Bargaining Update: College Seeking Significant Rollbacks

LCC Faculty Colleagues –

Your LCCEA Bargaining Leads met with the Administration for bargaining again today. We got a late start about 35 minutes after 1 p.m. because the College was printing their proposals. We exchanged proposals that are the final set of initial proposals, including economics.

We presented Part D of our initial package proposal (below), which includes proposals on: economics such as COLAs, steps, insurance, pay parity, workload, and more.

Our LCCEA faculty proposal includes:

COLAs of 6.1% for the first year and inflation-indexed COLAS each year thereafter;
Full steps for all step-eligible faculty, plus new steps added at the top of all salary schedules;
A new part-time salary schedule with pay parity defined as 85% of contracted salary rates;
Increased paid time, including ½ day additional class prep time, plus 4 additional hours of inservice pay for PT faculty, payout of unused personal days, and paid prep time for subs;
Improved initial salary schedule placement starting at no lower than step 3;
Workload relief, limiting annual TLCs to 40 for all faculty, increasing the TLC factor for lab and lecture-lab to 1.0; limiting class sizes to 30 for lecture classes and 24 for lab;
Added option for part-time faculty to use up to 10 inservice hours for class prep;
Addition of two floating holidays for religious and cultural observance;
Updated language providing parity and equity for part-time flight tech faculty;
Increased paid time for part-time head coaches;
A safe and sewage-free, pest-free union office space; and
Updates to the contract to comply with recent legal changes.

We shared another presentation with data from our All faculty surveys as well as compelling comparative data on salaries, inflation, and living wage standards to underscore our proposals. We also provided a proposal to address impacts to Cooperative Education resulting from subcontracting efforts. In addition, we presented a demand to bargain over the elimination of the LPN (i.e. licensed practical nurse) program that we learned about last night. Any new changes that affect faculty working conditions such as these two unanticipated changes may result in additional demands to bargain.

Please see the summary of the LCCEA proposals below.

The College’s proposal (below) included:

1.3% COLAs for all faculty for each of the next two years (with no retro pay if the contract is settled after July 1);
Limiting the insurance options to Moda Plan 5 and Kaiser Plan 2 – both substantially lower benefits than the current “base” plan 1 – but with a “Health Reimbursement Account overlay” that would save the College money;
Deleting all of the Workload Article and Workload Taskforce MOA in the contract;
Increasing workload for all faculty by removing class size maximums, requiring 45 TLCs per year and up to 18.5 TLCs per term, except for Advanced Tech, which would require 51 TLCs per year, maintaining the 0.682 TLC lab rate, allowing excessively large class sizes up to 150% of the “established” but unspecified class size, which could, for example, require any class with 30 students to allow 45 students instead;
Removing non-instructional faculty members’ choice in their college committee service work;
Making significant changes to Faculty Professional Development, requiring approval of the Vice President of Academic Affairs for all FPD activities, including conferences and sabbaticals. The College’s attorney explained, “this is a transition of the college taking back the approval and granting of these funds.”
Keeping the curriculum development rate set at $32.50;
Requiring LCCEA to pay for release for union activities such as bargaining that the state law requires the College to provide; and
Limiting faculty rights in the grievance procedure by, for example, narrowing the timeline when faculty can address concerns based on when they “should have known” an error occurred such as incorrect pay.

Thank you to the many faculty who attended today’s session to observe in person and on Zoom. All faculty are welcome to attend.

The Bargaining Team will further analyze the College’s proposals and share additional information at the union meeting on Monday, June 2 at 2 p.m. in CEN 402 and Zoom.

All bargaining sessions are scheduled in building 2, room 214. Upcoming dates are as follows.