Your LCCEF Bargaining Team once again met with the college on Friday with high hopes of hearing updates on our Economic & Non-Economic Proposals. To the dismay of our team, the college brought back some ugly information. In fact, the college almost ‘shrugged off’ LCCEF’s economic proposal and reiterated that the college has no money to allocate to the Federation for bargaining but perhaps they will have a counter on May 10. Additionally, the college stated that they do not have a non-economic plus one item. Our non-economic plus one is to remove the internal application restrictions on non contract employees.
Costing Calculator
The college complied with LCCEF’s request for lever values used by the college to estimate the financial impact of the proposal made by the Federation. Feel free to review the values in the Bargaining Costing Worksheet FY20 (PDF or Google Sheets).
Janus Language Counter Proposal
The college shared their counter proposal on Friday and explained that they would align the reports to LCCEF with how Faculty get their reports. We assured the college that there is existing technology that would accommodate the Federation’s proposal with no additional labor for the Human Resources staff but the college held their stance.
The Federation does not agree with the counter proposal submitted by administration especially since we now have semi-monthly reporting in our contract today. The most notable addition by the college is a large expansion of the language in 7.2.4 about withholding dues and the Federation’s responsibility to defend and hold the college harmless for doing so. Your LCCEF Bargaining Team will not allow the college to add one sided language for their benefit.
Insurance
Your LCCEF Bargaining Team is forthcoming with the college by reiterating that we will need to go out for a vote on insurance in just 6 weeks in order to meet an OEBB deadline of June 30 but because the education piece has been slow in coming we doubt we can meet that deadline. We are urging the college to schedule and hold informational sessions about OEBB so that all of our bargaining unit members will feel adequately prepared to vote, whether that be in favor of accepting OEBB or not. Your Bargaining Team will not make the decision for you; we are not trying to persuade you one way or another. Personal health and wellness along with insurance is a very complex situation and each employee has their own needs.
Last year we contracted with Pacific Source for 15 months to set us in a better position to do one of two things, 1) to align with OEBB contract year or 2) to bargain another 15 month contract with the provider of choice so we would then align with a Jan-Dec plan year. Since our insurance contract now extends to Oct 1 we will not be rushed into a vote until we believe you have had adequate opportunity to weigh the options.
Time to get hyped!
Alright, the college has had a chance to work together with the Federation on interests and they’ve done nothing but reiterate that they’re not open to collaborate towards positive progress on coming to a fair contract. Now’s the time to be united, get involved, let administration know that we are all paying attention and we know that the college’s budget problem is simply a choice to not allocate funding for us – not the lack of having funding.
- If you have a “Fair Contract Now” sign, or any union sign, get ‘em out in your doors and windows! Or reach out to us so we can provide you with one.
- Talk to each other! Talk around the water cooler!
- Ask one another about insurance or bargaining
- Attend the May 8 Fund our Future: Community College Rally
- Wear LCCEF/Red shirts – Let’s create a sea of red!
- Friday, May 3 at Spring Conference!
- Wed, May 8 at Bristow Square, Fund Our Future: Community College Rally
- Visit our table during Spring Conference
- Friday, May 3 in CML 104 at 3:15 – 4:30 p.m.
- Come by and say hi! We’ll show you some website updates, easy ways to find them online, and work that’s being done thus far
- Looking to fill the room at an upcoming bargaining session
- Friday at 1 p.m. later in the month of May (17/24/31)
- Attend the entire 2 hours if you can
- Attend on a 15 minute break during the 2 hour window
- Connect with us LCCEF@lanecc.edu if you’re interested
This is the time we need everybody to do their part. Administration believes they can get by with reducing our units’ positions, restricting funding allocation to our labor wages, and constrict our benefits! We need to show them it’s not gonna go down that way!