The last few days have been a whirlwind of bargaining activity! After several meetings, and numerous emails since last Friday, we now have a Tentative Agreement for the Insurance parts of our contract! See that TA here.
We have not given up the right to Bargain for COLA, Steps, and other economic topics. We will commence bargaining on the rest of the agreement for 2019/2020 & 2020/2021 beginning in July.
We believe we have gotten the best deal we can get on the insurance pieces of the economics to be bargained for this year based on the overall financial climate at Lane. Line item details are as follows:
- Move to OEBB effective 10/1/2019
- Receive a 1.75% salary adjustment effective 7/1/2019
- Establish a Health Savings Account (HSA) for those in eligible health insurance plans (Plan 6 on the OEBB rate chart) with the following contributions made by the college.
- Employee Only = $800
- Employee + 1 and Full Family = $1700
- If you prefer a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) over the HSA, you can continue to receive that benefit at the same level as your 2019 (current) election including the $240 minimum employee contribution.
- Starting in 2021, the college contribution to FSA for all employees who choose to use it will be as follows:
- Employee Only = $450
- Employee + 1 = $700
- Full Family = $900
- $240 minimum employee contribution required
- College contributions to insurance premiums will be as follows:
- Employee Only = $824.48/mo
- Employee + Spouse = $1770.99/mo
- Employee + Children = $1770.99/mo
- Full Family = $2390.89/mo
- We were also able to include the Stop Loss language used by the faculty union regarding insurance premiums.
- The Employer contribution toward monthly insurance premiums are the amounts
listed above. If the premium for a plan exceeds the cap, classified employees may be
responsible for picking up a portion of the insurance premium increase using the formula
below:
a. Employee Only — Employer pays 100% of increase.
b. Employee + One — Employer pays 95% of increase. Employee pays 5%.
c. Full Family — Employer pays 90% of increase. Employee pays 10%.
- The Employer contribution toward monthly insurance premiums are the amounts
We agreed to separate out the Insurance section of bargaining because today (6/12/19) is the last day we could announce a ratification vote and get the vote completed by June 27th, 2019, the last college open business day of June.
June 30 is our deadline for letting OEBB know we plan to move to them. We could have filed for a 30 day extension with Pacific Source to bring our current contract end date to November 1, 2019 instead of October 1, 2019 but the college are maintaining they will not pay the increase in insurance premium that PacificSource would likely charge for that 30 day extension. Certainly they could charge us at that 16.5% increase which more than doubles the cost to employees. Rather than take the chance of that burden being placed on you, our members, we decided to separate out the insurance vote and then continue to bargain for the rest of our economics.
We will hold a General Membership Meeting next week to discuss. Be watching for the date, time and place. We are still working out those details.
We are also working with HR on Insurance Information Sessions that will provide you with the actual dollar amounts of premium cost to you based on the Tentative Agreement so you can cast a vote being fully informed. Those session dates will be announced soon!
Our ratification vote will happen on June 27th. Ballots will be due by noon on June 27, 2019.
Don Patton, Election Chair, will soon share specific election information with you.
Thank you for your continued support,
LCCEF Bargaining Negotiating Team