LCC Faculty Colleagues,
I hope your week 4 is going well so far! I have much news to share in a future update about the exciting contributions of faculty on LCCEA teams as we prepare for contract negotiations in Winter and celebrate 50 years of member organizing power with the GOLD Dinner & Workshop Series. (Register here for November events and beyond.)
In the meantime, I am writing to let you know about two new requirements that the Administration is seeking to impose for faculty.
First, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Shelley Tinkham, provided notice to LCCEA today that LCC will implement a requirement effective January 20, 2025 that all faculty must reside in the state of Oregon. The Administration had recently informed LCCEA on September 23, 2024 that they would not implement such a requirement. However, they have since reversed course and now seek to require all faculty to “maintain and permanently reside in a principal place of residence in the State of Oregon,” noting that a violation of the procedure would cause any employee to be “subject to discipline, up to and including termination of college employment.” See “Employee Residency” below for details.
A small number of LCC faculty live outside Oregon, including some for many years and some who have lived outside of Oregon for their entire employment at LCC. We will be reaching out to all faculty who have an official address on record that is outside the state. In addition, we will be seeking legal advice on this issue, which has a significant impact on a limited number of faculty members. Faculty may also share questions, concerns, or other feedback about the Oregon residency requirement on this form.
Second, VPAA Shelley Tinkham also provided notice to LCCEA today that the Administration will impose a new requirement effective January 20, 2025 that all contracted faculty must report their non-teaching work / non-teaching activities and estimated hours for each activity every term, to be submitted on a quarterly “Faculty Non-Teaching Workload Form.” See below “Non-Teaching Work Procedure” for details. Please share any feedback you have about this new requirement to report and estimate non-teaching work on this form.
In order to preserve faculty rights, LCCEA has provided notice to the College of our intent to bargain over the impacts of these two new requirements. According to state law, LCC is required to negotiate over impacts of any changes to working conditions that it seeks to impose and must engage in good faith negotiation for 90 days prior to implementation of the changes.
Please note that these changes are ones that we would typically expect to see the College propose during regular contract negotiations, which will begin around February. By providing the notice now, the Administration circumvents our regular, upcoming negotiations in order to implement the changes immediately prior to beginning the main contract bargaining. This is not a strategy that the Administration at LCC has ever utilized in the past.
In addition, LCCEA has notified the College that the non-teaching work reporting and tracking requirement that the Administration seeks to impose is a violation of our contract, which confirms that faculty are “professional employees.” Faculty are salaried, not hourly* employees, and our contract specifies that, “Because faculty are exempt and not hourly employees, non-teaching work is not tracked on an hourly basis.” (Also see excerpt from Art. 35 below this message.)
We will also be consulting with legal counsel regarding the relationship of the timing of these notices to good faith bargaining and regarding employer implementation of a requirement that is not consistent with the contract as that may also be inconsistent with state law (i.e., an unfair labor practice).
Your LCCEA Representatives from both the Bargaining and Grievance Teams will be sharing more information as it becomes available. In the meantime, please do feel free to share your feedback on the two forms provided and/or reach out with questions.
Sincerely,
Adrienne
Adrienne Mitchell, M.A., M.Ed.
Faculty Member, Academic Learning Skills Department
President, Lane Community College Education Association
Vice President, Oregon Education Association Community College Council
*If faculty were hourly employees, we would be subject to wage and hour laws such as overtime pay. Faculty would track our hours and/or punch a time clock, and any time a contracted faculty member worked more than 40 hours per week (e.g., during those late nights grading or prepping on the weekend), faculty would be paid overtime. Likewise, if faculty were hourly employees, part-time faculty working more hours than they are compensated for based on their teaching FTE would be paid for every hour of work in service of students and the campus.
Excerpt from Article 35:
Article 35 – WORKLOAD
…
35.2 Nature of Non-Teaching Work. The workload of contracted teaching faculty is intended to include an amount of non-teaching work. The choice of specific
non-teaching faculty work shall be the decision of the faculty member and can be made without prejudice, subject to the ability of the college to accomplish non-teaching work as specified by this Agreement, properly executed Memoranda of Agreements, certified workgroup charters, and workgroup consensus decisions.
35.3 Non-Teaching Work. Non-teaching workload consists of activities beyond directed student contact time and immediate class work, which includes preparation, grading, office hours, and examining student work.
35.3.1 Faculty are professional employees exempt per ORS 653.020 from overtime compensation. Non-teaching workload shall apply to contracted faculty only, and shall comprise 15% of the faculty member’s FTE, averaged over the academic year. Because faculty are exempt and not hourly employees, non-teaching work is not tracked on an hourly basis. However, for the purpose of providing an example, 15% for a faculty member teaching 1.0 FTE equates to an average of six hours per contract week. If such activities cannot be accommodated within this schedule, the particular workload issues will
be raised to the Division/Department Chair as outlined in 35.4. If the workload issue is not resolved through the Department/Division Chair process the issue may be raised to the LCCEA President and the Vice President for Instruction and Student Services via the process outlined in Article 35.4.
35.3.2 In this Article, non-teaching work is work that is not otherwise compensated and is focused on furthering the college mission and goals at a program, department/division or college-wide level. This non-teaching work includes such things as long-term curriculum planning, development and coordination; assessment of student learning outcomes; governance activities; working as an Association representative in joint activities; serving on hiring committees; participation in peer evaluation and peer mentoring processes; building collegiality; and work in the community.
Lane Community College Education Association 