Negotiations Updates Schedule
Our negotiations meetings are regularly scheduled for the 2nd and 4th Fridays of each month. Moving forward, we will do our best to publish our updates on the union’s website (sbccdta.org) by the Monday evening following each session. Verbal updates will also continue to be reported at Academic Senate meetings and monthly union luncheons.
Honors Courses
At our negotiations meeting with the District on 8/23/2019, SBCCDTA was made aware that a scheduling error had impacted the class caps for Honors faculty at CHC. It turns out that Honors faculty at CHC have been getting a stipend of $104 for each honors student for several years, dating back to a grant that the college was awarded. SBVC Honors faculty, however, are not compensated for the extra work associated with honors.
An MOU was signed (9/4/2019) to compensate all impacted faculty at CHC for the additional load for honors. Importantly, we also agreed to look at the extra workload connected with teaching Honors students, and come back to the table to negotiate equitable compensation for honors faculty at both campuses. We are currently reaching out to Fall 2019 Honors faculty and Honors Leads at both campuses, to discuss the additional workload. We are also working on a survey to go out to all faculty, in order to capture feedback from those who may not be currently teaching an honors section.
Article 2 – Unit Description/Recognition
This article describes which employees are included in our union. The District opened this article for negotiations. We are waiting for them to pass the first proposal.
Article 11 – Health & Welfare Benefits
The District reported that 71 part-time faculty have enrolled in the plan for dental benefits, which was negotiated for this academic year. There was a cap of 115 maximum enrollees for this year. Eligible part-time faculty will still have an opportunity to enroll in the Spring for any remaining spots.
Negotiations on health and welfare benefits for full-time and part-time faculty are expected to commence in the Spring, once the District receives plan and cost information from the insurance carriers and/or the District Benefits Committee.
Article 13 – Class Caps
The District opened this article for negotiations. We are waiting for them to pass the first proposal.
Article 16 – Evaluation Procedure
The District opened this article last year for negotiations and passed their initial proposal in April 2019. At the beginning of this semester, we consulted with the Academic Senates at both SBVC and CHC (per Education Code) on the District’s proposal. In addition, we have solicited faculty feedback following our receipt of this proposal. Based on the collective input, the negotiations team is currently finalizing our counter-proposal. We expect to present it to the Executive Board, and then pass it to the District during November.
Learning Communities
This workload topic was carried over from last year. SBCCDTA and the District have agreed on the definition of a learning community (9/4/2019) in a workgroup discussion:
Learning Communities require collaboration and integration between instructors on content and assignments when the same students are enrolled in the same two classes.
Both SBCCDTA and the District have been conducting research, by reaching out to faculty and managers, respectively, involved with the programs at SBVC that may meet this definition of a Learning Community. CHC currently has no active learning communities, but all faculty are welcome to provide input. This research is expected to be completed soon, after which SBCCDTA will work on an initial proposal to pass to the District.
Lecture/Lab Parity
This workload topic was carried over from last year. The committee has finished their tasks and a report is expected in advance of the December 2019 deadline. Once the District and SBCCDTA negotiations teams receive this, SBCCDTA will prepare an initial proposal to pass to the District.
Seniority
An MOU on seniority was signed (October 11, 2019), regarding seniority and seniority lists for part-time (adjunct), full-time temporary, contract (tenure-track) and regular (tenured) faculty. SBCCDTA Proposal #1, SBCCD Counterproposal #1, and the signed MOU are linked. Currently, there the only language is in Article 13 regarding the seniority process for adjunct faculty. For contract and regular faculty, there is a long-standing practice for the seniority list but no existing contract language; language describing this practice is included in this MOU. Full-time temporary faculty do not have their own seniority list, and to resolve this, language is included so that they retain their hire date on the adjunct list. If full-time temporary faculty transition to a tenure-track position, then their seniority will be determined based on their first year of becoming a probationary faculty.
The other language clarified was the past practice for assigning overload (Article 13, D), in which full-time faculty are offered classes/hours first based on seniority, before offering classes/hours to adjunct faculty.
Reassigned Time
There was a discussion at the table regarding the processes outlined in Article 13 (section B, 3, d) for faculty who hold roles with reassigned time:
A review of the amount of allocated reassigned time shall require faculty on reassigned time to semi-annually complete a report indicating status of project or activity and average number of hours per week required to complete this work. The reassigned time report will be submitted to the immediate supervisor. By mutual agreement, reassigned time shall be negotiated by the Association and the District as necessary by December 1 and May 1 of each semester.
This language was added to the contract on July 1, 2018, in order to ensure that reassigned time matches the workload for those assignments (including the workload of Faculty Chairs).
We would like to remind faculty that these reports are due Dec 1 and May 1. The District and Association agreed in our discussion that imposing the Dec 1 deadline on faculty at this time may be an undue burden. However, the negotiations team would like to encourage faculty with reassigned time to try to submit this information to us by Dec 1, especially if they have determined that the reassigned time allocated to their project/role/position is insufficient.
Preparation for Online Instructors
The negotiations team has been made aware of the Title V requirement for online instructors to be prepared; what that preparation entails is a local campus decision. There is a lot of miscommunication on this particular item and we are researching it as quickly as possible in order to resolve the issues.
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