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.
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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