Dear Office/Technical Colleagues,
I am pleased to share with you the economic improvements we have negotiated for the office/technical unit effective January 1, 2015.
You may not be aware that there are about a dozen O/T employees, some of whom have been working in the District as long as 16 years, who have been held to a 40-45% contract assignment in order to ensure they could not qualify for health benefits. I am proud to say that as a major component of this settlement we have reached agreement with the District to increase all of their loads to 50% so that they will now qualify for the District provided health benefits package everyone else enjoys.
The other major component of our settlement was to increase the percentage between steps I and J from the current 2.0% up to 3.8%. That translates to the following:
If you are currently on steps C-H, you will receive your 5.0% step increase in January (ten month employees in February);
If you are currently on step I, you will receive the 3.8% step increase in January (ten month employees in February);
If you are currently on steps J, K, or L, you will receive a 3.2% step increase in January (ten month employees in February);
If you are currently on step M, you will receive a 5.4% step increase in January (ten month employees in February);
If you are currently on the top step N, you will receive the 1.8% increase in January (ten month employees in February).
We continue to make progress each year toward our eventual goal of ensuring all steps have 5.0% between them.
The last change we made was to permanently remove the shaded steps at the bottom of the salary schedule, so that the current step C will become the new Step A, current step D will become the new step B, etc. The maximum step for new hire placement will be step B.
I hope you recognize the benefit of these changes for all office/technical workers, not just in 2015, but in the years to come.
The vehicle through which we are able to make these changes is the new Resource Allocation Formula (RAF) we recently concluded negotiating with the District. You can view these documents in their entirety by going to tinyurl.com/SDCCD2014RAF.
We now need to ratify the economic settlement detailed above, and the new Resource Allocation Formula. Your AFT Guild Executive Council urges you to vote YES on both items. Please click here to cast your ballot no later than Friday, December 19th. You must have held an active assignment and been in paid status on the November, 2014 payroll run to be eligible to vote.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me or any of your AFT site reps if you have any questions regarding this settlement. I apologize for this late notice, but this was the best we could do with having just arrived at agreement with the District and wanting to ensure these new provisions are reflected in your January 31st, 2015 paycheck.
I wish you and your families a very warm and restful holiday season!
In Unity,
Jim
Jim Mahler, President
AFT Guild, Local 1931
San Diego & Grossmont-Cuyamaca
Community Colleges
