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