LCC Faculty Colleagues,

Your LCCEA Bargaining team met with the College today to exchange new proposals. 

Your LCCEA Team proposed:

• COLAs based on inflation but limited to a reasonable range of 1-4%, which would be 4% in year 1 and 1-4% in year 2, depending on actual inflation;
• Pay parity adjustments for part-time faculty of 5% in year 1 and 3% in year 2;
• Restoration of contract work days (furlough days that had become permanent) with commensurate increase in PT faculty inservice hours;
• 1 step at the top of all the salary schedules with the addition of two longevity steps for faculty remaining at the top step for several years;
• Allowing reimbursement to faculty for unused personal days each year not to exceed vacation leave payout allowed for other employees on campus;
• Implementation of Juneteenth and Indigenous Peoples’ Day holidays; 
• Two floating holidays for religious or cultural celebrations not recognized by LCC; 
• Addition of bereavement leave; and
• A more inclusive definition of family for the purpose of tuition waivers and leaves, among others (See below for summary and complete proposal.)

The College proposed:

• No changes to their 2.25% COLA proposal for year 1 and year 2;
• No changes to their proposal to add 1 work day to the contracted faculty work year;
• Removing reference to an inflation index from the contract;
• Removing language from the contract that requires steps be added to the top of the salary schedule for part-time faculty whenever they are added to the top of the salary schedule for contracted faculty;
• Adding 4 hours for PT faculty inservice compensation;
• Increasing the curriculum development rate from $30 to $32 per hour;
• Movement toward a more inclusive family definition language for the purpose of tuition waivers, parental leave; and
• Addition of bereavement leave upon approval of the responsible administrator. (See below.)

The College proposal represents negligible increases to the economic offer because the majority of changes have little to no cost. 

Substantial differences remain. For example, the College proposal does not come close to keeping up with inflation; makes no movement toward pay parity for PT faculty; does not include steps for faculty at the top of the salary schedules; and restores only one day of the 2-2.5 furlough days that had become permanent. Furthermore, the College proposal does not even include making Juneteenth a paid holiday even though the Board publicly directed the College to do so last June. (For faculty, this addition would impact only summer classes when they coincide with Juneteenth, so the inclusion of the new federal holiday would have virtually no cost, if any, to the College.)

Surprisingly, the College proposal still does not match the initial proposal made to our hardworking colleagues represented by LCCEF, let alone the final agreement. In addition, the College indicated they are not likely to make much improvement to their economic offer.

We greatly appreciate all the faculty who have shared or read stories at public meetings. Stay tuned for more information from the Action Team Co-Chairs Peggy Oberstaller and Wendy Simmons or your department rep to learn more about how you can show support at next Wednesday’s Board meeting on May 4 in building 3, room 216.

The parties will meet again next Thursday to present counter proposals. 

Your LCCEA Bargaining Team

Kelly Collins

Joseph Colton

Adrienne Mitchell

Nancy Wood