On Friday, May 23, your FFAP bargaining team had our first meeting with management to discuss wages and benefits for 2025-2027. Thanks to all who showed up in-person and via Zoom to support the bargaining team! The admin team gave a presentation on the 2025-27 budget and we learned some new things:
- PCC’s Fiscal Sustainability Action Plan for 2025-27 includes cost savings resulting from a 1.58% across-the-board reduction in management salaries. We learned that Dr. Bennings is not subject to the reduction. Last week, the Board of Directors approved a new contract for Dr. Bennings, including a 2.5% salary increase.
- The 1.58% salary reduction will take effect July 1 and is “not necessarily” permanent. It is also accompanied by unpaid personal leave time.
- The revenue picture is looking better than the Fiscal Sustainability Action Plan predicted.
- There has been a sudden increase in costs to replace Banner, the student information system—from $4 million to $11.75 million. It’s unclear why the costs suddenly skyrocketed, but it’s worth noting a familiar pattern. Line items for technology upgrades always tend to skyrocket right before bargaining, especially when revenue pictures improve.
We presented information from the member survey, showing that employee morale and trust in PCC leadership remains historically low. We also pointed to the 29% increase in management positions between 2018-2025 and the admin team seemed genuinely surprised by this, despite the fact that this data came directly from them via an information request! You can see our presentation here.
We introduced a proposal on ground rules. The admin team seemed comfortable allowing in-person and remote observers. They did not want meetings recorded, citing laws around record retention. Recording meetings is important for members who can’t observe meetings in real-time, and we will continue to insist on it.
Admin is attempting to unilaterally take Fridays off the table as a bargaining day. Traditionally, the teams have bargained on Fridays to accommodate faculty teaching schedules, and we all arranged our schedules with the expectation that this would continue. We agreed to bargain on different days during the summer as our schedules are more flexible, but we will revisit this in the fall if negotiations are continuing.
The next bargaining session will be Tuesday, June 17 from 10am -12pm. We’ll share details in the coming weeks.