Greetings Classified Professionals
Today, LCCEF requested to meet with HR as soon as possible. HR refused to meet with us until after the Board meets TONIGHT! The Board is scheduled to approve or not approve the layoffs our Administration provided to the classified professionals’ president late last Friday.
Administration has shared a list of potential (very specific) layoffs with the union. Four full-time classified employees have been named, and any department with C3 employees is left in fear that they might also be ‘on the list’; the way they wrote the list has made it confusing to know if the plan is to lay off all of the part-time ‘casual’ hourly classified employees that currently hold positions in the same job family and classification. C3s go before C2 or C1.
A couple of years ago, in early COVID, we survived a large-scale layoff. Many of the present board members were not here at the time. We lost all of our C3 employees, causing huge issues with morale and productivity and causing a scramble to find folks who knew how to do the tasks these ‘casual’ employees have been doing for decades. We know how much it impacted departments campus-wide, so we picked up the pieces. Not to mention the impact on student service and student success. Now that they explicitly target four full-time (long-time) employees, we know this will impact many other classified professionals because every department is already understaffed. At best, be prepared to do more work than you already do.
One of the people named on the list is our lowest-paid full-time classified employee in the entire workforce at the college. How does laying off the lowest-paid employee fix the budget? Who will do that work when the incumbent is gone, taking all the institutional knowledge of how to do that job? Join us in asking the Administration to explain how laying off our lowest-paid staffer, who makes 14.7% of the highest salary (compared to the president), will improve the budget.
Please support classified or consider submitting testimony in writing to the board. In your letter(s), please include language beyond “no layoffs” or “this would impact me.” Emphasize the broader impact on students and recognize the overall opacity of the process – how we’ve been willing to have a conversation to reduce the impact on students, but the administration has not. We do not begrudge the faculty contract. We are partners in this crisis, not the opposing team. Don’t let the Administration’s strategy of dividing us cause us to lose any of our coworkers. We must come out strong and fight for our coworkers! Points to consider:
- LCC has (steadily?) reduced classified positions for years, and our budget crisis continues. Cutting front-line folks is not the answer, nor is dismissing our lowest-paid employee.
- The Lane Forward fund is $250,000. By a remarkable coincidence, the salary for the four named classified employees is $213,000.
- The Board of Education will hold a special meeting on Wednesday to decide on the proposed budget cuts. Please meet us at 5 p.m. in the Center building. Wear RED! We will have signs to carry. Give testimony online by using the:
Webinar Registration – Zoom link.
LCC Employee Federation
LCCEF Local 2417
YOUR UNION!
Website: lccef.org