The bargaining team met with the college for a bargaining session Friday, June 7, 2019 @ 1:00pm. The college asked if we would be willing to engage in “sidebar discussions” with just 2 of our representatives and 2 of theirs. The intent was so we could engage in more open supposal conversations without creating expectations that the details were then already proposals, but it didn’t really get us anywhere. Bargaining continued until nearly 4:00pm, an hour past the scheduled time.
The college stated the Board are very intent on not putting more on the salary schedule for classified other than the 1.75% if we move to OEBB. We hope you will all turn out for the Board meeting on June 13, 2019 @ 6:30pm to share your feelings about their stance!
Table of Contents
FSA
The college still wants to sunset their contribution to FSA but conceded to doing it gradually rather than all at once on Jan 1, 2020.
Professional Development
The college offered 50,000 in Professional Development funds but only as a pilot for 2019/2020. They want to assess it after the first year before committing to continuing it. This is only a 25,000 increase over what we have had for several years, so we’re not sure what the hesitation is about.
The college agreed to the insurance caps we suggested in the interest of equity.
- EE 824.48 E+1 1770.99 E+C 1770.99 FF 2390.89
- This makes our full family contribution equal to the faculty contribution level which is $100.29 per month higher than our current level.
Stop Loss Language
For some reason the college pushed back against the stop loss contract language that is the same as what is in the faculty contract. We simply stated this is just another equity example. Why would this be okay in the faculty contract but not ours? They said they would look into it.
Plus 1
The college agreed to our Plus 1 language which will allow all active non-contract/timesheet employees to apply internally for job postings. Currently our contract stipulates non-contract employees need to have completed a 1040 hour trial service, and have worked at least 520 hours in the preceding 12 months.
Us Too MOA
The college agreed to “Us Too” MOA which protects us if the faculty bargains and receives better compensation than we do. The “US Too” Memorandum guarantees we will get what they get and it will be retroactive.
Health Clinic
We discussed the Health Clinic and the college offered a 6 month extension for access. We stated we would want that for at least the next year. It wouldn’t do us any good to simply agree to an extension and then need to demand to bargain 6 months from now.
Year 2 Bargaining
As for year 2 the college offered a supposal of 1% on the salary scale with ½ step on July 1, 2020 and ½ step on Jan 1, 2021.
Counter Proposal (us to them)
We gave the following counter proposal
- COLA at 1.55% which is the CPI-U (the Consumer Price Index the Faculty uses)
- 1.75% salary adjustment if we move to OEBB
- ½ steps for step eligible employees
- Lowering FSA contributions to the faculty levels (E 450 E+1 700 FF 900) with a lump sum payout to those employees currently utilizing FSA for the next year. This would basically keep the FSA contribution by the college at the same level it is now for one more year for those employees currently using the FSA.
- Add HSA with college contributions set at $1600.00 for employee only and $3400.00 family (the deductible amounts on the high deductible plans eligible for HSA)
- We removed the increase in insurance stipend for non-contract employees as long as they get the salary scale increase gained for change in insurance benefits along with contracted employees
- We included 3 paid days off over winter break (that the college took away several years ago)
- We left the health clinic access the same
- Several other items. See our full proposal here.
This was our last Friday Bargaining session as the college cannot make the next two on June 14 & 21, and June 28 is the first summer closed Friday. We have not scheduled any other sessions, but will likely be bargaining through the summer. We will add the dates and times of upcoming sessions to the LCCEF calendar found on the right side of lccef.org.