Colleagues:
As the Thanksgiving Holiday rapidly approaches I wanted to give all of you an update on this years negotiations, the grievance we filed in September and several important reminders.
- The Employee Engagement Survey-For the past few weeks we have all received e-mails about the importance of completing the Employee Engagement Survey. On behalf of the Executive Committee, I want to encourage all of you to complete the survey as soon as you can. This is the time for each of us to provide the Administration with our opinion on a variety of topics covered in the survey. Completing the survey only takes about 15 minutes, the results are confidential, and the results will be published in the form of a report in the coming months. The Chapter has membership on the Employee Engagement Advisory Committee and we have a voice in helping to recommend actions the Administration can take based on the results of the survey. Please take some time to complete the survey.
- The Food Pantries-This is the time of year when the food pantries on each campus need to be filled so that our most needy students can benefit from our collective generosity. When you come into the office next week try to remember to bring a few items for the pantry on your campus. I know our students will appreciate you efforts.
- Negotiations-The salary, EAP, and overload ESH provisions of our current contract expire at the end of this academic year. Negotiations for next year’s salary, EAP, and overload dollar amounts began this week. These negotiations will continue on a regular basis until an agreement has been reached. As with past negotiations, all discussions held at the table are confidential. Once an agreement has been reached, a joint statement Labor/Management statement will be released. I will try to keep you all posted on the progress our Negotiating Team is making without violating the confidentiality of the negotiations. We all owe a debt of thanks to our Negotiating Team-Sharon Piper our Chief Negotiator, Tammy Peery, Rick Penn, Tito Baca, and Michael Gurevitz.
- The grievance-Last month I provided all of you with a detailed update on the status of our raises for this year and the grievance we filed against the College. The steps in the grievance process are outlined in our Collective Bargaining Agreement. I filed the grievance in September and shortly after that step 1 of the grievance process was completed. We are now in step 2 of the grievance process and I anticipate that we will be moving to step 3 in the process right after the Thanksgiving holidays. I encourage each of you to review the steps in the grievance process. As I mentioned in my previous update, until such time as the grievance is resolved, no wage adjustments will be made to salaries of the full-time faculty. We believe the merits of this grievance are so important that the membership voted to continue the grievance through to arbitration and we on the Executive Committee are prepared to do follow the direction of our membership. I will keep all of you posted on the progress of the grievance and the status of the arbitration, once that process starts.
- Counselors Sick Leave Issue-This is an issue that has been on-going for almost a year-and-a-half. We have been working with members of the Administration to resolve a shortage of earned sick leave hours that should have been granted to counselors who worked over the summer months. This shortage, for some counselors, dates back to 1999. Through our cooperative efforts with members of the HRSTM staff, the issue was partially resolved for a number of counselors. We are now working with the HRSTM staff to completely resolve this issue. After the Thanksgiving break I will be sending an e-mail to all current and former full-time counselors asking them to provide me with some information. I will collate that information and work with the HRSTM staff to resolve the issue over the summer months.
Thank you for taking the time to read this brief update. On behalf of the entire AAUP Executive Committee I want to with all of you a pleasant Thanksgiving Holiday.
On behalf of the Chapter,
Harry Z.
Harry N. Zarin, Counselor
President AAUP
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