Monthly Archives: September 2025

Negotiations Report #20

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September 25, 2025

The main takeaway from our nineteenth negotiation session on Sept. 18th:

We finally saw some movement from the District on compensation, healthcare, and mandatory flex days, but not nearly enough.  With just 3 more negotiation sessions planned, we need to flex our union power if we want to win a fair and equitable contract.  In case you missed my email from Tuesday, in order to put more pressure on the District to make better offers at the negotiation table,

 

AFT 1493 is calling on all faculty to boycott Flex Day on October 8th.  Sign the Pledge to Boycott!

Also, you can sign up to join us at a negotiation session, including the next one on Friday, Oct. 3, from 2:00-5:00pm.  And of course, don’t forget about Red Shirt Wednesdays!  Please contact me at lexvold@aft1493.org if you need a shirt.

 

Current Bargaining Report

AFT Negotiation Team: Monica Malamud (Chief Negotiator), Chet Lexvold, Gil Perez, and Luis Zuñiga.  Also in attendance from AFT were President Rika Yonemura-Fabian and Observers Danielle Pelletier, Mick Song, and Camille Kaslan.

From the District: Ellen Wu, Richard Storti, Julie Johnson, Gerardo Ramirez, Aaron McVean, David Feune, and Max Hartman.

Compensation, Article 8

The District again rejected our proposal regarding moving to pay-by-load, stating that the District is “not interested” in doing so. They countered on compensation as follows:

  • Year 1: 2.75% increase for  FT and non-instructional adjunct salary schedules, and 3.50% increase for all instructional adjunct salary schedules.
  • Year 2: 2.75% / 3.25%
  • Year 3: 2.75% / 3.25%

The District again rejected our proposal to increase FLC for multi-level courses.

 

Article 9, Health and Welfare Benefits

  • The District increased their offer on premiums for two-party and family Kaiser plans from 88% (current contract language) to 89%.
  • The District did not move on dental or salary continuation insurance.

 

Hours of Employment (Article 7)

  • On 7.6.1, the District made some movement on allowing counselors to carry out some professional duties at a time and place appropriate for the activity, although the language was worded in a way that left some doubt as to the District’s intention.
  • On Flex Days, the District dropped their insistence on a 3rd required flex day and accepted that we have 2 required flex / status quo.  They are still insisting that faculty be on campus for those required flex days, though.
  • The District accepted our strikethrough of their “Dean approved” language on flex activities.

 

Workload (Article 6 and Appendix D)

We brought counter #3 on this article.

  • On 6.1, we again copied and pasted language from Appendix F that explains that although 30 FLCs is considered a full-time assignment, 28-31 FLCs are acceptable.  In context, this language directly relates to the first sentence of 6.1, and it’s odd that it is buried in Appendix F, so we’d like to have it in 6.1.
  • We accepted their proposal that changes to Appendix F would be effective no later than one calendar year after contract ratification.
  • We re-worded our proposal to say that if ancillary work can be loaded, the District shall report “reportable” time spent on ancillary work to CalSTRS so that it counts toward eligibility for fringe benefits in Article 9 and PT Healthcare MOU.
  • In 6.3 we are making progress on language about PT faculty receiving payment for ancillary work and whether it’s dean/district/”pre” approved.
  • On 6.6, we struck out the District’s addition of language that says professional responsibilities for counselors are in addition to their minimum of the thirty scheduled hours per week.  We also brought back status quo “equivalent to” 2.5 hours per week of professional responsibilities for instructional faculty.

Appendix D

  • In A2, brought back “mental health student club advising,” “receiving” clinical supervision for licensure, and “peer consultation.”
    • Gil Perez (AFT Chapter Chair at CSM, Negotiations Team Member, and FT personal counselor at CSM) did a great job explaining why these are necessary job duties for personal counselors.
  • In A3, the District had included “on campus” language for scheduled counseling professional duties, and we added “in-person” to the scheduled counseling professional duties language, and re-arranged some other language to provide clarity.
  • Brought back “work performed as a program coordinator” to the list of ancillary work.

 

Faculty Load Credit (FLC) Allocation (Appendix F )

We re-proposed our language on English Composition classes and Calculus I and II, explaining the impact to our faculty members in those areas from ABs 705 and 1705.

Compared to our initial proposal to increase FLCs for many labs, we reduced all of our initial increases by .05 FLC in this proposal.

 

Academic Freedom (New Article)

We plan to bring this topic up again on Oct. 3rd.

 

Safety Conditions of Employment (Article 16)

The District did not bring a counter on this article.

 

Part-Time Employment (Article 19)

The District did not present a counter to our proposal on this article.

 

Summer Employment (Article 18)

We cannot present a counter on this article because it would reference sections that are currently being negotiated, so we’re setting it aside for now.

 

Dual Enrollment (New Article)

We did not present a counter on this article and told the District since there has been so little movement on it by either party, we are setting it aside for now.

 

Reasonable Accommodation (Article 25)

We’ve reached a tentative agreement on this article.

 

Grievance Procedure (Article 17)

We’ve reached a tentative agreement on this article.

 

Informal Complaints and Formal Misconduct Investigations (Article 23)

We’ve reached a tentative agreement on this article.

In solidarity,

Chet Lexvold
Executive Director, AFT 1493
lexvold@aft1493.org

Negotiations Report #19

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September 16, 2025

The main takeaway from our eighteenth negotiation session on Sept. 12th:

The District refused to bargain on Academic Freedom, didn’t bring counters on Compensation or Health Benefits, and forgot it was their turn to bring a counter on Workload.  The District has shown us, time and again, that if we want to win a fair and equitable contract, we need to flex our union power.

**Please attend a Watercooler Conversation this FRIDAY (9/19/25) at either 12 noon or 2:00pm to discuss our plans for Flex Day on October 8th, and executing the escalation of our Contract Action Plan in October.**

  • The Zoom link will be the same for both 12pm and 2pm: bit.ly/aft1493mm
  • Attendance is vital if you didn’t attend our AFT Membership meeting last Wednesday.  It is crucial that all our members understand and help execute our escalation plan for October.  If you cannot attend a Watercooler Conversation and were not at our Membership meeting last week, please contact your campus Chapter Chair to get up to speed:

As for the actual bargaining:

even after two massive actions at the Board of Trustees, the District still underperformed my lowest expectations (thus, our need to escalate our actions, starting with Flex Day on 10/8). Adding insult to injury is that Chancellor Moreno called all three unions (AFT, AFSCME, and CSEA) into her office last Monday and lamented that we aren’t being more collaborative with the District administration(?!).

On Friday, the District:

  1. Refused to bargain on Academic Freedom.  We presented our initial proposal on May 16th.  The District didn’t even acknowledge our proposal until September 12th (after several of our members spoke about this issue to the Board of Trustees on Sept. 10th); then finally told us the District’s position is that Academic Freedom is a “permissive” (“non-mandatory “) subject of bargaining, so the District isn’t going to bargain it.

This is a recurring theme, not just on Academic Freedom: the District doesn’t seem willing to give you anything more than the bare minimum required by law.  They are allowed to give you more than the bare minimum, of course.  They are allowed to protect your academic freedom, they are allowed to provide you paid parental leave, they are allowed to pay you fairly, they are allowed to ensure the safety and well-being of our transgender faculty, they are allowed to pay labs fairly and give our Math and English faculty manageable workloads, but they choose not to.  It’s really that simple.

 

  1. Didn’t bring counteroffers on Compensation, Health & Welfare, or initially on Workload.  We brought a counter on Article 6, Workload, on July 17th.  The District apparently forgot this and thought it was our turn to counter on Article 6.  It wasn’t.  So when we went to caucus on Friday, the District had to work on preparing a counter for Article 6, and what we received from them after caucus felt like a rushed, ham-fisted counterproposal that either completely forgot or conveniently ignored our presentation on the topics in Article 6 from July 17th.

On Compensation (Art. 8), the District claimed we didn’t “move” with our last counter (we did), so they weren’t going to counter.  They took the same position on Article 9, Health & Welfare.

If you want to witness this stuff first-hand, you can sign up to join us at a negotiation session, including this Thursday, 9/18, from 12:00-3:00pm.

And of course, don’t forget about Red Shirt Wednesdays!  Please contact me atlexvold@aft1493.org if you need a shirt.

 

Current Bargaining Report

AFT Negotiation Team: Monica Malamud (Chief Negotiator), Chet Lexvold, Gil Perez, and Luis Zuñiga.  Also in attendance from AFT were President Rika Yonemura-Fabian and Observers Meredith Lanska, Mick Song, Lori Slicton, Christopher Branco, Ali Shokouhbakhsh, and Camille Kaslan.

From the District: Ellen Wu, Julie Johnson, Gerardo Ramirez, Aaron McVean, David Feune (late), and Max Hartman.

Safety Conditions of Employment (Article 16)

We presented our second counter proposal on this article.

  • Since the article generally provides for the safety and well-being of employees, we accepted their strikethrough of language about emergency call boxes;
  • We accepted status quo language about this contract article not being subject to arbitration;
  • In 16.5, we re-worded our proposed language about when a faculty member feels unsafe and needs to leave the classroom, using the “reasonable person” standard commonly used in the law.  Monica also shared guidance from Cañada that mirrors our proposed language.
  • We again proposed language reflecting the law where faculty can seek the District’s assistance in obtaining a restraining order when necessary; and
  • We again proposed our language regarding making SMCCCD a Safe Workplace for transgender faculty.

 

Hours of Employment (Article 7)

We presented AFT Counter #4 on this article.

  • On 7.6.1, we again brought back that for counselors, professional duties can be carried out at a time and place appropriate for the activity.
  • On Flex Days, we again rejected their insistence on a 3rd required flex day, proposed that we keep 2 required flex / status quo.
  • We accepted their “normal student contact hours” language even if we don’t like how it’s instructional-faculty focused language.  Monica explained that we’re only accepting it because in past practice (which will continue), these Flex activity options have been allowed/ approved for all faculty.
  • We again struck out the District’s addition of “Dean” from “approved” flex activities, as activities for Flex are not Dean-approved.  Monica shared the Senate Flex Memo pointing out these activities are “self-certified,” and also cited Title 5, Division 5 section 55724 of CA regulations, plus the District Academic Senate statement on Flex.
    • While activities must be submitted to the Dean, they do not have approval or disapproval power.

 

Academic Freedom (New Article)

As explained in the intro, the District did not present a counter to our proposal (from May) on this article, finally stating that their position is it’s a permissive, not mandatory, subject of bargaining, and they are choosing not to bargain on it.

Compensation, Article 8

  • The District didn’t bring a counter and claimed we didn’t move closer to the District’s position with our last counter, so they weren’t required to respond.  We strongly disagreed.  However, we want to see a District counter on compensation, so rather than get in a protracted battle over whether our previous counter was regressive, we amended our counter as follows:
    • Under 8.1.1 (“Year 1”), we proposed that all instructional salary schedules be increased by 7.25%, and 8% for instructional adjunct salary schedules.
    • Year 2: start “pay by load,” aka “pay by FLC”
      • 6.25% increase to all salary schedules
    • Year 3
      • 4.75% increase to all salary schedules

 

Article 9, Health and Welfare Benefits

  • Similar to what happened with Article 8, because we want to see District movement on Health & Welfare, we amended our counter as follows:
    • We proposed the District would cover 100% of single and 95% of premiums for two-party and family Kaiser plans.
    • Dental: we countered at $4,000.

 

Workload (Article 6 and Appendix D)

The District presented counter #3 on this article.

  • On 6.1, they again rejected language we copied and pasted from Appendix F that explains that although 30 FLCs is considered a full-time assignment, 28-31 FLCs are acceptable.
  • They proposed that changes to Appendix F would be effective no later than one calendar year after contract ratification.
  • They rejected our language about if ancillary work can be loaded, it must be reported to CalSTRS.
  • In 6.3 on pay for ancillary work, they accepted some of our language and revised other language: accepted “directed by the District” and “as defined by Appendix D-4,” but added this work must be “pre-approved by the District or the Dean.”  Monica questioned the District on this point again, pointing out appointments or elections to union or academic senate jobs do not require any approval from the District or deans.
  • On 6.6, the District added language that says for counselors, professional responsibilities are in addition to a minimum of the thirty scheduled hours per week.  They also again tried proposing a “minimum of” 2.5 hours per week in lieu of “equivalent.”
  • In A2, they struck out “mental health student club advising,” “receiving” clinical supervision for licensure, and “peer consultation.”
  • In A3, they brought back “on campus” language for scheduled counseling professional duties, but added some language about how if the scheduled professional duties are not on campus, then they can be at time and place appropriate for the activity.
  • On ancillary work, accepted our suggested language on program review, SLO, etc.
  • Struck out “work performed as a program coordinator” from the list of ancillary work.

 

Faculty Load Credit (FLC) Allocation (Appendix F )

We plan on bringing a counter on Appendix F this Thursday.

 

Part-Time Employment (Article 19)

The District did not present a counter to our proposal on this article.

 

Summer Employment (Article 18)

We cannot present a counter on this article because it would reference sections that are currently being negotiated, so we’re setting it aside for now.

 

Dual Enrollment (New Article)

We did not present a counter on this article and told the District since there has been so little movement on it by either party, we are setting it aside for now.

 

Reasonable Accommodation (Article 25)

We’ve reached a tentative agreement on this article.

 

Grievance Procedure (Article 17)

We’ve reached a tentative agreement on this article.

 

Informal Complaints and Formal Misconduct Investigations (Article 23)

We’ve reached a tentative agreement on this article.

In solidarity,

Chet Lexvold
Executive Director, AFT 1493
lexvold@aft1493.org

AFT, CSEA, and AFSCME SPEAK TO BOT (9/10/25)

Negotiations Report #18

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September 3, 2025

Some brief takeaways from our seventeenth negotiation session on Aug. 29th:

  • The important takeaway from last Friday is that the District isn’t moving in any meaningful sense, which means that if we want to win a fair and equitable contract, we need you to take action!

    • Friday, 9/5 at 4pm: Contract Forum with our Chief Negotiator, Monica Malamud.  Zoom here.
    • Wednesday, 9/10, 2:30-4:30pm: AFT 1493 Membership meeting—CSM room 14-213 or on zoom: bit.ly/aft1493mm
    • Wednesday, 9/10, 5pm: Speak at Board of Trustees Meeting. Please fill out our form to show your commitment!
      • For inspiration, check out the video from our powerful action last week at the Board of Trustees meeting!  (In case the link doesn’t take you there, go to 1:25:29 where our action really starts).

You can also sign up to join us at a future negotiation session.  Our next negotiation session is Friday, Sept. 12th from 1:00pm-4:00pm.

Red AFT shirts for Red Wednesdays: we have more sizes available!  Small, Medium, and Large just came in. Please contact me at lexvold@aft1493.org and I’ll make sure you get one!

As an example of the District’s lack of movement towards reaching agreement, Joe Morello’s participation seems more focused on performative “gotcha moves” than actually making progress in negotiations.  Morello repeatedly suggests that we need to abide by language in the previous contract, or in proposals we made prior to the previous contract being ratified, as if that argument legitimately undermines our current proposals.  This shows ignorance about the very nature of negotiations.  We re-open the entire contract every three years precisely to consider changes to the contract, and in this round of negotiations, we aren’t bound by proposals we made or agreed to for a contract that has since expired.

 

Current Bargaining Report

AFT Negotiation Team: Monica Malamud (Chief Negotiator), Chet Lexvold, Gil Perez, and Luis Zuñiga.  Also in attendance from AFT were President Rika Yonemura-Fabian and Observer Elsa Torres.

From the District: Ellen Wu, Richard Storti, Joe Morello, Julie Johnson, Aaron McVean, and Max Hartman.

 

Hours of Employment (Article 7)

The District presented their fourth counter on this article.

  • In 7.6.1, they again brought back language that for counselors performing professional duties, they must be on campus unless otherwise approved by their dean.  When questioned, the District’s Chief Negotiator’s initial explanation for why they were insisting counselors be on campus while performing these duties was because she thought all faculty are required to be on campus 30 hours/week (Monica pointed out this is not true); then Max Hartman said it was because counselors are different because they have to document case notes.  Monica pointed out this is a double standard, where instructional faculty are trusted to exercise their professional judgment for where they grade, for example, while the District isn’t allowing counselors to exercise that same professional judgment.
  • On 7.11 regarding Flex Days, they keep proposing increasing the number of required flex to 3, and mandating in person attendance. They said that faculty should be on campus even when participating in online flex activities on these required flex days. When Monica asked what day they are proposing would be the new “required on campus” day (besides the current practice of the two college flex days, one per semester), Joe Morello responded that it would be negotiable between the District and AFT.
    • The District again proposed that Flex Day activities be “Dean approved,” which they claim is not different from current practice because deans sign a form.  Monica pointed out that by the time the dean signs the form, the activity has already been completed, and this is a formality, not an actual “approval process.”  Further, Monica quoted language from the Senate Flex Memo with language stating that prior approval is not required for Fled Day activities because they are “self-certified.”

 

Safety Conditions of Employment (Article 16)

The District presented their second counter proposal on this article.

  • They struck out the specific language about emergency call boxes;
  • They struck out that this contract article is subject to arbitration (according to our grievance procedure in Article 17);
  • They struck out language about a faculty member being able to leave the classroom if they feel unsafe;
  • They struck out language about the District’s assistance in obtaining a restraining order when necessary; and
  • They struck out our language regarding making SMCCCD a Safe Workplace for transgender faculty.

 

Faculty Load Credit (FLC) Allocation (Appendix F )

The District cited their previous counter on this Appendix; in other words, they didn’t move on lab FLC increases, or class sizes for Calculus and English Composition.

 

Compensation, Article 8

  • We presented our fourth counter.  Monica presented numerous reasons why the District’s offers on compensation continue to be woefully inadequate.
    • Our District is very wealthy, and is a Basic Aid District with property tax assessments (aka the District’s revenue) consistently increasing annually, averaging a 6.76% increase over the past 10 years.
    • The District is illegally spending less than 50% of revenue on classroom instruction, and the District is a huge outlier in California in terms of how little of its budget it spends on classroom instruction.  It spends around 40-41%, and cumulatively, has underspent on instruction by over $100 million.
  • Our counter was very similar to our third counter, but since we have already started “Year 1” of this contract, we left the current salary schedules in place for Year 1 in this proposal, and proposed moving to pay-by-load (pay by FLC) for all instructional assignments in Year 2, starting August 2026.  This impacted several sections of our counter, where we mirrored this concept.
    • The District accused us of being regressive with our counter because under 8.1.1 (“Year 1”), we proposed that all salary schedules be increased by 7.5%, with an additional 2.75% for Instructional Adjuncts (the second set of salary schedules currently listed under 8.1.1).  This was included because we want to continue making progress toward parity for adjuncts while we wait to move to pay-by-load (our earlier proposal would have achieved pay parity in Year 1).  There was quite a bit of back-and-forth on this, as Monica explained we aren’t moving further apart – we offered a different way to achieve parity through pay-by-load for Years 2 and 3, and left the previous definition of parity in place for Year 1 based on existing salary schedules.

 

Workload (Article 6 and Appendix D)

The District did not present a counter on this article.

 

Article 9, Health and Welfare Benefits

We presented our third counter.

  • We again proposed the District would cover 100% of premiums for all Kaiser plans, including two-party and family plans (not just single).
  • Dental: We had first proposed $7,000, the District countered at $2,000, and we again countered at $5,000.
  • On Salary Continuation Insurance for FT faculty, we re-proposed an increase to $10,000/month, and Monica pointed out that administrators get $15,000 salary continuation insurance.

 

Academic Freedom (New Article)

The District did not present a counter to our proposal on this article, and has not presented a counter since we presented our original proposal on May 16th, which was six negotiation sessions ago.

 

Part-Time Employment (Article 19)

The District did not present a counter to our proposal on this article.

 

Summer Employment (Article 18)

We cannot present a counter on this article because it would reference sections that are currently being negotiated, so we’re setting it aside for now.

 

Dual Enrollment (New Article)

We did not present a counter on this article and told the District since there has been so little movement on it by either party, we are setting it aside for now.

 

Reasonable Accommodation (Article 25)

We’ve reached a tentative agreement on this article!

 

Grievance Procedure (Article 17)

We’ve reached a tentative agreement on this article!

 

Informal Complaints and Formal Misconduct Investigations (Article 23)

We’ve reached a tentative agreement on this article!

In solidarity,

Chet Lexvold
Executive Director, AFT 1493
lexvold@aft1493.org