Health Benefit Agreement Ratified! Now What?
Your Chapter 262 Executive Board and Negotiations Team want to send out a big, huge THANK YOU! to all CSEA 262 members who participated this past year in all the informational meetings, surveys, question and answer sessions, and all the terrific feedback, including all the concerns. After more than a year of negotiations, Chapter 262 and the District reached a tentative agreement on health benefits, which you all ratified and the Board of Trustees approved. Your ratification of the agreement was a testament of approval for all the time and effort your negotiations team put into this agreement.
More than 51 percent of classified employees of Unit A participated in this vote. That is the best turnout in our Chapter’s memory! We had more than 90 members at the June Chapter Meeting, one of the biggest turnouts ever, and our Chapter web site exploded with activity — more than 1,200 individual page views in one month reviewing the Health Benefits section of the site (which will remain available for the time being). You can be sure your Chapter Webmaster is very, very pleased about that!
Now that the vote is done and the Board of Trustees has approved the TA as well as the separation from CalPERS, what happens next? There is still quite a bit of work ahead, more negotiations, and a transition from CalPERS to SISC that must be done by the September open-enrollment period. One of the first things to be done is to start reviewing the various single-party, two-party, and family plans available from Kaiser and Blue Shield provided through SISC. As your Chapter leadership learns more about how this process will work, you will be kept informed and may be asked to answer more surveys or provide more feedback about your needs and wants.
Your Chapter 262 leaders ensure you this process will be as transparent and informed as the process for the vote to choose SISC. While there were a few people who were unhappy with the Chapter’s inability to accommodate all classified employees, let us remember there are about 480 current CSEA 262 members, and only a handful (less than 10 as a matter of fact) who complained about not being able to participate. At the same time, this negotiations process has taken more time, provided more detailed and specific information to members, held more meetings, utilized more surveys and Q&A, and was more attended by chapter members than any contract negotiations in our chapter’s history. Here are more statistics to consider:
There were 241 votes cast for this TA (more than any vote in chapter history)
The vote was 179 yes and 62 no — 74.3% or three out of four members
There were 51% of ALL MEMBERS who voted (not just those in attendance of a meeting, a higher percentage than any vote in chapter history)
As your chapter leaders move forward negotiating the health benefit plans with SISC and the District, keep in mind the two most critical guiding principles by which CSEA 262 operates — the best deal for the most members and “equal or better.” The goal is to negotiate the best plans that provide the best coverage for the greatest number of members, but even the “cheapest” plan must be equal or better to the equivalent plans under CalPERS. You may not end up with a plan that is better than your current plan, but it will at least be equal to your current plan.
Summertime No Time for Down Time
If you have been a long-time Mt. SAC employee, you know that the end of the Spring semester is followed by the Summer and typically some relief to the urgency and the usual hurry-up-I-need-it-yesterday activities during the academic year. After Spring finals, faculty had a week to complete all grading and turn in grades. Information Technology had a few days to process the grades and make sure all records were updated for registration. Student Services had time to process all their paperwork, do their year-end reports, and start preparing for summer school. If you have been a long-time Mt. SAC employee, you remember fondly of those days because those days are long gone.
This past semester has been one of the busiest in recent memory, and most of us are probably not even aware of all that has happened. Just reading some of what these were can be exhausting. Probably the most significant to CSEA 262 members is the passing of the Health Benefits tentative agreement after more than a year of negotiations with the District, months of evaluating health provider vendors and plans, more than ten informational meetings, hundreds of questions, several member surveys, member feedback, and literally hundreds of hours of work from the negotiating teams — the first step is complete. Yes, the FIRST step. There is still much more to do.
Construction of the new multi-multi-million-dollar Student Center has begun, and demolition of the last row-buildings has started. The college bookstore will also be moving to its new location just south of the new Student Center. The Instruction Office will also be moving to the top-floor above the bookstore building. While not a physical relocation, a reorganization has moved Professional Development back over into Human Resources. In May CSEA 262 and 651 held a very successful Classified School Employees week with a great luncheon from Management Steering and another Hollywood edition of The Classys produced by Classified Senate.
There is much more to tell but suffice it to say that this summer will not be a period of downtime for anyone. We are all busy, we are working a summer 4/10 schedule, and the Fall Semester is going to arrive faster than we want. Just remember to stop, take a breath, close your eyes, and turn yourself “off” for a few minutes every day, and keep up the outstanding work that you do for the college and our students as classified professionals.
CSEA 262 Welcomes New Members
At the July 10 Board meeting, the following classified professionals were hired or promoted:
Newly Hired Classified Professionals:
Daniel Berumen, Senior Research Analyst (Research and Institutional Effectiveness)
Jamie Carranza, Student Services Program Specialist II (Counseling)
Allan Castillo, Senior Systems Analyst/Programmer (Information Technology)
Raul Corcuera, Grounds and Horticultural Technician — Campus (Grounds)
Wendi English, Administrative Specialist I (Community and Contract Education)
Ignacio Flores, Grounds and Horticultural Technician — Campus (Grounds)
Cheri Hollenbeck, Laboratory Assistant — Child Development Observation (Business)
Jacinta Jocson, Project/Program Specialist (Strong Workforce)
Desiree Landeros, Administrative Specialist I (Financial Aid)
Eric Lopez-Blount, Administrative Specialist I (Financial Aid)
Gabrielle Quiroz, Student Services Program Specialist II (Student Life)
Jaime Rodriguez, Senior Research Analyst (Research and Institutional Effectiveness)
Shantel Sanchez, Administrative Specialist I (Child Development Center)
Brenda Ton Ho, Admissions and Records Specialist I (English as a Second Language)
Congratulations also go to those who were promoted:
Priscilla Romero, Fiscal Specialist (Fiscal Services)
Shoshawna Smith, Dispatcher II (Police and Campus Safety)
Jazmin Vargas, Coordinator, Project/Program (Financial Aid)
If you happen to see any of these colleagues during your day, extend a warm welcome, invite them to lunch, show them around, and make them feel welcome. Bring them along to the next Chapter meeting so they can introduce themselves.
Upcoming Legislation
Discussing politics in polite company is always a risky business because there are as many diverse ideals and political philosophies as there are people, and you do not want to offend anyone. Talking about babies, especially newborns offends almost no one and usually brings a smile to everyone’s disposition. Here is some news from the State Legislature than mixes both babies and politics but may have a huge impact and benefit to classified professionals who are planning or about to have a child.
The State legislature is considering Assembly Bill 500 “Paid Maternity Leave.” It is just what the title implies. If passed, this bill would provide all classified professionals with up-to six weeks of paid maternity leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child. Existing law requires the community college district to provide for a leave of absence from duty for a female employee in the classified service of the district who is required to be absent from duty because of pregnancy or convalescence following childbirth. Currently, the law provides for leave, but the leave is unpaid. If you want to be paid, you must use sick leave, vacation leave, or compensatory time if accrued. This bill will require the District to pay you and preserve your other leaves for your use (like those inevitable doctor visits you will make with a newborn and toddler).
If passed by the State lawmakers, this will be a huge benefit to classified professionals. However, it will also be another encumbrance that the District will have to budget for each year. However, this bill has been sailing through the Legislature with only a very small margin of resistance. A similar bill was vetoed in 2017 by then Governor Brown, but it will likely have better luck with Governor Newsom, who also included funding in the 2019-20 State Budget to extend paid family leave benefits from six weeks to eight weeks beginning July 1, 2020.
Another bill under consideration is AB 302 (Berman, D-Palo Alto)—Parking: Homeless Students. This bill will require Mt. SAC and other community college to allow access to parking facilities for homeless students enrolled in at least six units to sleep in their cars overnight. The bill was amended due to liability and safety concerns from community colleges. These recent amendments would require colleges to:
Provide a form to the participating students that clearly and conspicuously indicates that the CCD cannot ensure the safety of a student who participates in overnight parking
Establish overnight parking rules that participating students must follow, including a zero-tolerance policy for use of drugs or alcohol
Establish a procedure for registering and verifying the identity of eligible students and their vehicles
Establish a procedure for identifying participating students who have engaged in behaviors that pose a substantial threat to the physical safety of other participating students and, as necessary, warning such students to correct their behavior or revoking their eligibility to participate in overnight parking
Develop a document that clearly and concisely describes the rules and procedures established and provide this document to the participating students
This bill is meant to be a short-term solution until more sustainable solutions to help homeless students can be found. However, many community colleges and liability organizations oppose the bill.
Upcoming EEO Training
Mt. SAC’s most important asset is its employees, because without exceptional administrators, managers, faculty, and classified professionals, Mt. SAC might as well be a parking lot. CSEA 262 needs you to volunteer as a CSEA representative for selection committees. To serve as a CSEA 262 representative, you must be a Chapter member and cannot work in the department hiring the employee. You also must attend a Selection Committee/EEO training within the last two years. If you have not received the training, the next available training will be Thursday, August 1 at 2pm. Please register at the Professional and Organizational Development Activities Calendar (https://prodweb.mtsac.edu/prodapex/f?p=205:15:::NO:15:P15_ACTIVITYID:9320) and log in to register.
For more information or to volunteer to serve on a committee, please contact Marlene Espina (vp2@csea262.org ormespina@mtsac.edu).
“To improve the lives of our members, students, and community.”
CSEA Chapter 262 • 1100 N. Grand Avenue Walnut, California 91789 • 909.274.6262 • www.csea262.org