Negotiations Report #22, Part 2

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October 29, 2025

Before we get to the Bargaining Report:

  • Red Shirt Wednesday Reminder– we are re-ordering shirts a third time this semester because so many faculty have been participating!
  • Please RSVP here to join our Informational Picket Line at the Board of Trustees on Wednesday, Oct. 29th, 4:15-5:15pm. This is our last big action before we likely head into impasse.

The main takeaways from our twenty-first negotiation session on Oct. 24th:

This negotiation session was basically a farce. We came prepared and ready to bargain; the District, on the other hand, entered with a pre-meditated plan to go to impasse instead of presenting counteroffers they owed us on Compensation (Art. 8), Health & Welfare Benefits (Art. 9), and Retirement (Art. 10).

It’s not hard to see why the District prefers impasse to making an offer on these economic issues in negotiations: they don’t want you to see their lowball offers! Our boycott and rally on Flex day spooked them, proving that our faculty are fired up and united in our fight for a fair contract. As a result, the District is retreating to impasse so they can hide their offers behind the cover of confidential mediation sessions, trying to suck the air out of our contract campaign’s momentum. So our job is to keep escalating: keep organizing our colleagues and our students, and build to strike-readiness, which we’ll discuss at our Nov. 12th Membership meeting.

Over the coming weeks & months, do not forget that the District refused to protect your Academic Freedom even though it wouldn’t cost them a penny to do so, and that the District’s last compensation offer to you was for 2.75% / 3.25% annual raises (full-time and non-instructional adjunct / instructional adjunct salary schedules). That’s less than inflation/COLA, far less than the District revenue increase %, less than the offer they’ve already made to our sibling unions AFSCME and CSEA (4%/3%/3% plus $3,000 stipends), and far less than comparable Basic Aid Districts Marin and West Valley-Mission gave their faculty recently (15% over 3 years).

Let that fuel your fire! 

 

Current Bargaining Report

AFT Negotiation Team: Monica Malamud (Chief Negotiator), Chet Lexvold, and Luis Zuñiga.  Also in attendance from AFT were President Rika Yonemura-Fabian and Observers Mick Song, Lale Yurtseven, and Gampi Shankar.

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

 

Workload (Article 6 and Appendix D)

We brought counter #4 on this article.

  • On 6.1, we brought back the copied and pasted language from Appendix F that explains that although 30 FLCs is considered a full-time assignment, 28-31 FLCs are acceptable.
  • We accepted their strikethrough of our proposed language that said if ancillary work can be loaded, the District shall report “reportable” time spent on ancillary work to CalSTRS (the District should already be reporting this to CalSTRS).
  • In 6.3 we accepted their language about PT faculty receiving payment for ancillary work, but we proposed added language that the District must justify, in writing within 7 days, if for some reason Deans or the District do not approve payment for ancillary time.
  • On 6.6, we proposed status quo as we are not making progress here.

Appendix D

  • In A2, we again brought back “mental health student club advising,” “receiving” clinical supervision for licensure, and “peer consultation.”  We acknowledged that all other club advising is voluntary; however, advising the Active Minds club requires professional expertise from a licensed personal counselor and is listed in the job description for postings for open positions.
    • Regarding the “receiving clinical supervision” section, we responded to the District’s argument from the previous session by pointing out that from 2017-2024, there were 6 counselors who needed to receive clinical supervision in order to become licensed, and currently at Skyline, 3 are not licensed and receive clinical supervision.
  • In A3, we struck out the word “scheduled” because it conflicted with the “not scheduled” phrase in the same sentence regarding when counselors must perform professional duties on campus.
  • We re-added “work performed as a program coordinator” to the list of ancillary work and rebutted the District’s (false) argument that listed ancillary activities in a CBA must be related to examples provided in Ed Code, citing commencement as one such example of an ancillary activity in our CBA that is completely unrelated to examples listed in the Ed Code.

When we returned from caucus, the District said they rejected all of our proposals and we are at impasse on Article 6 / Appendix D.

 

Academic Freedom (New Article)

The District again refused to bargain on academic freedom, claiming it’s not a mandatory subject of bargaining.  In a bizarre twist, the District, for the very first time, also claimed that academic freedom is in the contract in Article 15 and Appendix G, which have to do with evaluations.  When we pointed out that’s only with regard to evaluations, the District tried to argue that’s the only place faculty need academic freedom protections. Both Monica and Luis from our team pointed out it could come up in curriculum development, grading, any lecture, and a number of different places.  Then the District said the Board policy and investigation procedures are for those situations. There was much back-and-forth over this, including a discussion about a recent grievance and PERB case we brought on behalf of one of our faculty members whose academic freedom was not protected despite the existence of the Board Policy. In another odd argument, the District claimed that the investigation process determines whether lecture content is appropriate or not, not faculty expertise. The District tried to claim that even though there was a finding against our faculty member in that case, because they didn’t discipline the member, it proved we don’t need academic freedom protection in our contract.

 

Chet’s note: The above exchange shows the District 1) refuses to understand what academic freedom entails, despite the numerous occasions in which faculty spoke to educate the Board of Trustees on what academic freedom means to us in the context of our professional duties, and 2) wants total power to decide what is and isn’t protected by academic freedom. That is why they refuse to bargain on this topic that would cost them zero dollars to incorporate into our contract.

 

Compensation, Article 8

The District didn’t bring a counter to our last proposal, instead claiming we are at impasse. Their last proposal on comp was Sept. 18th, and prior to that, their last compensation proposal was July 17th.

 

Article 9, Health and Welfare Benefits

  • Even though we had moved 3% on the District’s coverage for premiums for two-party and family Kaiser plans in our previous counter, the District refused to make a counter and said they want to file for impasse on this article.
  • Throughout all our negotiations, the District never made an offer to increase dental coverage one penny. The current amount they provide is $2,000, and since that number is a flat number and not a %, it hasn’t increased in many years despite dental costs obviously increasing simply due to inflation over that time.
  • Also in our previous counter we had moved on our proposal regarding salary continuation insurance, but again the District refused to make a counter.

 

Article 10, Retirement

The District didn’t bring a counter to our last proposal, instead claiming we are at impasse. In our previous counter, we had proposed that for anyone who retired after June 30, 2025, the healthcare contribution would go up to $1,000/month (from $450) until they reached Medicare-eligibility (65).  Over the last three years, only 10 retirees were under 65, and two were 64. This is a nominal number, yet the District refuses to offer anything different than the $450 amount that has been in the contract for decades.

 

Hours of Employment (Article 7)

  • On 7.6.1, we are close to agreement with the exception of one meaningful word: “scheduled.”  The District wants to have it, and we want to strike it.
  • On Flex Days, they accepted our rejection of their proposed “on campus” requirement for required flex days.
  • 7.13 they agree it’s repetitive but want to keep this language here and in Article 8; our counter is to just put “See 8.13” here.

 

Safety Conditions of Employment (Article 16)

The District again rejected our language about faculty having the right to stop class if there’s a safety concern.  We have agreed to some language about putting up posters specific to transgender and gender nonconforming employee rights on campuses, but have not reached agreement on the specific location(s) of where these should be posted.

 

Faculty Load Credit (FLC) Allocation (Appendix F )

There has been no movement from the District here.

 

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; there has been so little movement on it by either party, we are setting it aside for now.

 

Professional Development Leave Program, Article 13.

We have reached a Tentative Agreement on this article.

 

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