Posts in category: Bargaining

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%.

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

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!

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.  

Insurance Premium Caps

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.

The date on the proposal still says March 8, 2019, which is the date of the first proposal.  This one is different.  Not sure why the heading wasn’t updated, but here’s the proposal.

We want to again express our gratitude for the expressions of solidarity these past few weeks.  Thank you to our fellow classified employees who took time to be in the room and offer your silent support to your bargaining team, and also for your thoughts during caucus. We are really filling up the room!! We may need to find another room to Bargain if the numbers keep increasing!

Thank you to every person with a sign in your window, wearing your red LCCEF shirt or any red clothing, and every employee letting management know that we’re not happy with the way we’re being treated; again, we really appreciate your support.

On May 24, the college brought a new proposal to the table.  It’s pretty much the same as the supposal they shared with us. They are still offering us zero steps and zero COLA, but have now put in writing they will honor the 1.75% we have been discussing if we were to switch to OEBB and they will leave the college contribution for insurance at the levels they have been since 2015.  One of the problems with the contribution levels is they are not the same as faculty. The classified levels since 2015 are nearly $200.00 less for full family than faculty. If ours was the same that could have saved many families over $2000.00 a year. The contribution levels for our employee only and employee plus 1 are a few dollars higher than faculty.  

The college still wants to eliminate the FSA employer contribution on Jan 1, 2020 and have told us to suggest an employer contribution amount for an HSA because they are willing to contribute to that but not at the current FSA contribution.  They shared a few other documents with us to emphasis that Lane is more generous than other Community Colleges (College FSA Comparison). The problem we have with this idea is that through the years we have bargained for less wages in order to keep our insurance premiums low and our FSA contribution high.  So if the college wants to reverse these things now we need our wages to be increased to make up for benefits lost.

Your EC, Bargaining Team, and Joint Insurance Committee, have been actively seeking personal and commercial information on OEBB and HSA’s. We encourage every Classified employee to attend any additional information sessions provided by the college and continue to educate yourselves regarding this decision. The college did receive the Pacific Source rates for 2019/2020 and told us they came in at 15-18% higher than we currently have.  The college should be releasing this information to you this week.

They also want to discontinue our access to the Health Clinic.  This is clearly another benefit they want to take away. Currently we can go to the Health Clinic for our medical care, not pay a co-pay, and not even have to use sick time as long as the visit isn’t longer than 2 hours.  All this for just $48.00 a year.

So, this is quite ugly.  We can of course change our current plans again this year to try and keep our premiums from rising but that will mean less insurance benefits to our plans which means more dollars out of pocket.

We are planning to hold another General Membership Meeting the week of June 3, date to be announced soon.  This one will be in the evening. We hope that many of you will show up so we can discuss our next strategies.

We need everyone to pull together now.  We need those who are good organizers. We need those who can reach out to non-members and ask them to join the union. The larger our numbers the more power we have. Please keep wearing red on Fridays and reminding each other to wear red.  And please keep showing up to bargaining. We cannot do this without you.

Remember if you do come to a bargaining session you need to coordinate with your manager first. You must use your lunch break, rest break, leave time, or flex time to sit in a session.  If your manager says no to you attending and the reason you are given doesn’t seem right, please let us know at communications@lccef.org.

We want to again express our gratitude for the expressions of solidarity this past few weeks.  And once more to thank every fellow classified employee that took the time to be in the room and offer your silent support to your bargaining team. Thank you to every person with a sign in your window, wearing your red LCCEF shirt, and every employee letting management know that we’re not happy with the way we’re being treated; again, we really appreciate your support.

On May 17, the college didn’t bring much new to the table.  They shared a few documents with us. See here.  The essence of the offer is still a salary increase if we move to an OEBB Insurance plan, no other salary increase, and they are still stating they want to discontinue the college FSA contribution.  They are interested in starting an HSA and they shared they would contribute to that though they want the amount to be less than our current FSA employer contribution. Your EC, Bargaining Team, and Joint Insurance Committee, have been actively seeking personal and commercial information on OEBB and HSA’s. We encourage every Classified employee to attend the Kaiser information sessions this week and continue to educate yourselves regarding this decision.

Your Bargaining Team can’t do it alone, we’re going to need you all to continue to communicate by showing up, wearing red, posting signs, and keeping the conversation going.

Please make sure that if you decide to come to a bargaining session that you coordinate with your manager first. You must use leave or flex time to sit in a session.  If your manager says no to you attending and the reason you are given doesn’t seem right, please let us know at communications@lccef.org.