Lane Community College Education Association

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

LCC Faculty Colleagues,

After last week’s bargaining session when the College canceled bargaining for this week, the College reversed course and asked for a meeting today.

Your LCCEA Team agreed to meet and requested responses to several outstanding questions about College proposals or lack thereof.

We were surprised to learn that the College has no response on several items, including faculty use of their own sick leave for eligible leaves covered under the new statewide paid family and medical leave program (i.e. FMLI) when the state fund does not cover full salary for the leave time. In addition, the College clarified they wish to exclude great-grandparents and great-grandchildren from faculty use of emergency and bereavement leave. Both of these examples are virtually cost-free to the College.

The College also made clear they do not agree to differential compensation (i.e. additional steps at initial salary schedule placement) for faculty who use bilingual/multilingual skills in their faculty work. They also stated they do not currently agree to pick up payroll deductions for FMLI even though the budget manager had stated that deductions were built into the budget for all employees for next year.

Your LCCEA Team presented an updated proposal. Please find it below along with a comparison of the College and Faculty proposals. The new LCCEA proposal: moves to one longevity step instead of two at the top of all salary schedules, and provides that pay parity adjustments for part-time faculty will be 3% in year 1 and 2% in year 2 (in addition to COLA). Finally, the proposal allows for the payout of up to one day (i.e. 8 hours) of unused personal leave per year. The remainder of the LCCEA proposal remains the same.

The College and LCCEA proposals still remain far apart. 

Significant differences still include:

• COLAs
• Steps at the top of the salary schedules
• Pay parity adjustments for part-time faculty
• Two floating holidays for religious celebrations not recognized by LCC
• Indigenous People’s Day
• Bilingual/multilingual differential compensation
• Applying pay parity adjustments to part-time coaches and part-time flight tech faculty

Our next scheduled bargaining session is Thursday, May 26, 1:00- 2:30 p.m. The bargaining session is open to all faculty, and faculty may attend by zoom at: https://lanecc.zoom.us/j/92789710787

Your letters to the Board of Education are effective, and we greatly appreciate faculty engagement in the organizing efforts of the Action Team such as using the automatic email feature at:  https://secure.everyaction.com/FEPSaG1bk0SXWMPUA1rC2A2, which can be personalized, adapted, or shared with community supporters. Thank you as well to the many faculty using LCCEA zoom backgrounds, available for download here: https://lccea.org/2022/04/15/zoom-your-solidarity-with-lccea-backgrounds/  If you’re looking for ways to demonstrate your support for a fair contract, now is the time.

We anticipate a new proposal from the College on May 26.

Your LCCEA Bargaining Team

Kelly Collins

Joseph Colton

Adrienne Mitchell

Nancy Wood

LCCEA President Adrienne Mitchell shared the results of a survey of 249 Lane faculty on local news channel KEZI on Thursday, May 12. She said that the results showed that there is a “dire need for more state investment in the community college system.”

The story can be seen and read here:

LCC Faculty Colleagues,

Your LCCEA Bargaining team met with the College again today, and the College presented a new proposal (below).

The College proposal:

• Makes no changes to their COLA proposal of 2.25% for 22-23 and 23-24;
• Adds an additional non-instructional day to the contracted work year which can be scheduled at any time based on “administration identified priorities;”
• Adds 4 additional hours to their previous proposal for PT faculty inservice/meetings for a total of 8 additional hours more than the current contractual agreements; 
• Provides a 1% pay parity adjustment for part-time faculty for 22-23 only and no pay parity adjustment for 23-24; and 
• Adds Juneteenth as a paid holiday (only affecting faculty members working in summer when Juneteenth coincides with summer term).

The College and LCCEA proposals still remain far apart. 

Significant differences include:

• COLAs
• Steps at the top of the salary schedules
• Pay parity adjustments for part-time faculty
• Two floating holidays for religious celebrations not recognized by LCC
• Indigenous People’s Day
• Bilingual/multilingual differential compensation
• Applying pay parity adjustments to part-time coaches and part-time flight tech faculty

Today’s proposal from the College provides little toward pay parity for part-time faculty, still no movement for faculty at the top of the salary schedules (the majority of faculty), and continues to result in a net decrease in the value of compensation because of inflation.

The parties took some time to discuss questions, including whether the College will add Indigenous People’s Day, which is now a state holiday. The College’s position is that the Board must make this decision, but they indicated they have not asked the Board to consider it. 

At this point the only area where the parties are close to agreement is expanding the definition of family for the purpose of leaves and tuition waivers.

The College has canceled bargaining for next Thursday. In the meantime, your LCCEA team will prepare a response.

Your LCCEA Bargaining Team

Kelly Collins

Joseph Colton

Adrienne Mitchell

LCC Faculty Colleagues,

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

We were shocked to see the College present a regressive proposal today that included a range of 1% – 2.25% COLA for year 2, taking a step backward from the 2.25% COLA previously presented. The College admitted this was an error and reverted to their proposal from last week, which amounts to no change. 

Thus, the College took a step backward and then returned to their previous position from last week. The only movement they made today was to increase the curriculum development rate from $32 to $32.50. The total amount the College budgets for curriculum development does not typically increase from year-to-year even when the CD rate changes, so this represents a $0 increase from the College’s proposal last week. (See below.)

To be clear, the College put nothing more on the table. 

The College still proposes nothing more than 2.25% COLAS, 1 day added to the contract year, and 4 hours inservice for PT faculty. 

This provides nothing toward pay parity for part-time faculty, no movement for faculty at the top of the salary schedules (the majority of faculty), and results in a net decrease in the value of compensation because of inflation for all faculty.

Because we promised to make a new proposal and are committed to good faith bargaining, your LCCEA Team made some adjustments to our proposal from last week:

• Changes to language to make the definition of family more inclusive for the purpose of tuition waivers and leaves in a manner that aligns the proposals of the parties more closely;
• Making pay parity adjustments for part-time faculty of 4% in year 1 and 2% in year 2; and
• Setting the CD rate at $32 and applying COLAs to ensure that the rate keeps up with inflation in future years as part of the overall package.

Your LCCEA Bargaining Team also maintained all other proposals, including those that faculty have identified as critical (e.g. COLAs, steps at the top, etc.). (See complete proposal below.)

The College’s proposal does nothing to acknowledge the tremendous workload faculty have taken on during the pandemic to help students be successful. Due to substantial relief funding from the federal government, LCC’s reserves have never been stronger at any time in the past five years. 

Surprisingly, the College proposal still does not match the initial proposal made to our hard working colleagues represented by LCCEF, let alone the final agreement. 

For more information on faculty sacrifices, see the emails sent today by Action Team Co-Chairs, Peggy Oberstaller and Wendy Simmons.

Stay tuned for more opportunities to show solidarity and support for a fair contract for faculty.

The parties will meet again next Thursday. 

Your LCCEA Bargaining Team

Kelly Collins

Joseph Colton

Adrienne Mitchell

Nancy Wood