 District/PFF CBA Reopeners (pending results of the ratification vote).

• If the CBA is ratified and the Governing Board approves:

• Late June 2024: Sunshining (agreeing with the District) the articles to reopen for 24/25 in this CBA (these will be the last reopeners for this three-year contract before we negotiate a new three-year contract covering 2025-2028).

• These will include Article 15 (Compensation) and Article 16 (Benefits), in addition to up to two other articles proposed by each party. 

• Our primary focus and priority for 24/25 is a raise above COLA.

We appreciate your trust and patience as we negotiated this year’s reopeners, which added to the gains for 23/24 we had already negotiated (like the 8.22% COLA that was applied to this year’s salaries). We are thrilled with the gains for faculty achieved in this round of reopeners and are confident we will continue to make progress in the best interest of faculty in our 24/25 reopeners. PFF is incredibly grateful to our members, whose dues fund the critical (and year-round) work involved in effective negotiations. If you are not yet a PFF member and are pleased with the gains negotiated on your behalf, please join—we’d love to have you! 

You can stay up to date on everything we have already negotiated on your behalf and upcoming updates on negotiations progress at the PFF website, where we post negotiations updates after each meeting with the District. Be sure to follow PFF on Instagram (@palomarfacfed) and Facebook for notifications as well. We will update faculty in person about the status of our summer negotiations during the all-faculty meeting on the afternoon of plenary on 8/23/24. Please plan on attending that meeting, and please vote yes on ratification of the CBA if you are a current PFF member. 

If you have any questions, please reach out to palomarfacfed@gmail.com. We are here for you! 

In Unity, 

Your PFF Negotiations Team

Jenny Fererro (Lead Negotiator), Will Dalrymple (PT Co-President), Lawrence Hamilton Lawson (FT Co-President), Nicole Siminski (FT: ESL), and Barbara Baer (PT: ECON)

ATTACHMENT AS PDF:

2023-2024 District/PFF CBA Reopener Highlights

Article/Appendix	Faculty Gains	Faculty Gives	To Be Continued… (Proposals That Weren’t Accepted This Round Which Are Still on Our To-Do List)	Notes/Links (TA= Tentatively Agreed or signed)
4  Workload & Calendar	Added Instructional Designers workload Clarification on workload differences for different categories of faculty Clarification on when 10-month faculty are on/off contract Clarification on difference between institutional responsibilities and unscheduled preparation General language clean-up	FT faculty are expected to respond to emails while on contract during non- instructional periods	Codification of flexibility required for load for Dental Assisting	TA: 1/11/24
8  Course Maximums	General language clean-up Signed an MOU for large class stipends (compensation pilot to run 24/25)		Attempted (yet again) to create a system for determining class minimums for cancellation that is more equitable and makes more sense than a flat 20	TA: 12/14/23 MOU: 1/11/24
15 Compensation	Experience credit for horizontal salary scale movement for vocational faculty Doubled PT faculty paid office hours (9 hours per 20% load) & guarantee that PT paid office hours will match FT amount if state reimbursement increases to 100% Hourly pay for PT Faculty Senators consistent with other committee pay Compensation for independent study teaching assignments via Time & Effort reports General language clean-up		Raise on top of previously negotiated COLA Automatic application of COLA  Overload faculty office hours (including summer) Automatic payment of PT office hours Prep pay for PT faculty Simplification of the PT committee participation pay process	TA: 4/25/24
16  Benefits	All faculty can receive TB tests at no cost through Student Health Services (previously only available to FT faculty) Continuation of health benefits coverage for temporary FT transitioning back to PT Assurance of eligibility for health benefits coverage in the event of reduction in assignment General language clean-up		Reduction in employee contribution to dental plans Availability of buy-in to dental plans for PT faculty	TA: 11/30/23
20  Working Conditions	Resisted District efforts to have Deans approve FT faculty schedules  Vacant offices may be made available for faculty use Removal of “interruption of service” component of PT PN calculation PT PN calculation done by department, not discipline PN calculation twice a year Clarification on offering added classes to PT who lost classes due to cancellation Clarification on who notifies HRS of evals that impact PN Clarification on how OVL courses interact with canceled classes for FT load District must provide faculty with at least 5 weeks notice of change in operational hours (up from their initial proposal of 10 days) General language clean-up		Protection of office space for FT faculty on leave	TA: 4/25/24
C Faculty Responsi- bilities	Clarity on responsibilities for FT and PT faculty			NEW APPENDIX TA: 12/14/23
F  Extra Duty Stipend/Reassigned Time Salary Schedule	Increased compensation for FT taking reassigned time as OVL and for PT in reassigned time positions from 3 hours per week for each 20% to 8 hours per week for each 20%- this is a 137% increase in compensation! Institutionalized Curriculum Co-Chair and Distance Ed Coordinator and added summer stipend for each (and associated reduction in Faculty Senate pot) Summer stipend for World Languages Lab Coordinator Outgoing stipend for transition for Articulation Officer position Minor corrections/title clarifications	Reassigned time as OVL for FT faculty is subject to approval by appropriate VP.	Equitable Placement Faculty Coordinators (English, ESL, Math) CFT Program Coordinator Water Tech Program Coordinator Increase of stipend for Dance Production Coordinator Musical Theater Coordinator/ Choreographer Reassigned time for Lead Paramedic Instructors Honors Program Coordinator Summer stipend for Learning Outcomes	TA: 5/14/24

• “General language clean-up” includes grammatical fixes, removal of gendered or problematic language, rearrangement of content for clarity, and other non-content changing edits: we see these as a faculty gain because these changes make the contract easier to read and understand.