BUC 9 Report: June 2018 Meeting

Bargaining Unit Council 9 met yesterday in San Jose, as part of this weekend's CSUEU Board of Directors meeting. Here's the report from Unit 9 Chair Rich McGee:

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Bargaining Unit Council 9
June 29th, 2018      San Jose

Activists attending this Unit 9 Council meeting have a collective 451 years of experience working for the CSU.

In-Range Progression (IRP) Campaign

Andy Heller, staff assigned, discussed the statewide IRP drive which has resulted in 4 unfair labor practice charges (ULP’s) and 50 grievances, owing to a systematic denial of IRP requests statewide, using identical language. In a bright spot, several hundred employees at Chico received IRP’s. Bakersfield granted a 27% IRP to one individual.

Staffing Changes

CSUEU’s chief administrator is out on medical leave until August. Joseph Jelencic (Senior Labor Relations Representative) now works for the Chancellor’s Office. Magali Kincaid (Labor Relations Representative) has resigned. Nancy Yamada (attorney) has retired.

Janus Case

We heard an overview of this Supreme Court case from Andy Heller.

The upshot is that government employees cannot be required to pay fair share fees to the unions which represent them. Unions must still represent employees in the bargaining unit.

We have a renew and recommit campaign now underway.

Exempt to Hourly Conversion

CSU has stated they intend to convert any IT person earning less than $93,000 to an hourly employee. This could have a huge cost impact on the CSU, as all these newly-minted hourly workers would now be eligible for overtime (3 hours minimum) or CTO when called back to work.

General Exempt Issues

As a reminder, exempt employees who are called for work during sick or vacation days get the day back. Exempt employees cannot be charged a partial day for sick or vacation time.

Under our new contract, you get back an hour of informal time for every hour you work after you have left work for the day.

There are still no fixed hours for exempt employees.

Campus Closures

If your campus is closing for a long Independence Day weekend, you have a right to work your regular non-holiday days. If the campus is closed, you may end up in a different location, but you cannot be denied the right to work at all, since that would be a lockout.

Electronic Voting

Neil Jacklin addressed the group about E-Ballot electronic voting.

Unit 9 had the highest turnout for the contract ratification voting. It cost $4995 to run the ratification election.

Meet and Confer Updates

Some campuses continue to try to impose absurd restrictions on the union’s on-campus speech rights. We know our rights as a Union, but some campuses want to restrict them even further.

Video surveillance policies are still under discussion. In general, such surveillance should only be used for criminal investigations, meaning only police should have access to video recordings and video surveillance should not be used for discipline. Managers should be able to manage without spying remotely on employees. Cameras also require signs warning anyone in the area that they are on camera.

Steward Recertification

Stewards can now re-certify for the new contract online, until December. Sixty-seven have passed the recertification exam so far.

San Francisco, Bakersfield, and Long Beach have recently hosted steward training, and San Diego is planning to host steward training toward the end of July.

Elections

Statewide officers (that would be the four executive officers, plus the new Bargaining Unit Councils for 2, 5, 7, and 9) elections are this weekend. Rich reviewed the weekend’s activities and went over how the elections work.

BUC 9 Report for March 2017

Bargaining Unit Council 9 (BUC 9) met Friday, March 17, at the CSUEU Board of Directors meeting in Long Beach. Here is the Chair's report, presented to and passed by the Board today.

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Unit 9 BUC Report
March 17th, 2017

Attendees:
Rich McGee, Ricardo Uc, Gus Leonard, Saul Sanchez, Matthew Key, Gloria Allan, Kenny Jones, Joseph Jelincic (Staff Assigned)

Brief Public Employee Pension Reform Act (PEPRA) Overview

AB-340, the PEPRA bill, was signed into law in 2013. "Classic" employees, those hired prior to 2013, are currently paying 5% towards their retirement costs. Those hired since 2013 are paying 6.75%.

Beginning January 1, 2019, this changes to an 8% maximum cap for all state employees, but the amount we must pay is subject to bargaining.

Duties of Unit 9 Council Members

Ricardo Uc, Unit 9 Vice-Chair, briefed BUC members on the need to be ready to step in for both bargaining and meet & confer sessions should either the chair or vice-chair be unavailable to attend.

Video Surveillance Policy Update

Many campuses have different policies regarding video surveillance, with little to no oversight. The Union is not opposed to the use of security cameras, provided they are used only for security purposes. These cameras should not be used as a way to time monitor or discipline employees considered to be troublesome, including the use of cameras as a time clock. Some campuses, like Chico, have logical, common-sense video surveillance policies, while others do not.

Last week, the Chancellor's Office provided CSUEU with notice of a new system-wide video surveillance policy, which we will conduct a meet & confer over.

UCSF IT Layoffs

Because we're getting calls from members worried about this happening to us:
The UC contract for the laid-off IT employees had no language protecting them from displacement or layoffs. Our contract does.

Background:
The layoffs, announced last November at UC San Francisco, represented 20% of their campus IT staff, including 49 full-time staff members, 30 contractors, and 18 unfilled positions, located in four medical clinics. The campus claimed this was a $50 million dollar contract, with expectations of $30 million in savings over five years. The employees on the layoff list were required to train their replacements, located in India, via video conferencing. The vendor, HCL Technologies, plans to use H1-B visas to perform the work on-site.

A lawsuit has recently been filed by ten of these laid off workers, alleging discrimination based upon claims of national origin, gender, race, and age. 48 of the 49 laid off individuals were more than 40 years old, which puts them in a protected class. The employees to be hired from India were all young males.

Students Performing Unit 9 Work

Work tasks which should be performed by Unit 9 staff includes student assistants working without direct staff supervision (i.e. closing the library by themselves, wiring a smart classroom without a staff member being present, etc.). If you see something like this happening, please follow up on it. Students working around live electrical power and/or dangerous materials such as lead and asbestos may also be a health and safety risk.

Whistleblower Lawsuit

Gloria Allen from Sonoma reported on a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit by a former health and safety employee at Sonoma State. The court awarded just under $400,000 to the former employee, with an as-yet undetermined amount to be split among other affected employees.

New BUC 9 Member

With a vacancy on the Unit 9 BUC, Martin Brenner from CSU Long Beach has been added to the Unit 9 Council with the unanimous concurrence of the BUC. Welcome aboard, Martin!

Bargaining Update

Joseph Jelincic provided an in-depth overview of the contract proposals which both sides have presented to date.

Respectfully submitted,
Rich McGee, Unit 9 Chair

Sonoma Whistleblower Wins Lawsuit

Former Sonoma State University employee Thomas Sargent won a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit last week against the CSU and his former manager, Craig Dawson. Sargent, who worked as an Environmental Health & Safety Specialist, was awarded $387,895 in lost compensation and other damages.

Sargent reported campus mishandling of hazardous materials to state and local agencies. The university was cited and fined.

Sargent, a certified Asbestos Consultant, identified asbestos-containing dust in work spaces in Stevenson Hall in places where it would predictably be disturbed, as well as ongoing risks for the release of asbestos-containing material into the air. He was reprimanded after making a report to Cal/OSHA, and later suspended. High levels of asbestos were found in air shafts in the same building. (Stevenson is an older, 3-story building used for classrooms and offices.)

In an earlier incident, Sargent found lead-containing material on the roof the Physical Education building. Dawson disregarded Sargent's recommendation for its safe removal and instead had it scattered with a leaf-blower. After Sargent reported the incident to authorities, he received his first negative performance evaluation.

Sargent finally resigned under duress in July 2015, after serving the campus for 24 years. The Press-Democrat reports him saying he remains a supportive university alumnus and appreciates improvements made under the new campus president, Judy Sakaki, who assumed the post last July, succeeding Ruben Armiñana.

The lawsuit may help other employees as well. From the Press-Democrat:

But the complex case has much broader repercussions under a section of California Labor Code that allows aggrieved employees to recover civil damages on behalf of themselves, their co-workers and state occupational safety enforcement agencies.

A total of 231 staff and faculty assigned to Stevenson Hall, the building at the center of the case, stand to recover still-undetermined damages as a result of Sargent's case, at the discretion of Superior Court Judge Nancy Case Shaffer.

[…]

Sargent's lawyers said a preliminary calculation based on the verdict suggested as much as $2.5 million could be awarded, with 75 percent going to the state for work-place enforcement and training activities and the remainder being distributed among designated Stevenson Hall staffers.

The CSU, of course, disagrees with the verdict. Dawson continues as director of Environmental Health and Safety at Sonoma State.

Sonoma's CFA (California Faculty Association) chapter filed a grievance on behalf of faculty working in Stevenson, and hired a retired Cal/OHSA employee as a consultant.

The next hearing for the lawsuit is scheduled for May 26.

Note: This suit was originally filed in 2014 by VaLinda Kyrias, a former chief steward from Sonoma's CSUEU Chapter 304 who was admitted to the state bar in 2010.

Links:

• Sonoma State asbestos whistle-blower wins verdict in civil case (Press Democrat)
• Man suing Sonoma State University over asbestos speaks out (Press Democrat)
• Sonoma State asbestos whistle-blower wins verdict in civil case — similar to the Press-Democrat article but not identical (Petaluma Argus-Courier)
• Earlier coverage:
  • Whisteblower's suit against Sonoma State University over asbestos response goes to jury (Press Democrat)
  • Sonoma State University asbestos lawsuit trial begins (Press Democrat)
  • Sonoma State University asbestos lawsuit trial begins (Petaluma Argus-Courier)
  • Sonoma State University focus of asbestos-related lawsuit (Press Democrat)
  • Former employee involved in asbestos lawsuit holds press conference — May 2016 (Sonoma State Star)
  • University locked in lawsuit regarding potential health risk of asbestos — April 2016 (Sonoma State Star)
  • University plans renovation of Stevenson Hall amid asbestos controversy — April 2016 (Sonoma State Star)
  • Lawsuit Filed by Collier Law Firm Alleges that Sonoma State University Put Hundreds at Risk of Lead and Asbestos Exposure — April 2016 (PRWeb)
  • Former Employee at Odds with Sonoma State University over Cal/OSHA Concerns (California Labor Law News)
  • Asbestos Controversy At Sonoma State University (Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance)
• California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, a.k.a Cal/OSHA
  • Cal/OSHA Asbestos and Carcinogen Unit
• Asbestos Information:
  • Asbestos (American Lung Association)
  • Asbestos Exposure and Cancer Risk (National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health)
  • Asbestos Information from the EPA
    • Protect Your Family — Good overview of safe practices at home

Board of Trustees Meeting May 2016

The CSU Board of Trustees meets today and tomorrow in open sessions, estimated to begin at 10 a.m. today. You can watch the Trustees meetings online.

The meeting began yesterday in closed session for executive personnel matters, and today's closed sessions include more time for executive personnel matters, as well as litigation and collective bargaining.

Among the agenda items for the open sessions are:

• Ratification of the faculty contract
• Adoption of an initial bargaining proposal for Unit 11 (Academic Student Employees, represented by United Auto Workers)
  • A fairly vague summary can be found in Attachment A of the Committee on Collective Bargaining agenda, starting on page 6 of the PDF
• Increase the chancellor's authority to approve capital outlay projects, including:
  • Capital outlay budget and scope of projects with a value of $5 million or less
  • Schematic design of new buildings or additions with a value of $5 million or less
  • Schematic design of all remodel and utilitarian projects, regardless of cost, unless the design is architecturally significant or includes significant unavoidable environmental impacts
• Construction of a financial trading center in an existing building at Fullerton ($1,044,000)
• A deal for Channel Islands to sell 386 apartments and some retail space for $81,000,000, with a lease-back provision for some apartments
  • See Agenda Item 1 of the Committee on Finance agenda, beginning on page 6 of the PDF
• CSU 2016-2017 budget
  • See Agenda Item 3 of the Committee on Finance agenda, beginning on page 12 of the PDF

Unit 9 Council Chair Rich McGee, and Vice Chair Ricardo Uc, are both scheduled to address the Committee on Collective Bargaining today and the Plenary session tomorrow.

Links:

• Watch CSU Board of Trustees Meetings online
• CSU Board of Trustees Agendas
• CSU considers $200 million, 3-year faculty contract (Santa Cruz Sentinal)
• CSU to begin lobbying for more state money as Gov. Brown’s budget falls short (Long Beach Press Telegram)

Last Day to Register (or Update Your Registration) for California Presidential Primary

Today is the last day to register (or re-register) to vote in California's June 7 presidential primary. You can do this online.

Requirements for Voting in a Party Primary:

• To vote in the Democratic primary, you must be registered either as a Democrat or "no party preference" (NPP), formerly known as "decline-to-state".
• To vote in the Republican primary, you must be registered as a Republican.
• You can update your political party preference using the online voter registration form.

A Few More Things to Know:

• Some Californians registered for a political party with "Independant" in the name, when they meant to register as "no party preference". If that's you, you can change your party preference using the online voter registration form.
• Online voter registration is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese.
• Students can register using their home or school address.
• If you prefer a paper voter registration application, check your local library, county elections office, DMV, or post office. Paper applications must be postmarked today, or hand-delivered to your county elections office, in order to meet the deadline for voting in the June 7 primary.
• Three parties (the Democratic Party, the Libertarian Party, and the American Independent Party) allow NPP voters to vote in their California presidential primaries. NPP voters must specifically request a ballot for one of these parties; by default, they receive a non-partisan ballot without presidential candidates.

Links:

• Elections Information from the California Secretary of State
  • Register to Vote
  • Voter Registration Information
  • Voter Registration and Elections Frequently Asked Questions
  • Check your voter registration status
  • No Party Preference (NPP) information
• Unintended Party Registration:
  • Are you an independent voter? You aren't if you checked this box (Los Angeles Times)
  • Thousands have left California's American Independent Party in the last month (Los Angeles Times)

Bargaining Unit Council 9 (BUC 9) Report: March 2016 Meeting

Bargaining Unit Council 9 (BUC 9) met on Friday, March 11, in Long Beach, as part of the Board of Directors meeting. Here is the Chair's report:

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CSUEU Bargaining Unit Council (BUC) 9
March 2016 Meeting
Long Beach, California

Unit 9 Council Members in Attendance:

• Rich McGee (San Bernardino)
• Ricardo Uc (San Luis Obispo)
• Steve Sloan (San Jose)
• Matthew Kay (Sacramento)
• Ken Jones (Fresno)
• Gloria Allen (Sonoma)
• Saul Sanchez (San Diego)

Visitors:
Lori Williams, Susan Smith, Joseph Jelincic (staff)

New Classification Proposal

Lori Williams, from the Classification Committee, secured the BUC's approval to begin the process of proposing a new employee classification for Instructional Designers. Currently instructional designers are classified as Information Technology Consultants (ITC's).

Exempt Employees and Fixed Schedules

Exempt employees are increasingly being told by their managers that the manager can set "core hours" of 8 am to 5 pm. This is false, and such attempts should be challenged as contract violations under Article 18.7:

18.7     For exempt classifications, there are no fixed, minimum or maximum hours in a workday or workweek.

Data Access

An employee asked a question about staff participation in management data access requests. The manager instructed a Unit 9 Information Technology employee to download and review a deceased campus employee's work e-mail messages, in order to pull out specific messages related to university business. Such a task is within the scope of Unit 9 work, even if it may be uncomfortable, and is an appropriate work assignment.

Managers Performing Bargaining Unit Work

Managers may perform bargaining unit work in "de minimis" (insignificant) amounts, generally considered to be 6-8 minutes per week. Managers performing bargaining unit work continues to be a problem within Unit 9. When it happens, it should be challenged with a grievance citing Article 17.5:

17.5     Appropriate administrators may occasionally perform Bargaining Unit work on a minimal basis for reasons which include, but are not limited to: instructing employees, emergencies, developing new methods and procedures, and safety.

Managers can manage projects without infringing on bargaining unit work.

Contract Bargaining Preparation

Susan Smith, Vice President for Representation, reminded us all that full contract bargaining starts in only 9 months. She is asking each bargaining unit to develop at least 5 survey questions about bargaining goals, not including Article 20 (Salary). If you have ideas for bargaining survey questions, or contract sections which need clarification or improvement, please send your suggestions via e-mail to the Unit 9 chair at csueu.unit9@gmail.com.

A separate BUC meeting will be held later to discuss bargaining in depth.

Steward Training

Susan Smith has asked us to investigate options for putting part of the training for new stewards online. If implemented, the goal is to have such an approach tested and ready to use at the start of the next contract (2017), or approximately 18 months from now.

Three more steward trainings are being planned for the current contract. Locations and dates are not yet determined.

Information for New BUC Members

Since there are several new members on the Unit 9 Council, we reviewed the meet and confer process, as well as the different leave time types and associated campus and union procedures.

Gender Equity Study

Gloria Allen provided an update into the Unit 9 gender equity study, which is in the preliminary stages.

Classification and Qualification Standards (CQS) Readily Available Again

Many thanks to headquarters staff, who have placed a copy of the CQS documents in the "Library" folder on CSUEU's web site, www.csueu.org. The Chancellor's Office recently put CQS documents and tech letters, which had been publicly available, behind a login. It should be assumed that they are monitoring who views those documents.

Respectfully submitted,

Rich McGee
Chair, CSUEU Bargaining Unit 9

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Some Notes On This Report

• The CQS documents do not currently appear in the top level listing of the Library on the CSUEU web site. To find them, use the menu on the left side of the Library listing and select (click on) the "On the Job - Know Your Rights" section. Then select "CQS" and finally "BU 9". Ta-da! You have CQS documents.
• The document Library on the CSUEU web site can be reached from a link under the "Resources" section of the site's navigation menu at the top of every page. We mention this in case you mysteriously do not have this report and its embedded link in front of you when you're researching classificatons.
• In the format conversion of this report to the document submitted, some minor typos were introduced, which are corrected for readability here. No language was changed; only punctuation, minor formatting, a typo in the middle of a word, and some capitalization.

BUC 9 Report: November 15, 2014 Meeting

Unit 9 Chair Rich McGee delivers his report on yesterday evening's Bargaining Unit Council 9 (BUC 9) meeting to the CSUEU Board of Directors today. Here's a copy.

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Bargaining Unit Council (BUC) 9
November 15, 2014

BUC 9 met Saturday, November 15, 2014, in Redondo Beach during the CSUEU Board of Directors meeting.

The BUC 9 and approximately 21 guests were in attendance.
BUC 9 members:

• Rich McGee — Chair, BUC 9 (San Bernardino)
• Susan Smith — Vice Chair, BUC 9 (Fullerton)
• Ken Jones — BUC 9 at-large (Fresno)
• Matthew Kay — BUC 9 at-large (Sacramento)
• Gus Leonard — BUC 9 at-large (Monterey Bay)
• Ricardo Uc — BUC 9 at-large (San Luis Obispo)
• Christina Valero — BUC 9 at-large (San Francisco)
• Rocky Waters — BUC 9 at-large (Humboldt)

Agenda Items were:

1. CENIC and Infrastructure as a Service

All CSU campuses are connected to the Internet over a CalRen (California Research and Education Network) connection managed by CENIC (Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, www.cenic.org). CENIC now offers cloud-based data services called Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud services. No bid is necessary to use these services — campuses can order what they want. (Press release at: http://www.cenic.org/p=2020/)

2. Video Surveillance

Video surveillance is subject to the Meet and Confer process (see item 3 for Meet and Confer updates.) A warning about "rogue" cameras: staff are not allowed to video their own work areas without permission.

3. Meet and Confer Update

Video Surveillance is a hot topic button for meet/confers.

• Video should not be a time clock, or used to discipline employees.
• We are using the Northridge agreement as a model of a good approach: no discipline, only monitoring for evidence of criminal activity.
• At Northridge, only the Chief of Police can view camera video, and no private office cameras are permitted.
• No audio recording of conversations is allowed without clear notice posted. Notice is not required for video cameras.

An information request should include:

• All campus video cameras and their locations
• Example screenshots of the view of each camera
• The capabilities of that camera (i.e. fixed mount, or pan/tilt/zoom)
• Where the head end (feed point to control/view the video) is located
• Who has the rights to view live or recorded video
• How a manager requests permission to review video searching for a particular event

4. Outsourcing — Has CSUEU Been Notified?

Contracts for outsourcing of more than 180 days duration require notice to CSUEU headquarters (not individual chapters).

Campuses frequently have no idea what bargaining unit employees are capable of – they haven't tracked or updated our skills and/or training files, employee position descriptions are out of date, etc. Campuses then claim no one at the campuses can do that work and contract out work unnecessarily at excessive cost. Example: Quarter to semester conversions costs are at least $2 million per campus, as current staff "is not qualified", even though we've been doing this work since 1996.

If you get wind of bargaining unit work being outsourced, let the Unit 9 Chair know so we can check on it.

5. Important Changes in the New Contract

• 3% pay increase, retroactive to July 1, 2014
• Benefits aren't being touched.
• CSUEU does not negotiate our health care plans. Many people do not know this, and therefore blame us, believing we have somehow increased their health care costs.
• Parking fees can increase no more than $1 per month, each year.
• Aunt and uncle are now included for sick and bereavement leave (5 days), and there is no requirement in contract to ask for a death certificate.
• A "me too" clause has been included for the very first time. So if, hypothetically, the faculty were to negotiate a 5% pay increase in their contract for next year, we would automatically receive the same increase.
• No reopeners for the next 3 years, from either side.
• Intermittent workers are now limited to 1000 hours per year. After that, they must be terminated, or moved to a timebase.
  • 1000 hours = a half time position for PERS calculations.
  • 130 hours per month over the past 12 months = ACA (Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. "Obamacare") eligible. This applies to all employees, including student assistants.
  • ACA coverage will also extend to employees and their family members.

6. Unit 9 Classification Update

CSU's head of Classification and Compensation resigned, so the update of classification language is in limbo. We will work with Rose and the Classification Committee to restart and revamp outdated Unit 9 classifications.

An example of classification abuse from ZZYZX:
ZZYZX is a study center in the Mojave desert operated cooperatively by several campuses. Our involvement started with a request to contract out custodial work, where it turned out that the cost for the contract exceeded the cost of a custodian. While checking out conditions at ZZYZX, we found other issues.

We were told that all employees on site were exempt. One was an exempt ITC (Information Technology Consultant) II from Fullerton, one was a trades person (Unit 6), and one was an ISA (Instructional Support Assistant) III. The scope of all their duties is far beyond their CQS, but one case was particularly egregious.

ISA III is a non-exempt classification. This ISA's job description stated he must be available 24 hours a day. He had been there 7 ½ years, working an average of 30 hours a week unpaid overtime during that time. The unpaid wages represent about a half million dollars in back pay owed to this individual. This grievance is proceeding.

7. Remote Campuses and Learning Centers

Remote campuses are treated the same as the primary campus. ISA's and techs are frequently abused at these locations, but, with 21 days, the campus can reassign any employee to work at either the primary or satellite campus. The contract allows this, but a humanitarian appeal to your campus president will often correct this.

8. Performing Arts Technicians and Excessive Work Hours

Performing Arts Technicians often work 18 to 20 hours per day, for several days before a show or event. Please make sure they understand overtime and CTO (Compensatory Time Off) rules, as well as claiming their meal allowance if they work 10 or more hours per day.

9. Campus Closures and the Law

• In general, a campus cannot forbid you from coming in to work if the campus closes.
• Your campus must offer you CTO to cover the work in advance, or allow you to work that day if you wish.
• Forcing you to use vacation time is a lockout.
• You can request a voluntary dock.
• They can ask you to use your CTO time.
• If you report to work, they can assign you to a manager in a different department, but you should still be performing skills and duties relevant to your classification.

10. New Mandatory On-Line Training Requirements

Title IX, "Yes means Yes" and IT Security are all being rolled out as two hour mandatory on-line training courses. Staff must complete them when directed to do so.

11. Upcoming Chapter Elections

If you are a Bargaining Unit Council at-large member, and you are not re-elected as chapter BUR (Bargaining Unit Representative), or if you do not run for office in your upcoming chapter election, you lose your seat on the statewide Bargaining Unit Council at the conclusion of your chapter elections. Chairs and Vice Chairs will continue on the BUC until the state-wide elections next year.

Additional Topic: We had a short discussion about 6 hour meeting vs. 2 hour meetings for the BUC. Chapters can fund attendees for either type meetings, and we encourage them to do so.

Meeting adjourned at 8 pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Rich McGee
Chair, Bargaining Unit Council 9

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Links

• Agenda for November 2014 CSUEU Board of Directors Meeting (CSUEU)
• CENIC press release about Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud services (CENIC)
• Contract:
  • Key Changes in the 2014-2017 CSUEU/CSU Agreement [PDF] (CSUEU)
  • Bargaining Update #12 — Tentative agreement reached; Bargaining team recommends ratification; PDF scans (images, not text) of relevant Tentative Agreement articles (CSUEU)
  • Bargaining Update #13 — Members ratify contract (CSUEU)
  • CSUEU and CSU Reach New Collective Bargaining Agreement — CSU Board of Trustees ratifies our contract (CSUEU)
  • CSU Trustees Ratify Five Collective Bargaining Agreements (CSU)
• Classification Standards for Unit 9:
  • Information Technology Consultant [PDF] (CSU)
  • Instructional Support Assistant III [PDF] (CSU)
  • Instructional Support Series overview [PDF] (CSU)
• CSUEU Policy File dated June 28-29, 2014 — Governs CSUEU elections [PDF] (CSUEU)
  • From the CSUEU Document Library

BUC 9 Report for June 2014 Meeting

Chair Rich McGee gave his report on the June 2014 meeting of Bargaining Unit Council 9 (BUC 9) to the CSUEU Board of Directors (BOD) at this past weekend's BOD meeting.

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Bargaining Unit Council 9 (BUC 9) Report
June 2014

The Bargaining Unit 9 Council met on Saturday, June 7, 2014 in Sacramento.

In attendance were:

• Rich McGee – Chair, BUC 9
• Susan Smith – Vice Chair, BUC 9
• Rocky Waters – BUC 9 at-large (Humboldt)
• Ricardo Uc – BUC 9 at-large (San Luis Obispo)
• Christina Valero – BUC 9 at-large (San Francisco)
• Ken Jones – BUC 9 at-large (Fresno)
• Matthew Kay – BUC 9 at-large (Sacramento)
• Excused: Gus Leonard – BUC 9 at-large (Monterey Bay)

Guests:

• Alisandra Brewer – Vice President for Representation
• Brian Lee – Executive Director (Staff)
• Pat Gantt – President
• JJ Jelincic – Senior Labor Relations Representative (Staff)
• Rose Greeff – Vice President and Chief Steward, Chapter 306 (East Bay)
• Jeff Nadel – Chapter 306 (San Luis Obispo)

Rich McGee, Chair, thanked Matthew Black (Long Beach) for his years of service to the Unit 9 Council. Matthew is stepping away in order to arrange for his upcoming wedding, and we all wish him the best of luck and many years filled with happiness and joy. Rich also thanked Ricardo Uc for stepping up and participating in several bargaining sessions when needed.

There was a short discussion of the Supreme Court's upcoming Harris v. Quinn case, and the potential negative effects on labor. Although no decision had yet been announced, one is expected by the end of June.

Bargaining Update 1

Alisandra Brewer, Vice President for Representation, addressed several topics:

• We expect to address compensation in our upcoming bargaining sessions.
• The next few weeks of bargaining dates and locations have already been scheduled, and members are encouraged to attend if possible. If your chapter has any 5.11(d) time remaining, it expires at the end of the month, so attending bargaining may be a good use of that time.
• We have been in full contract bargaining this year, and it appears unlikely the contract will be ratified by the end of June, when the current contract expires. We haven't seen key proposals yet from the CSU. The CSU's Chief Negotiator, John Swarbrick, has indicated he would be willing to sign an extension. Scheduling in July has been slightly more difficult than in previous months due to pre-planned commitments.
• Many people think we should be given the same raises that the people within the UC system received. But the UC system is funded differently, with only 10-15% of their budget coming from state general funds, while the CSU gets half of our funding from general funds. UC employees also have lower benefits, while we have fewer activists willing to perform work actions such as work to rule.

Bargaining Update 2

Susan Smith, BUC 9 Vice Chair, expanded on Alisandra's bargaining update:

• The team is working on a number of articles, but the CSU appears to have been waiting for budget to be signed before addressing compensation. As of today, no TA's (tentative agreements) have yet been reached on any article.
• The CSU has discussed a possible multi-year plan to get employees to market rate, but we haven't seen any details yet.
• The CSU bargaining team has cancelled two full bargaining sessions, and some additional bargaining days, with the explanation that they they double booked themselves. We currently have additional bargaining scheduled for July.

Vacancy on Unit 9 Council

Matthew Black resigned last month from the Unit 9 Council. With the unanimous concurrence of the BUC, Matthew Kay (Sacramento) will be joining the BUC as an at-large member. Welcome to the council, Matt!

Identity Finder Implementation Update

There has been nothing but silence, statewide, regarding the rollout of the CSU's $400,000 purchase of Identity Finder. Other than Sacramento and Long Beach, who have been using it for years (and report they are happy with it), we haven't heard of any other campus who has deployed it. Please let the Chair and Vice Chair know if you hear of any implementation plans for your campus.

Chancellor's Office Emergency Dashboard Outsourcing

CSUEU and CSU met and conferred over contracting out for a dashboard development emergency project. It turned out there was no emergency, but the CSU claimed they had no one in their building who could perform that work. Most CSU campuses already have programmers who do this work, so there was no need to expend additional funds on an outside contract.

Erosion of Bargaining Units by Confidential Employees

Confidential employees are a separate class of employees who, under the law, are supposed to play a meaningful role in determining labor policy for the employer. These employees are not part of any bargaining unit, so they are unrepresented.

Managers sometimes confuse handling confidential data – a common task for many bargaining unit employees – with a position needing to be classified as confidential. This leads to employees who are actually doing bargaining unit work being incorrectly classified as confidential and wrongly excluded from the bargaining unit and representation. Fullerton, for example, has tripled the number of confidential employees at their campus in just the past three months.

CSUEU is seeking a list of confidential employees. In the meantime, if you know of specific cases on your campus of employees incorrectly classified as confidential, please let the Chair and Vice Chair know.

Managers Performing Staff Work

Per our contract, managers are allowed to perform only minimal staff work. Yet many of us see, on a daily basis, administrators doing out our work, such as writing speeches for the campus president, creating new queries in PeopleSoft, etc. When this happens, it's important that we file the appropriate grievances.

Quarter to Semester Project Overview

Six campuses are converting from a quarter calendar to a semester calendar. A quick overview:

• $2.5 million per each of the 6 campuses
• 100% of the consultant costs will be paid by Chancellor's Office
• 75% of backfill and overtime costs paid by Chancellor's Office
• Bakersfield and CSU LA are starting now
• Our next Meet and Confer on this project will be July 17 for Information Technology questions. Joseph Dobzynski from Channel Islands will attend to lend his subject matter expertise.

Group Discussion of Additional Items

Jeff Nadel asked that everyone please give feedback to Ricardo Uc regarding IT reorganization plans. If your campus has gone through a reorganization, or is considering one, please let Ricardo know so he can track it.

Christina Valero reports that Jerri McIntyre, treasured Labor Relations Representative, is retiring by the end of the month. Thanks for everything, Jerri, and happy retirement!

The meeting was adjourned at 5:10 pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Rich McGee, Chair

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Links

• Agenda for June 2014 CSUEU Board of Directors Meeting (CSUEU)

Supreme Court Finds Partial Public Employees Needn't Pay Fees to Unions

The Supreme Court has issued its opinion in the Harris v. Quinn case, finding that the partial public employees in question can't be required to pay agency fees to unions. The Court did not overturn decades-old precedent to eliminate agency fees for public employees in general.

The decision was of concern because of the potential risks of a broader negative ruling about paying agency fees to public employee unions.

This particular case was about in-home personal assistants who are paid by the state of Illinois to provide services to Medicaid recipients who would otherwise require institutional care. The employees are represented by SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana (SEIU–HII), which negotiates a state contract for these employees. The employees had been required to pay agency fees to SEIU–HII. Agency fees (sometimes called fair share fees) are meant to cover the cost of representing employees who are not union members, such as in contract negotiations and grievances.

We will update the links below throughout the day.

Links

• Harris v. Quinn decision (United States Supreme Court) [PDF]
• Analysis
  (AKA why we're not out of the woods yet)
  • Opinion analysis: A ruling inviting a plea to overrule (SCOTUSblog)
  • Harris v. Quinn Symposium: Abood and the walking dead (SCOTUSblog)
• News Coverage
• Supreme Court: Home health workers can't be forced to pay union dues (Los Angeles Times)
• Supreme Court deals setback to unions in Illinois case (Chicago Tribune)
• Supreme Court: Home health-care workers can’t be required to pay union fees (The Washington Post)
• Supreme Court: Private contractors not obligated to pay public union fees (CBS News)
• Supreme Court narrowly limits reach of labor unions (CNN)
• Union Response
• Home Care Workers Vow to Stand Up for Good Jobs and Quality Home Care in Wake of Harris v. Quinn Ruling (SEIU press release)
• Supreme Court Case Could Impact Home Care Workers and Consumers — SEIU blog entry by an Illinois home care worker from January (SEIU)

Watch Your Chapter President Address the Board of Trustees

The open portion of today's CSU Board of Trustees meeting should be starting soon, and you can watch or listen to it live online. First up is the Collective Bargaining Committee, and a slew of chapter presidents are scheduled to address them. ("Slew" is the technical term.) Want to see/hear your chapter president address the Board? Here you go:
CSU Board of Trustees live

On the right side are alternate links in case that particular stream isn't working for you.

Chancellor White to Discuss California's Higher Ed Master Plan at 1 p.m.

Starting at 1 p.m. today, CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White will be joining UC President Janet Napolitano and California Community Colleges Chancellor Brice W. Harris at a UC Regents meeting, to discuss California's Master Plan for Higher Education. The meeting will be streamed live, if you have or wish to install the required plugin.

Links

• Jerry Brown lays out 2014 priorities in State of the State address — Higher Ed portion covered in the portion headed REGENTS ROUNDUP (Sacramento Bee)
• UC Regents meetings live online — Use the Afternoon Session 01/22/14 link (University of California)
• Master Plan for Higher Education (State of California)

October Unit 9 Council Report

Bargaining Unit 9 Council Report

Overview of topics discussed: Current status of full-contract bargaining, Board of Trustees Meetings now on the Internet, Loss-prevention software to be installed, state-wide, on December 1^st, exempt employee work hours, classification issues and meet-and-confer updates.

Unit 9 Council Members attending: Rich McGee, Chair, Susan Smith, , Vice-Chair, , Rose Greeff. Ken Jones, Rocky Waters, Ricardo Uc, Gus Leonard, Christina Valero, Matthew Black

Guest: Matthew Kay

Introduction from the Chair

Our terms on the Unit 9 council are more than half completed, with elections coming next year. How do we develop the next generation of activists? The majority of the council are “Long Term” CSU employees, we all must consider how to develop interest in the Union, and mentor those activists who will come after us.

Due to a recent vacancy, Matthew Kay from Sac State has been appointed as the Unit 9 representative on the classification committee. Thanks, Matt, for agreeing to take on this important role!

Bargaining

Full contract bargaining is now in the planning stages. If anyone has suggestions, additions or changes to contract language, please get this back to the chair within the next few weeks, as the time remaining for this is very short.

All bargaining sessions, except for the caucuses, are open to the membership, and each of you are encouraged to attend. Even if you spend only a lunch hour observing bargaining, it really helps when you see the “give and take” which is such a part of full-contract bargaining. Since this is a full-contract bargaining cycle, we don’t yet know what articles we will want to bargain over, and we haven’t yet seen any information from the CSU about their choice of articles, either. Our “sunshine proposal” will be due early next year, and will be posted and distributed as we are legally required to do.

Once bargaining begins, we will be actively seeking employees willing to speak on key topics. The bargaining team can discuss the articles, but the CSU really does appear to pay more attention when they hear the voices of campus employees explaining why a particular article is important to them.

Board of Trustees Meetings

The monthly CSU Board of Trustees meeting is now being broadcast live on the Internet, plus recorded and saved for later viewing. The website and monthly schedule can be found at the CO’s website http://www.calstate.edu/bot/agendas/. Watching these meetings on-line is actually better than attending them at the Chancellor’s Office – the audio is clearer, and the camera zooms in close enough to allow you to identify the speaker. It’s worthwhile to listen to in the background while you perform other tasks, as the information you learn from these meetings can be extremely useful.

Data Loss-Prevention Software

The CSU has spent over $400,000 to purchase 40,000 copies of a data-loss prevention software package. This software, called “IdentityFinder” (Vendor: http://identityfinder.com), will be installed state-wide on most computer workstations starting December 1^st.

Several members of the bargaining team held a meet-and-confer about this software in late October. The following is a summary of what was discussed and agreed upon. The process of codifying this agreement, in writing, is currently underway.

• The CSU has the right to install this software on any workstation/server which is owned by the state.
• Each campus ISO office will determine which workstations/file servers this software is to be installed on. The focus will be on those machines which potentially could contain “sensitive data” (Social security numbers, driver license information, birthdates and credit card information only)
• This software shall only be used to identify what is called “Level 1” data, as defined by the State Administrative Data Processing Manual. It will not be used to search for any other data, files, keywords, etc.
• The campuses will notify and train users prior to this software being installed on their workstations.
• This software will not scan e-mail messages, or capture any live data.
• If a campus wishes to purchase modules to enhance the capabilities of the IdentityFinder software (Such as SQL database or e-mail scanning), the Union shall be notified and given an opportunity to meet and confer over the effects of that module.
• The end-user will be allowed to initiate a private scan, and deal with the results (Delete, edit, encrypt or leave the data intact) prior to the campus performing a centralized scan. This provides a grace period for all users to remove un-necessary sensitive data on their system remaining from prior work tasks.
• Only the end-user or the ISO can initiate a software scan. No inventory of files, documents, etc. is created, and any sensitive data discovered will be “masked off” in the reports produced by this software. This means an ISO manager may see only the last few digits of a SSN, not the entire number.
• Each campus ISO will, on an annual basis, maintain an inventory of all systems containing sensitive data, in response to audit requirements.

Exempt employees – Work hours vs. core hours

According to the law, and our contract, “For exempt classifications, there are no fixed, minimum or maximum hours in a workday or workweek.” (Article 18.7). However, due to a state arbitration decision, the courts have ruled that an employer can set “core hours” for exempt employees. Some CSU managers are misinterpreting the meaning of this, and are telling their employees that “our core hours are 8 am to 5 pm, and you must be here during those hours”. If you hear of this occurring on your campus, please notify the Unit 9 Council, and file a grievance on it. Core hours are just that – core, the essential part. Telling an exempt employee to be here for the entire day at a pre-assigned time equals fixed hours. An example which has been successfully used at some campuses is to ask the manager “If you take a core body conditioning class, does it exercise all your muscles?” Our contract is only good when it is properly enforced, and enforcement is up to each one of us.

Wrap-Up

The October 2013 Bargaining Unit 9 Council meeting concluded with a brief discussion of career vs. expert classifications, the status of the Unit 9 classification clean-up project, which is nearly completed, and a review of some of the technical meet-and-confers we’ve had over the past few months including campus cellular telephone polices, as well as video surveillance on the campuses. Remember: An arbitrator has ruled that video surveillance is now a mandatory subject of bargaining, so we have a right to both request information about campus video surveillance systems, as well as to request a meet-and-confer when such a meeting is warranted.

Respectfully submitted,

Rich McGee

Chair, CSUEU Bargaining Unit 9

BUC Agenda for October 2013 Meeting

Unit 9 BUC Agenda – October 13^th 2013

1. Introductions - Group
   
   
2. Chair’s remarks – Rich McGee
   
   
3. Vice-Chair’s remarks – Susan Smith
   
   
4. Officer assigned remarks – Alisandra Brewer
   
   
5. The CSU’s data loss prevention software project
   
   
6. Exempt employees – Work hours vs. core hours
   
   
7. Career vs. expert classifications –What is the difference?
   
   
8. The CSU’s Unit 9 classification cleanup project
   
   
9. Video Surveillance and the meet/confer process
   
   
10. New Business – Group – Classification standard proposal for EOP Special Assistant and Space Utilization
    

BUC 9 Report for June 2013 Meeting

Bargaining Unit Council 9 (BUC 9) met in Sacramento on June 9, 2013, after the all-BUC meeting on June 8. Here is the report of the Chair, Rich McGee, prepared for this weekend's Board of Directors meeting:

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Bargaining Unit Council 9 Meeting
June 9, 2013
Sacramento

Classification Cleanup

CSU has provided a set of proposed changes to various Unit 9 Classification and Qualification Standards (CQS). The stated goal of the changes is to standardize the "look and feel" of all classifications, rather than making substantive changes to duties or qualifications. This involves dozens of classifications, some of which are being combined into series as well. Reviewing the proposed changes requires comparing the proposed CQS with the existing CQS line by line. The BUC split into smaller workgroups, each taking a stack of CQS proposals to go over. This task consumed most of the 4 hours scheduled for the meeting, but saved us from having to hold a separate meeting to tackle this.

Additional items discussed included:

Monitoring position postings

Campuses continue to post positions which are incorrectly classified or have other problems. Please monitor your campus's job postings and contact Rich McGee if you find something questionable.

Data Centers

Very little information has been released regarding the CSU's mandate that all but two campus data centers be shut down by June 2015. We've been told that several campus presidents are openly disagreeing with this mandate, insisting that their own multi-million dollar data centers continue to function. Please share any information you have about plans for your campus data center with Rich McGee.

Exempt Employees

We are increasingly hearing of exempt employees being told to "stay until the work gets done, because you are exempt!", yet the next day, these same employees are being told "You came in at 8:15 today. You're late!" Per our contract, exempt employees do not have fixed hours:

18.7 For exempt classifications, there are no fixed, minimum or maximum hours in a work day or work week.

Some campuses attempt to bypass this by stating that an exempt employee can be assigned "core hours". When asked to define those core hours, the response tends to be "Our core hours are 8 am to 5:30 pm." Sorry, no. If you encounter this, challenge it.

Annual Performance Reviews

Remember that there should be no surprises in an employee's review. If there is a valid concern about the employee's work, the manager should have informed the employee about it at the time so it could be corrected, rather than withholding the information so as to ambush the employee on the evaluation.

Student Assistants

Sonoma has a grievance presently at level 3 on student assistants improperly performing bargaining unit work. We need grievances filed from other campuses where this is occurring.

Video Surveillance

A recent ruling confirms that video surveillance of employees can be an issue employers must bargain with the union. In general, if the camera is used only for physical security, that use is allowable. But if there is the possibility of an employee being disciplined for anything which might appear on a video, that merits a meet and confer. If your campus is conducting video surveillance of areas where employees work, gather, or enter or exit a building, please contact Rich McGee so we can draft an information request to check for problems.

Meet and Confers

Cell Phones

We've met with several campuses in order to discuss employee cell phone policies. Some campuses, like Long Beach, have well designed policies which include fair reimbursement for use of employee-provided cell phones. Other campuses appear reluctant to offer their employees fair reimbursement, and the difference can be several hundred dollars per year. In general, a campus may issue you a cell phone limited to work-related purposes only. However if you're asked to provide your personal cell phone number to your campus for any reason, that may merit a meet and confer. Please contact Rich McGee if your campus asks employees for their personal cell phone numbers, or issues cell phones, with having negotiated with the union over the effects of this practice.

Uniforms

The policy for IT staff to wear uniform shirts at Fullerton now appears to be voluntary, with some staff wearing them, while others do not. If you hear of any new requirements to wear a uniform while on campus, please let the Unit 9 chair know.

Background Checks

We have a Meet and Confer scheduled in July for a systemwide policy covering employee background checks.

Smoking

Chancellor Tim White has indicated he wants to eliminate smoking on CSU campuses, and expects it could take several years to phase out smoking, system-wide. Fullerton's president is keen to move ahead on her own, and has a proposed policy which would ban all smoking anywhere on campus, including in private vehicles. We held a meet and confer recently to discuss Fullerton's planned implementation, and the campus agreed that employees will not face discipline over anything in the campus smoking policy. If you hear of plans to make your campus smoke-free, please let someone from the bargaining team know, as this really should be a state-wide policy, rather than an individual policy at all 23 campuses plus the Chancellor's Office.

VP Rep Quoted In Article On Chancellor White

Southern California Public Radio has done a piece on new CSU Chancellor Tim White, the challenges facing him after years of budget cuts, and his approach to getting to know the university. Our own Vice President for Representation Alisandra Brewer was quoted:

"He's really out there listening to the people, the little guys not just the upper management," Alisandra Brewer, a vice president with the California State University Employees Union.

The article mentions Chancellor White ditching his suit jacket and spiffy shoes to learn a break dance move at Dominguez Hills. We have links to that and some other White clips below (titles taken from the videos at the time of posting).

Links

• Funding windfall helps new Cal State chancellor, but can he reshape 23-campus system? (Southern California Public Radio)
• Videos:
  • CSU Chancellor Timothy White "learns" to Break Dance @ CSUDH (CSU Dominguez Hills) — This appears to be the break dancing referenced in the article.
  • Chancellor Timothy P. White Dancing at CSUEB (Andy To) — February visit to East Bay campus
  • Chancellor Timothy White: It Gets Better Project (UC Riverside)

Former MPP Charged in SFSU Bribery Case

A former San Francisco State University (SFSU) manager is facing 128 felony charges in an alleged bribery scheme involving waste management contracts for the campus. Robert Shearer, who was the Director in charge of Environmental Health and Occupational Safety, was arrested April 18.

Shearer allegedly took bribes totaling over $180,000 from 2002 to 2009, in exchange for approving payments and renewing contracts.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Several companies offered to take the contracts for less money, but Shearer told his bosses that Cheung's firm was the only bidder, said District Attorney George Gascón. Cheung collected a total of $4 million from San Francisco State over the years, far more than the university should have paid, prosecutors said.

The charges against Shearer consist of:

• 59 felony counts of commercial bribery
• 59 felony counts of accepting a bribe
• 5 felony counts of making a contract in an official capacity by a financially interested person
• 5 felony counts of perjury

The perjury charges stem from repeatedly failing to report the income he received from Cheung on his annual Statement of Economic Interests filed with SFSU.

Shearer is in custody on $5,000,000 bail. The District Attorney says he faces more than 100 years in prison.

Management Personnel Plan (MPP) salary lists from 2008 and 2009 show that Shearer was making $8,063 per month ($96,756 annually).

Links

• 2 face 246 charges in alleged SF bribery scheme (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Ex-SF State official accused of taking bribes (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Former San Francisco State University Director and Local University Vendor to be Charged with 246 Felony Counts for Bribery Scheme (San Francisco District Attorney news release)
• CSUEU's online document library — Look here for Management Personnel Plan (MPP) salary lists.

BUC 9 Report for February 17, 2013 Meeting

Bargaining Unit Council 9 (BUC 9) met last month as part of the all-BUC meeting weekend in Sacramento, February 16-17. Here is the report of the Chair, Rich McGee, prepared for this weekend's Board of Directors meeting:

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Bargaining Unit Council 9 Meeting
February 17th, 2012
Sacramento

On February 16, 2013, Bargaining Unit Council (BUC) 9 met with BUCs 2, 5, and 7 to begin planning for full contract bargaining, which gets underway early next year. Now is the time to start collecting ideas for our next contract. If you have a comment or suggestion for improvements, please send them to Unit 9 Chair Rich McGee.
BUC 9 met separately on February 17th. We welcomed Matt Kay, the new Bargaining Unit Representative (BUR) 9 at Sacramento State. A request for all BURs: If there is any turnover in chapter officers, please let the BU Chair and headquarters know, so we can update the appropriate contact lists.
Here's what we discussed:

SLRR Support

Teven Laxer, the Senior Labor Relations Representative (SLRR) who was assigned to Unit 9, has retired. He is now a part-time consultant to CSUEU. As a cost-saving measure, his position will remain vacant for now. This means that SLRR Lois Kugelmass has been reassigned to cover all bargaining units. If you have a problem or issue that you believe requires the services of a SLRR, please work through your local Labor Relations Representative (LRR) first, or contact Chair Rich McGee for assistance.

Job Merging

Job merging continues to increase within the CSU, as duties from different classifications get blended into that vague other duties as required portion of the position description. Continue to formally challenge these wherever you find them. Doing so helps create record of the problem even when there is no immediate change.

In-Range Progressions (IRP's)

The 2012-2014 contract includes new language allowing an employee denied an IRP for lack of funds to request that their IRP application be re-evaluated the following fiscal year. Each chapter should educate employees about this, and urge affected employees to request the re-evaluation.

Outsourcing/Contracting Out

Contracting out continues to be one of the largest issues facing Unit 9. For many new IT projects, we're discovering that outside contractors appear to be the CSU's employee of choice — even though study after study has shown that outside contractors can cost far more than performing the work in-house, and usually results in an inferior product. Please notify Chair Rich McGee whenever you become aware of outsourcing, to make sure we know about it and can bargain over it if necessary.

Data Center Initiative & Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC)

CSU's data center initiative, the move to consolidate all CSU data centers into two regional locations, may be fracturing. Unit 9 employees report that some campus administrators are saying We're not going to let our data center be closed, or We're going to become one of the regional centers when no decision has yet been made as to their locations. CSUEU has been assured by the Chancellor's Office that all current employees will be retained despite any data center re-alignment. If you hear any talk of layoffs, please immediately notify your Bargaining Unit Chair directly.

Meet and Confer Updates

There have been a number of Meet and Confer sessions on Unit 9 issues over the past several months. Among them are:

SFSU Health Center

The campus Health Center at San Francisco State is determined to pay more than $10,000 per month for Information Technology (IT) support — to a vendor who is only on-site one day a week. They claim this is cheaper than using a staff member. Yet they also are using a Unit 7 staff member to assemble computer equipment, erase confidential data, and other Unit 9 tasks which are not in that employee's classification.

CSULB Cell Phone Policy

After several months of effort, CSU Long Beach finally has an acceptable cell phone policy in place. If your campus decides to adopt any type of policy regulating the use of cell phones, whether campus-owned or employee-provided, please let the Chair know, since it may require a Meet and Confer.
Note: Whether something requires bargaining is not decided at the chapter/campus, since there may be factors which chapter officers or assigned staff not aware of. Send the information you have to your Chair, and let the bargaining team figure it out.

Data Security

Many campuses are requesting that employees sign and agree to data security policies. There is no centralized CSU data security policy, so each campus appears to be creating their own. Some, such as CSULA, are perfectly fine, and acceptable to the Union, while others appear to go far beyond the provisions of the contract, and a Meet and Confer may be necessary to discuss them.

Distance Learning and Unit 9

The Unit 9 Council has been asked by the CSU Labor Council to monitor and track the CSU's online learning programs CSU Online and CalState Online. If you know or hear of any issues with either of those two programs, please send that information to the Chair.

IT Career Growth and Training

The council had a short discussion regarding IT career paths and training. When asked who in attendance had received training within the past year, the group laughed. In past layoff negotiations, one of the CSU's favorite questions has been What has this employee done to improve their skill set? Every employee should work with their manager on a career development plan, and request whatever specialized training may be necessary. Even if the request is denied, it puts the CSU on record for having denied training. That record can be useful during bargaining.

Classification and Qualification Standards (CQS) Revisions

The final discussion item was an overview of the re-working of the CQS for certain Unit 9 classifications, as requested by the Chancellor's Office. This will be a tremendous amount of work, and is expected to involve all members of the Council, both in participating in the revision of the descriptions as well as finding members who are willing to testify about their spectific job duties and skills.

Respectfully submitted,
Rich McGee
Chair, CSUEU Bargaining Unit Council 9
csueu.unit9@gmail.com

Listen to CSU Board of Trustees Live

The CSU Board of Trustees is meeting now.
You can listen to the CSU Board of Trustees meeting live via the link on their homepage:
Live CSU Board of Trustees Meeting
Yesterday Governor Brown attended the meeting.
The CSU ended yesterday's meeting early, and withdrew the proposal to increase student fees on top of current levels.
The CSU Board of Trustees agenda page has been changed to list the Joint Meeting of the Committee on Educational Policy and the Committee on Finance, which contained a proposal to further raise student fees, has recently been marked "Not meeting."
[This is a change since last week, after the required public notice.]
Attendees to yesterday's Board of Trustees meetings reported seeing outside catering food being brought in as yesterday's meeting was ending early.

Links

• Board of Trustees Meets Next Week, Nov. 13-14 (Unit 9 News)
• CSU Board of Trustees agendas
  • Joint Meeting of the Committee on Educational Policy and the Committee on Finance - Not meeting [Changed since last week]
• Live CSU Board of Trustees Meeting

Board of Trustees Meets Next Week, Nov. 13-14

The CSU Board of Trustees meets next Tuesday and Wednesday, November 13 and 14, 2012. A closed session begins at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday for unspecified Executive Personnel Matters and collective bargaining issues. The open session begins around 10:00 a.m., starting with the Committee on Collective Bargaining. Meetings continue all day, and resume at 8:00 a.m. Wednesday, with the Plenary session estimated to begin at 10:30.
There is also a Special Committee on Pension Reform meeting listed for 11:30 a.m., after the Board of Trustees adjourns. No agenda seems to be published for it, but it is not listed as a closed meeting.

Selected Agenda Items

• Salary and benefits for the incoming Chancellor, Timothy P. White:
  • Salary of $421,500
  • An annual salary supplement of $30,000 from the CSU Board of Governors Foundation
  • A house: the official university residence for the chancellor
  • Vehicle allowance of $1,000 per month
  • Reimbursement for travel and relocation expenses
  • Unspecified "executive classification" benefits, which at this writing are not listed with other employees' benefits
  • Eligibility to hold the academic rank of full professor with tenure at CSU Long Beach.
  White's official starting date will be December 31, 2012, meaning he will not be affected by the change in how pensions work beginning January 1, 2013. The Chancellor's Office is closed on December 31.
• Title 5 amendment requiring managers and executives to disclose outside employment for the identification of and to preclude any conflict of commitment. This is in response to a 2007 audit of CSU compensation practices by the Bureau of State Audits (BSA). For this meeting, it is an information item, with proposed language to be voted on at the January 2013 meeting.
  • That's not a typo. Next year, the CSU may do something to address a problem identified in an audit 5 years ago.
  • The title of the 2007 audit was California State University: It Needs to Strengthen Its Oversight and Establish Stricter Policies for Compensating Current and Former Employees
• Report on legislation of interest to the CSU. A few highlights:
  • AB 1434 adds CSU employees to the list of mandated reporters of child abuse or neglect occurring on campuses.
  • AB 1723 requires public meetings of the Trustees to be available by live video stream over the internet. CSU took no position on this, and it was signed into law.
  • There were a number of attempts to reign in CSU's extravagant approach to executive and manager salaries. The CSU opposed all of them. None succeeded.
    • AB 1561 would have prohibited the CSU from raising administrator salaries when state funding is reduced or tuition fees increased.
    • AB 1787 would have frozen CSU salaries until June 2015 for employees making over $100,000.
    • SB 952 would have prohibited raises for CSU employees making over $200,000 from General Fund sources through June 2014.
    • SB 967 would have prohibited salary augmentation for executive officers within 2 years of a mandatory systemwide fee increase.
    • SB 1368 would have prevented unelected state employees from earning more than the governor or $174,000.
  • SB 1515 would have reduced the number of governor appointees to the Board of Trustees from 16 to 14, and required that the appointments include 1 faculty, 1 represented staff, and 4 students. The CSU opposed this bill, and it failed.
• CSU Seismic Safety Program's annual report. Some highlights:
  • Warren Hall at CSU East Bay, described as long our most pressing seismic concern, is mostly vacated and is scheduled to be demolished in July 2013. Still in the building are the campus telephone switch in the basement, servers on the third floor, and telecom antennas on the roof, all of which sometimes require in-person staff visits.
  • CLA building at Cal Poly Pomona is a priority List 1 concern, but no funds have been budgeted.
• Update on current audits and follow-up on past audits including IT Disaster Recovery, ADA Compliance, and Sensitive Data Security.
  Current year audits include:
  • Data Center Operations (Chico, Channel Islands, Dominguez Hills, East Bay, Long Beach, Northridge, and Pomona)
  • Identity Management and Common Systems Access (Humboldt, Monterey Bay, San Diego, and San Marcos)
  • Information Systems
• Ratification of a new contract with Academic Professionals of California (APC). APC represents Unit 4, composed of about 3,000 academic support professionals such as Credential Analysts and Student Services Professionals. CSU and APC reached a tentative agreement in July, and APC members voted overwhelmingly to ratify the contract. Most portions of this contract maintain the status quo.
• Additional fees for students doing things like earning lots of units before graduating, taking a higher course load, and repeating classes.

About Trustees Meetings

For the most part, the discussion happens in the Committee meetings, and then the full Board meets in plenary session and approves whatever is before it.
Meetings are open to the public. Anyone can attend. Anyone can address the Board of Trustees in person, or write to them. See the main agenda for specific instructions.
Minutes of the previous meeting(s) — not yet approved, sometimes containing mistakes — are in the various agendas for the current meetings.

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Links

• November 2012 Board of Trustees agendas
  • Agenda — This is a mainly a rough schedule of sub-meetings, with action and information items listed. See the individual Committee agendas, and the separate Plenary Session agenda, for actual meeting content and drafts of the minutes from previous meetings. Page 5 of the PDF has information on addressing the Trustees.
  • Committee on University and Faculty Personnel agenda [PDF] — The action item for the incoming chancellor's salary begins on page 5 of the PDF. The information item on proposed outside employment disclosure requirements for CSU executives begins on page 7 of the PDF.
  • Committee on Governmental Relations agenda [PDF] — The report on legislation begins on page 9 of the PDF.
  • (PDF) Committee on Campus Planning, Buildings and Grounds agenda — The Seismic Safety Program report begins on page 15 of the PDF.
  • Committee on Audit agenda [PDF]
  • Joint Meeting of the Committee on Educational Policy and the Committee on Finance [PDF] — The increased student fees begin on page 4 of the PDF.
• Legislation
  • AB 1434 — CSU employees become mandated reporters
  • AB 1723 — Live streaming of public Trustees meetings
  • SB 1515 — Change Board of Trustees composition (did not pass)
• CSU Executive Compensation Summary [PDF] — only includes salary, housing provided or housing allowance, and supplements. Does not include other benefits such as car allowances and executive health care packages.
• November 6, 2007 report from the Bureau of State Audits: California State University: It Needs to Strengthen Its Oversight and Establish Stricter Policies for Compensating Current and Former Employees
  • Fact Sheet [PDF]
  • Highlights
  • Summary
  • Full Report [PDF]
• CSU-related audits from the Bureau of State Audits

Ballot Measure Results Align With CSUEU Recommendations

Ballot counting continues, but with nearly all counties having reported their final election night update to California's Secretary of State, the outcome is evident for statewide ballot measures. Huzzah!

Ballot Proposition	CSUEU's Position	Election Result
30 Temporary Taxes to Fund Education	Yes	Yes
31 State Budget, State and Local Government	No	No
32 Political Contributions by Payroll Deduction	No	No
38 Tax for Education. Early Childhood Programs	No	No
39 Business Tax for Energy Funding	Yes	Yes
40 Redistricting State Senate	Yes	Yes

Links

• Election results: California ballot measures (California Secretary of State)
• CSUEU recommendations for ballot measures (CSUEU)