Oakton Community College<br>Full-Time Faculty Association (OCCFA)

Oakton Community College
Full-Time Faculty Association (OCCFA)

Home / Negotiations 2008

4/3/08

We met yesterday from 4-7 p.m. to delineate the issues from both sides and to make sure that everyone understood the protocols.

The main "sticking" point was defining what consensus means and, more specifically, when we do a thumbs-up or down to decide whether we have consensus, who would be able to "vote." We wanted to make sure that all faculty negotiators (and not just the core group of officers) were involved in the consensus process. What we decided to do is to let everyone in the room do the thumbs-up, thumbs-down "vote." If anyone "votes" with a thumbs-down, we will listen to the concern and try to satisfy it. And, of course, we can always caucus to make sure we are in agreement as a team or that we can all "live with" the result.

Listed below are the negotiations issues. You will notice that each side had 7 issues (I found this interesting--Camille did tell me that Phil had asked her how many issues we had prior to the session), although our issues have many sub-issues. You will also notice that the administration worded their issues as questions. Although we have done this in the past, we decided to just list the issues. By the way, the faculty team did an incredible job of presenting our issues. Kudos to all!

There is some overlap in our/college issues, so we have assigned Gwen Nyden and Richard Stacewicz and Joianne Smith and Arnie Oudenhoven the task of consolidating issues and coming up with a list that reflects everyone's issues.

When we actually talk about the issues at a negotiations session, we will tell stories about those issues (if you have stories to illustrate one or more of the issues, please send them to me), talk about our interests (why the issue is important to us), and then talk about options. We are creating a list of possible options that will be raised when we brainstorm options. If you have any ideas for creative options, we'd like to know those as well.

OCCFA Issues

1. Shared governance

Incorporation of results of shared governance MOU into the contract

Implementation and continued development of successful structures for shared governance

The roles of faculty and representative faculty groups in institutional decision making

2. Compensation—Salary and Benefits

Salary schedule and COLA

Initial lane and step placement and subsequent movement including F-Lane, top-out and faculty hired to teach in both career and transfer areas

Other forms of compensation (WSAT, summer, substitute, overload, committee chairs, club advisors)

Benefits package (including wellness and disability)

3. Retirement

Incentives/senior service

Benefits (Health Insurance, Emeritus, Tuition reimbursement, OCC employment after retirement)

4. Functioning of programs and departments

Definitions of department, program, coordinator, chair

Institutional support for departments, programs, coordinators, chairs

Dual assignment and dual title

Marketing to increase course enrollments

Incorporating chair MOU from previous contract

Chairperson selection and role/responsibilities of chairs/coordinators

Workload and vacation time for chairs/coordinators

Assignment/selection of courses and teaching load

Role of COCAC

Impact on departments and the college when faculty positions are “lost”

Department “restructuring” and “umbrella” departments

5. Equitable faculty workloads and working conditions

Service to the institution (committees and other opportunities for service)

Overload (maximums, pro-rata courses)

Dual title, dual appointment

Seniority

Annual academic calendar, various interims and courses that meet outside of the 16 week or 7 week summer term, non-16 week courses

Online courses, hybrids

Office hours (in order to serve 4 campuses)

Tandems and learning communities

Transparent processes for assigning load to meet student and faculty needs at all 4 campuses

BNAT and NUR workloads

Faculty who are required to maintain licenses/certifications

Faculty and student safety on campus

Impact of and use of technology

Promotions in rank

6. Professional development

Assisting, motivating and rewarding faculty for developing professionally and/or personally

Developing faculty leadership

7. Clear, accurate, and complete contract language

Provide a link between Board policies and the contract with regard to faculty evaluation and tenure

Consistency among practice, policies, procedures, contract language, and the faculty constitution

College Issues

How can we work together to reaffirm an atmosphere of respect and productive collaboration between and among faculty and administrators in order to better serve students?

How can we work together to provide for shared accountability in the implementation of contractual areas of faculty responsibility (curriculum development, assessment, institutional service, professional development and performance levels that reflect lane advancement)?

How can we ensure that the academic calendar supports our commitment to successful student learning by providing adequate time for culminating course activities?

Employee Benefits: (a) How can we work together to provide competitive employee benefits? How do we offer a comprehensive health benefits package that is sustainable at a reasonable cost to the college and the employees? (b) Explore methods to encourage faculty to pursue professional growth.

How can we work together to clarify eligibility and criteria and necessary qualifications for faculty member retraining and develop alternative options to retraining based upon student needs, fiscal responsibility, and program needs.

Dual appointment: Engage the talents of multi-disciplinary faculty to serve students, departments, and programs while ensuring that faculty are equitably accountable for contractual areas of responsibility: curriculum development, assessment, institutional service, and professional development.

How can we work together to have a fair and equitable compensation schedule that permits us to attract and retain faculty while recognizing current financial realities?

We set up dates and times for the next 2 negotiating sessions. They are April 16 (12-3 p.m.) and April 18 (1-4 p.m.). On the April 16th session, we will discuss the administration's issue #2 as well as how we will handle issues already resolved if we should, at the end of the process, end up in mediation. Of course, nobody expects that will happen, but our facilitator suggested that it was easier to discuss what happens in mediation before we discuss any of the issues, than later.

Please thank and encourage the faculty negotiators when you see them. They are working really hard on your behalf. And, always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me or anyone else on the negotiating team.

Laura

3/27/08

The protocols shown below will govern the negotiations.

Don't forget about the faculty meeting on Monday at 2:00 p.m. in Room 2524. I hope to see as many faculty as possible there!

Laura

Negotiations Protocols

1. Meetings shall be conducted at dates and times mutually agreed upon. Both parties shall endeavor in good faith to meet on such agreed upon dates, but it is recognized that from time to time it may be necessary to postpone a meeting.

2. The parties agree that the process of discussing issues should be conducted only at the meetings between the representatives of the parties. The following constituent communications are allowed:

Reports to the Faculty Senate and all OCCFA members

Reports to the Board of Trustees

Reports to the President’s Council and Council of Deans

Both bargaining teams agree to maintain a "gag rule" or prohibition against public disclosures regarding either party’s negotiations proposals during the period of negotiations until the parties call for mediation or mediation is imposed. Specifically, both parties agree not to make public statements, hold press conferences or issue news releases about the status of negotiations, the matters being negotiated, or the rationale for each party’s proposals. Any public statements regarding negotiations will be joint press releases prepared and agreed to by both bargaining teams until the parties call for mediation or mediation is imposed. This does not prohibit either party from keeping their respective memberships informed about the status of negotiations, or from consulting appropriate resource persons regarding negotiation issues. Neither the administration nor any faculty member will discuss specific table negotiations issues directly with the other party’s constituency (OCCFA members and OCC Board of Trustees) during the negotiation process.

3. Reasonable requests for information that arise during the discussion process will be met on a timely basis.

4. Both teams will follow IBB ground rules, including, but not limited to:

Begin with check-in

Treat meetings as a safe zone

Maintain confidentiality–no attribution

Ignore rank in the room

Participate actively, don’t dominate

Help the group stay on track

Have only one speaker at a time, do not interrupt

Be an active/objective listener

Share individual expertise and experience

Remain open minded

Agree to disagree only if it makes sense to do so

Meet one another with a fresh perspective

Maintain a "view of the whole"

Make decisions by consensus

Ask invited guests to be governed by these ground rules

5. Tentative agreements may be reached on straw designs. When those tentative agreements have been word-processed in contract compatible format using strike-outs and underlining as appropriate, they will be reviewed and approved by the bargaining teams. Unless both sides agree, TAs will not change. The entire agreement is subject to review and approval of the OCCFA membership and the College’s Board of Trustees.

6. If both teams concur that a tentative agreement is reached, members of the teams commit to a good-faith support and advocacy of the agreement.

7. Ground Rules may be modified at any time as long as both parties have mutually agreed to the change.

8. Only parties that participate in IBB training scheduled for the negotiators may attend bargaining sessions, except for mutually agreed resource persons. Emergency exceptions may be agreed upon by both parties.

9. Each participating body will name its own members and professional representatives and exchange those names prior to the training session. Those designated shall not be subject to the approval of the other body. Each team will have a core group of 5-6 persons at each negotiating meeting. This core group will consist of the same members at each session. In addition to the core group, both teams will have team members assigned to work on salary/benefits in attendance when those issues are discussed and team members assigned to work on working conditions in attendance when those issues are discussed.

10. At the first meeting after training, all participants will meet to define and delineate issues for consideration in developing the contract. The lists of issues shall be broadly stated as interests rather than positions. All participants shall feel free to "flesh out" the issues to ensure that each side’s interest and concerns are clearly understood. A mutually-agreed upon reasonable number of issues to be negotiated will be determined at this meeting. No new issues may be added later unless both parties agree.

11. A mutually agreed upon facilitator will moderate each negotiation session and monitor the negotiation process to ensure that the negotiation terms adhere to the IBB process. The moderator should facilitate discussion and closure. Each side may call for caucuses during working sessions.

12. Computerized note taking and other appropriate use of technology will be allowed, except for the use of audio taping devices.

13. Note taking shall be the responsibility of each party.

14. The parties shall schedule a "debriefing" session within 4 months after the process has been concluded to evaluate this negotiation format and protocols.

3/21/08

Rick Lathrop (our trainer/facilitator) did a great job with training this morning. Unfortunately, our discussion of negotiations dates following the training was not very interest-based. Our team has requested a meeting of the full-time faculty on March 28 (open Monday) at 2:00 p.m. We will share more information with you at that time.

In the meantime, I can share that we are having great difficulties in scheduling negotiating sessions. The only two dates that we have been able to schedule so far are April 2 to discuss issues and set our agenda and April 18 as the first actual negotiating session. Our facilitator is not available April 5-8, April 20-May 13, and May 20-25. Peg has indicated that administrators are not going to negotiate evenings or weekends (although we hope that they are willing to be more flexible as we move forward), and we, of course, are concerned about not getting subs or cancelling classes and inconveniencing students. We are also concerned about faculty availability during the summer since some of the negotiators do not work during the summer.

Have a great weekend, be careful shoveling snow, and if you celebrate Easter, then I hope it is a happy one.

Laura

3/4/08

The administration has announced their negotiations team. There will be 5 administrators "at the table" all the time--Arnie Oudenhoven, Joianne Smith, Linda Korbel, Bob Sompolski, and Brad Wooten. Other negotiatiors are the remaining members of the President's Council (Barb Rizzo, Bonnie Lucas, George Chirempes, Tom Hamel, Trudy Bers, and Carlee Drummer), and Phil Gerner, the College's attorney.

Rick Lathrop from the IEA (retired) will be our trainer/facilitator. Camille thinks highly of him, and Phil and Peg have approved this choice. Before agreeing to Rick, we wanted to be sure that we wouldn't be charged for his services--we already pay enough dues--however, IEA agreed to pay our share of the cost of having a facilitator at each session. The administration will also be charged for half of the cost.

Things are moving along slowly. We requested that the training date be 3/21. Our entire team is available, but we don't know yet when the trainer is available and whether or not administrators can attend. Laura had a conversation with Tom Hamel this morning, and we are hopeful that the 21st will work. We've never started negotiations so late in the semester, and finding a training date has been and continues to be a challenge.

Paul made a great presentation to our team last Friday on negotiating salary focusing on how it has worked in the past and what we might expect this time around. John Stryker brought goodies for the meeting, and it was a great treat when Greg Baldauf brought us kisses (the chocolate variety) in the middle of the meeting. Use your imagination about a Friday afternoon meeting with lots of sugar and chocolate!

I just signed off on the negotiations protocols. Peg signed last week.

Laura

2/26/08

Here is a timetable of negotiations thus far. As you can see, we are still negotiating the protocols (rules for negotiations) and have not yet begun the negotiations about salary, benefits, and working conditions. We are ready to begin negotiations as soon as training occurs. However, we are stalled at the present time with trying to find a trainer/facilitator that the administration has insisted we have for the process this time, and a date that everyone can attend since the administration has been inflexible about excusing previously-trained faculty from the training or allowing us to handle their training. Needless to say, the team is frustrated with the delay and hope to get going soon. I'd be happy to answer any of your questions if you want to call or stop by the office.

Laura

Timetable of negotiations:

7/12/07	Laura and Paul met with Peg, Arnie, and Joi to discuss problems with the last negotiations process. All agreed that we wanted/needed to do things differently this time
11/13/07	Final negotiating team announced to faculty: Laura Saret, Paul Boisvert, John D'Anca, Jill Dybus, Tom Firak, John Stryker, Ron Thomas, Michelle James, Majid Ghadiri, Tom Bowen, Gwen Nyden, Michele Reznick, Ginny Rogers, Richard Stacewicz, and Linda Zimmerman
11/29/07	Laura, Paul, and Camille Grant (our IEA uniserv director, i.e., advisor) met with Peg, Arnie, Jody Wadhwa (Board of Trustees), Joan DiLeonardi (Board of Trustees), and Phil Gerner (the Board's attorney). Peg distributed a draft of negotiating protocols that she, the Board, and Phil had put together. Peg indicated at this meeting that all of the problems we had during the last negotiations were due to the faculty. We talked about our commitment to work together using an interest-based process, however, Peg said that if we couldn't agree on protocols that we could always go to a traditional bargaining format. Peg proposed that each team (faculty and administration) have only 5-6 people at the table. We refused to do this because not only had we created a larger team, but we felt strongly that each of our team members bring qualities, knowledge, and experience that would help during the negotiations process. Peg also wanted Phil and Camille at the table as well as a facilitator at each of the sessions and did not want to include any of our negotiators who had not been at training. Although we were happy to have Phil and Camille at the table (this had been past practice), we didn't feel a facilitator was also necessary. In fact, we said that if a facilitator was used, it had to be someone who would not cost the faculty anything since we are already paying dues to the IEA and are not charged for negotiations services they provide. The final item that Peg wanted in the protocols was for us to limit the number of issues that would be negotiated. Of course, we didn't agree to that.
12/7/07	We discussed protocols at the Senate meeting.
12/10/07	Laura e-mailed Peg and told her about the Senate discussion and indicated the changes we wanted on the protocols. In particular, we wanted more details in the protocols, our entire team to be at the table as appropriate, people who missed training for a valid reason to be able to negotiate, a facilitator that we did not have to pay for, and no limit to the issues that we would negotiate (Note: It's illegal for the administration to tell us who can be at the table and how many issues we can have).
1/3/07	Revised protocols sent to Peg.
Start of spring semester	OCCFA negotiating team ready to begin the negotiation process
Much of January and February	Peg was ill, hospitalized twice, and recuperated at home. During that time she was not available to work, and nobody else was assigned to work with us until the first week of February when Tom Hamel and Arnie were asked to work with us to finish the protocols.
2/1/08	Meeting with Tom Hamel, Joianne (Arnie wasn't available), Paul, Camille, and Laura scheduled to work on protocols--meeting canceled because of snow.
2/8/08	Meeting of 2/1/07 rescheduled. We agreed on protocols that would enable faculty negotiators to miss training in case of emergency, we agreed to a reasonable number of issues (whatever that means), and reiterated our interest that faculty not pay for a facilitator. Joi and Tom said that protocols had to be approved by Peg.
2/14/08	Laura requested a training date of 2/25 and allowing John D'Anca (who had negotiated and been trained in the past) to miss the training due to another commitment. Peg never responded to this request and Phil and Camille couldn't find a trainer that could also facilitate negotiation sessions, that the administration approved of, and that wouldn't cost us anything.
2/24/08	Laura sent the following as an e-mail to Peg from the entire negotiating team (we "team" wrote this at our 2/22 regular team meeting): The negotiations team met this afternoon, spending most of the time in a sincere effort to move negotiations forward. Our team has been ready to begin negotiations since the start of spring semester and is very frustrated by the delay. While we understand the unfortunate reasons for the delay, it was unfortunate that another administrator could not have stepped in and taken the reins while you recuperated. We hope you agree to complete training before spring break. IEA has identified a trainer for us, who is available immediately, and has communicated this to Phil. Julie Resh is also available to facilitate, at no cost. As far as the facilitators are concerned, the faculty negotiating team is unwilling to put the burden on faculty for payment and are willing to negotiate without a facilitator. The majority of the faculty team is available on any of the following dates: Thursday, February 28, 6:00 p.m.; Friday, Feb. 29, 5:00 pm; Saturday, March 1, 8:30 a.m. for training. Because of disruption of classes due to inclement weather, we do not want to further disrupt student instruction which canceling classes or having subs would cause. We would still expect to include members who cannot make the training session in negotiations. We will take responsibility for individual training for OCCFA team members who cannot be in attendance. We’ve spent a great deal of time organizing our schedules so that the entire team (core group as well as working conditions and salary/benefits) is available on Friday afternoons to negotiate, as has been past practice. If the difficulty in scheduling negotiations training and meetings is due only to Phil’s inability to meet on Friday afternoons, then we reiterate our earlier suggestion to use one of his partners. We are also available to meet most evenings and weekends if that is necessary.
This week	Peg said in an e-mail that the protocols were ready to sign, however Laura won't sign them on behalf of the faculty until interpretation of some of the protocol items that are discussed above are agreed upon. In the meantime, Camille has identified two other trainer/facilitators who are now retired from the IEA. She suggested then to Phil and he agreed. We are now waiting to hear whether the IEA will pay our share of the facilitator who are no longer IEA staff members. Camille shared that in her conversation with Phil, Peg indicated that the administrators do not want to negotiate evenings, Fridays, or weekends.