The June 23 bargaining session was one of the last days to present non-monetary proposals, so you can imagine it was a full one and the teams bargained all day. There was a great showing of solidarity from observers who attended both in person and online.
We provided a number of initial proposals to the administrative bargaining team and, no surprise, we did not receive any substantive counter-offers from administration, although they did finally share their own proposals. Long day, long update – read on!
FFAP Proposed:
Shared Governance: Members of our shared governance workgroup presented many suggestions for improving shared decision-making at PCC. They highlighted low morale and lack of trust, and emphasized that stronger shared governance would not only improve decision-making by including the knowledge and skills of people on the front lines of PCC’s mission, but could also take the pressure off negotiations by having much of the work done throughout the year in committees. The Proposal included 25% faculty and AP representation on all major decision-making bodies, more authority for SACs, and a similar set up (like SACs) for counselors and APs to have a voice in their own caseloads and work life.
Of note, although administration blamed low enrollment and Covid for all the problems we currently face, they also acknowledged that how we work together to “right the ship” is something they are interested in exploring.
Course bumping: FFAP proposed eliminating the administration’s right to “bump” a PT faculty from a course assignment in order to fulfill workload requirements for FT faculty.
Right of first consideration: Give long time PT faculty preference or recognition in the hiring process for FT positions. Institutional experience and loyalty to the college should play a role in FT position hiring.
Compensating faculty (PT and FT) for working on screening committees: This work often falls outside of proscribed work hours/days. Addresses workload creep.
Tuition Waivers: Align FT and PT tuition waiver benefit.
Counseling Faculty presented several proposals.
SACs for Counselors: Counselors need dedicated time to collaborate, reflect and do quality improvement, goal setting etc. This proposal would give counselors collective control over curriculum, workshops, and caseload size.
10 hours of non-contact work allocated per week: Counselors are providing more mental health counseling now which requires more documentation and more time.
Other proposals: Counselors would like autonomy in setting their schedules in terms of direct client care and meeting times.
Administration proposals:
Language updates: Administration had some recommendations that primarily revolved around cleaning up or tightening up language in the contract. They also proposed language to ensure currently active MOUs and MOAs are incorporated into the contract and to sunset any that are expired or irrelevant.
FT Faculty Assignments: updated what FT faculty will be assigned to match post-covid reality.
Adjust Parking rates: Administration would like the flexibility to be able to raise parking rates (though rates would still be no higher than student parking rates).
Management Rights: Makes explicit that schedule, workload, modality, etc. are determined by management, with the input of faculty and APs.
Grievance procedure: Article 25, definitions and process updates. Updating representation in a class grievance. Updating requirements for what is in an initial grievance and how long (# of pages) they can be. Updating timeframes. (Lots of problems in this proposal—we have already heard many concerns from members and will say more about it in a future email.)
Campus assignments: Stipulate that management may assign an employee to a work location with 20 business days notice.
Defining College Service: Article 5, broaden the definition, clean up language, align with current practice for APs.
Instructor workload: Codifies that 20% of FT faculty workload should be college service, without defining what constitutes college service or whether/how it is measured.
Online teaching training: Administration brought in guest speakers from on-line learning to update the team on these changes. The proposal would require refresher training every three years to continue to be assigned online classes. They said that selection of courses and programs for online delivery is responsibility of academic administration of college. Online Learning guests highlighted that they believe this is just codifying the current process. (This proposal, and the discussion about it, raised a lot of concerns about academic freedom from faculty observers. We will have more to say on this in a future email.)
AP schedules: Article 6.5, Proposal to assert that management determines schedule and modality for APs.
AP release time for Prof. Dev: Administration agreed to add prorated release time for PT Academic professionals
Administration did say they would provide counters to our proposals.
The next bargaining session will be July 7 and it will be an all day session 9am-4pm. More information on how to observe will be coming soon!