We are stuck on Article 6, particularly around issues of scheduling and modality. The PCC Administration has made it clear they are interested in gaining more control over our daily work lives and treating us as if we are hourly employees.
Watch Michelle DuBarry break down Article 6 on TikTok here.
As Michelle points out, although APs have been leading this conversation, it is an issue that should be of major concern to Full Time Faculty, including Librarians, and Counselors. The PCC administration is signaling major changes in the coming months and years, ranging from *another* college-wide reorganization to a brand new compensation and classification system. We need our contract to protect our working conditions in the face of these changes.
FT faculty: did you know that our contract says that you need written approval, in the form of a telecommuting agreement, to work off campus more than 5 hours a week? We’ve proposed removing this language, but the administration has so far refused. In fact they have doubled down.
Our understanding is that this provision is not really enforced – faculty enjoy a large amount of flexibility. They can email colleagues, grade, or meet with students outside of normal working hours. They can do these things at home or in a coffee shop. But management seems to want to change that.
Are you prepared to sign a telecommuting agreement that dictates the time and place of your non-instructional work?
Telecommuting agreements undermine our power as union members and our autonomy as professional employees. Consider:
- They put us in a position of having to negotiate our working conditions on an individual basis with our supervisors (as opposed to bargaining as a union like we are doing now).
- They can be revoked by the manager at any time, for any reason.
- Even though telecommuting agreements are supposed to be developed in cooperation with our managers, nearly two-thirds (65%) of members who have them report they did not have meaningful input into the terms of the agreement.
- Telecommuting agreements must be renewed on an annual basis. If our supervisor changes, or we get a new College President, our work lives could be upended by new directives.
- Some PCC managers have told members that refusal to sign a telecommuting agreement will be interpreted as a de-facto agreement to work in-person 100% of the time.
We believe this is one of the most important fights of this contract, and we need our members to show up and shore up our right to the working conditions that allow us to do our jobs.
Toward the end of the meeting last Friday, the Administration presented us with some of their costing estimates of our economic proposal, but did not provide any counteroffers.