Protects Fully Paid Medical, Dental, Vision through 12/31/2011

Dear College Faculty Colleagues,
I am pleased to announce that after many months of difficult negotiations, especially given these tough economic times, the Guild has successfully concluded a new three year revenue sharing agreement with the District.  The new agreement guarantees all classified staff and faculty 100% of any COLA the District might receive from the state over the next three years.  Furthermore, it ensures full premium payments for medical (Kaiser rate), dental, and vision through December 31, 2011.

This new Resource Allocation Formula (RAF) also continues the Guild's flexibility to expend its resources as it sees fit, without the need for negotiations, provided those resources are used to increase the compensation level of existing salary schedules, stipends, benefits, programs or services.  The establishment of new programs would have to first be negotiated with the District.

The "bonus" payments of the past have now been modified to be true retroactive payments.  Here's how it will work:  since we never have a signed state budget by July 1of the fiscal year, new on-schedule salary increases will take effect on January 1 of each year, just as we have done over the past four years.  On January 31 for contract employees, and February 10 for adjunct employees, all unit members will receive the COLA percentage for that year applied to all earnings from the previous July 1- December 31 period as their retroactive "bonus" payment.

What did we give up to get this?  We gave up a small portion of growth money from 2007-08 that would have become payable on July 1, 2009, and we agreed to drop the on-going dispute with the District regarding the accounting method for the equalization revenue health benefit reserves.

What else did we gain?  In addition to the gains listed above, the District agrees to pay the AFT the adjunct office hours rebate it received from the state for the years 2006-07 and 2007-08.  All future rebates will go directly to the AFT allocation account.
We also now have an agreed upon cost-out methodology to be used when calculating our future allocation costs.  Recall that the impediment to our past settlements centered on the cost-out methodology the District was using which was shortchanging what was due to the AFT's members.

Another advantage to this agreement is that the District has agreed to consolidate both faculty bargaining units (college and continuing education) into a single faculty unit.  Everyone's contractual provisions will remain the same, but from here forward, all faculty will be negotiating with the added strength of one solid bargaining unit.
Lastly, this agreement ensures that the District cannot attempt to obtain any other economic concessions from us throughout the term of this agreement.
We are currently preparing these ratification materials to be US mailed to your home address.  This agreement can be viewed in its entirety at http://tinyurl.com/NewRAF.  If you have any questions regarding any aspect of this agreement, please do not hesitate to contact me at 619-640-1155 or via email at aftjim@pacbell.net.
Given these tough economic times, I am hopeful all faculty and staff will agree that having this three year agreement–which guarantees full COLA, full funding of health benefits, and contract stability–is in everyone's best interest.  On behalf of your Executive Council who endorsed this agreement unanimously, I urge your "YES" vote on this ratification.
In Unity,
Jim Mahler, President
AFT Guild, Local 1931