Negotiations Report #17

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July 21, 2025

Some brief takeaways from our sixteenth negotiation session on July 17th:

5% for them, 2% for us. 

  • The District’s economic offers remain insultingly low.  The Board of Trustees gave themselves a 5% annual raise in February 2025 after giving themselves a 5% raise in January 2024.  For us?  They are still offering less than half that, about 2% annually.
    • These proposed raises don’t keep up with inflation and don’t reflect the increase in property tax revenue the District receives.  It’s a slap in the face that after 16 negotiation sessions, the District is still offering crumbs.
    • On top of that, the District is offering NO IMPROVEMENTS for any other economic aspect of our lives: not on health benefits,  retirement, not on parental leave, not for professional development, not on increasing FLCs for labs to come closer to “lab/lecture parity,” etc.

So what do we need to do this Fall semester?

    • If we want to win a fair and equitable contract, we need you! We want you to join us in wearing our red AFT shirts on August 11th Flex Day.
      • If you don’t have a red AFT shirt, find the AFT table in the morning of District opening day to pick one up, or please contact me at lexvold@aft1493.org and I’ll make sure you get one!
      • Also find us on Aug. 12th Flex Day – we’ll have tables on each campus. Let’s talk about building a powerful campaign to win a fair contract this fall!

You can also sign up to join us at a future negotiation session.  Our next negotiation session is Friday, August 29th from 1:00pm-4:00pm.

Current Bargaining Report

AFT Negotiation Team: Monica Malamud (Chief Negotiator), Chet Lexvold, Gil Perez, Althea Kippes, and Luis Zuñiga.  Also in attendance from AFT were President Rika Yonemura-Fabian and Observers Johnny Leon and Kamran Eftekhari.

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

Workload (Article 6 and Appendix D)

We presented our second counter on this article.

  • On 6.1, we brought back our proposed language regarding 28-31 FLCs being acceptable as FT load, which is currently in the contract, but it’s buried in Appendix F and belongs in 6.1.
  • On 6.1 we accepted the District’s language on when changes to FLCs in Appendix F (lab and composition load) would take effect after agreement is reached, which is “as soon as practicable” but no later than one year after the contract goes in effect.
  • We also brought back our proposal that if ancillary work can be loaded, it shall count for benefits eligibility.
  • On 6.6 regarding Professional Responsibilities of instructional faculty, we rejected the District’s proposal of “a minimum of 2.5 hours per week” and re-proposed current contract language, “the equivalent of 2.5 hours per week.”

 

Appendix D:

  • In D2-A2 for personal counselors, we brought back “mental health student club advising” as a required duty of personal counselors;
  • In D2-A3, we again proposed language that counselors perform their professional duties “at a time and place appropriate for the activity,” mirroring the language in the current contract applicable to instructional faculty.
  • For the new “ Appendix D4 – Ancillary Work,” we again proposed that “work as a program coordinator” is ancillary.
  • On Ancillary work, generally, the District proposed that it must be “directed by the dean” to qualify as Ancillary to be compensated, which doesn’t make sense for several categories of ancillary work, so we added language that would include  work directed by the District, or for appointed or elected work such as serving on the Academic Senate, elected work for AFT 1493, etc.

 

Compensation, Article 8

  • The District presented their fourth counter, in which they “increased” their offer for Instructional Adjuncts (Schedules HB, HC, and HI) by a measly 0.25% in all three years (which I’ll refer to as “instructional PT,” below), but did not move at all on any other salary schedules Below are the current offers for raises:
    • Year 1: 2.75% for instructional PT; 2% for everybody else
    • Year 2: 2.5% for instructional PT; 1.75% for everybody else
    • Year 3: 2.25% for instructional PT; 1.5% for everybody else

 

  • The District again said they are “not interested” in our proposal to achieve equal pay for equal work by moving to pay faculty by FLC (also known as “pay by load,” which would achieve pay equity between full- and part-time faculty) at this time.  The District re-proposed the existing salary schedules, and that we form a joint District-Faculty study group to study moving to paying by FLC.  The District insisted that a study group should be formed before moving to pay-by load. AFT disagrees that it is a necessary step.
  • The District rejected nearly all of our other proposals on this topic, including on substitute pay rates, compensation beyond 175 academic calendar days, and our proposal for increasing FLCs for multi-level sections.

 

Hours of Employment (Article 7)

Both the District and we presented our third counters on this article – the District went first.

  • 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, versus our proposal which is that they “will be carried out at a time and place appropriate for the activity” to mirror the language for professional duties for instructional faculty in our current contract.  We have yet to hear an explanation why the District is insisting counselors be on campus while performing these duties.
  • On 7.11 regarding Flex Days, they proposed 3 flexible / 3 required flex days on campus, and we again proposed keeping current contract language (2 required, 4 flexible, no requirement of “on campus”).
    • We had some areas of agreement on 7.11.2 regarding flex days for PTers, but continue to work on language to be inclusive of all faculty.  The District is insisting on using “student contact hours,” and we proposed “contracted hours” to be inclusive of other faculty who don’t have assigned student contact hours.

 

Article 9, Health and Welfare Benefits

The District presented its second counter.

  • The District rejected our proposal that the District’s contribution to premiums be equivalent to100% for all Kaiser plans, and replaced it with current contract language (88%).  The District argued that because 88% is a percentage, when healthcare premiums go up, the District’s payment toward the premium also goes up.  Conversely…
  • On dental for FT faculty, the District rejected our proposal of the District covering up to $5,000, and re-proposed current contract language of $2,000 (note: this is a fixed number, not a percentage, so the District’s payment wouldn’t rise as costs rise and it has not changed for many years).
  • On Salary Continuation Insurance for FT faculty, we had proposed an increase to $10,000/month, and the District proposed current contract language of $5,000/month.

 

Safety Conditions of Employment (Article 16)

We presented our first counter proposal on this article.

  • We re-proposed language regarding the need for emergency call boxes;
  • We proposed that this contract article is subject to arbitration (according to our grievance procedure in Article 17);
  • We proposed adjusted language about a faculty member being able to leave the classroom if they feel unsafe;
  • We re-proposed our language regarding making SMCCCD a Safe Workplace for transgender faculty.  We told the District that while it’s great they intend to follow the law regarding non-discrimination, we know that the current political situation means the law could change at any time, and our proposed language is stronger than the minimum provided by law.

 

Faculty Load Credit (FLC) Allocation (Appendix F )

The District did not present a counter on this Appendix.

 

Academic Freedom (New Article)

The District did not present a counter to our proposal 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