LCC Faculty Colleagues,

Your LCCEA Bargaining Team met with the College today in anticipation of an updated proposal from the College, but instead the College came with nothing. They had promised to present a proposal today, but confirmed that they had no new proposal and would not even commit to when they would make another proposal.

The College insisted on asking repetitive questions about the LCCEA proposal, including asking multiple times whether we had changed it since last week. The vast majority of the questions were redundant and not substantive. Furthermore, the College stated they had a long list of such questions but would not commit to providing them in writing despite LCCEA’s offer to answer all written questions.

In addition, the College demanded that LCCEA provide cost estimates for components of our proposal. Your LCCEA Team presented the College’s own costing calculator and provided a detailed explanation of areas where the calculator is in error and overestimates costs. Please note: the errors are not disputed – both the College and LCCEA agree that there are significant errors, and the College promised to provide a corrected calculator several weeks ago, but has provided none. One example of an error is that the College has included 214 full-time faculty positions and salaries as a base upon which increases are calculated. However, the number of full-time faculty for next year will be approximately 196, resulting in an overestimation of faculty salaries by more than $1.5M. The cost of part-time salaries was also overestimated by roughly $1.5M.

In sum, the entire meeting appeared to have no purpose other than to stall negotiations. Your LCCEA Team went on record stating that the College’s delays amount to “surface bargaining,” which is evidence of bad faith bargaining – an unfair labor practice. 

Please consider attending the June 1 Board of Education meeting, wearing red, to demonstrate your support for a fair contract and good faith negotiations. Your attendance will make a difference. The Board has called an executive to discuss bargaining that evening. You may RSVP to the Action Team here.

Thank you to the faculty members who attended to observe today’s session, and a special thank you to Action Team Co-Chairs, Peggy Oberstaller and Wendy Simmons for their organizing efforts.

Your LCCEA Bargaining Team

Kelly Collins

Joseph Colton

Adrienne Mitchell

Nancy Wood