CTA Schedule for Spring

Folks:

I’m writing to offer schedules for two things: a) negotiations; b) CTA meetings this semester.

First, the CTA meetings. As I mentioned, the Exec Board recommended going on Tuesdays at 3 PM-4PM, and it makes sense to me. They also recommended a few fewer meetings…something about being tired of hearing me yak, who could imagine why. But be that as it may, here’s the proposed schedule:

Jan. 30, Tuesday, 3 PM: negotiations progress and semester issues.

Feb. 20, Tuesday, 3 PM: negotiations and accreditation

Mar. 13, Tuesday, 3 PM: negotiations

Apr. 3, Tuesday, 3 PM: negotiations; discussion of TAs; ratification vote?

May 1, Tuesday, 3 PM: election process/nominations

May 22, Tuesday, 3 PM: candidates talk/elections

Now obviously, we can add meetings if emergencies arise. And I am going to continue scheduling the workshops, to discuss issues such as health insurances and how they work. But if you don’t mind, please let me know by Wed., next week, if you have things that you’d really like to discuss that I’m leaving out. We’ll need to get a full Agenda next week, and I don’t want to shortchange anybody.

Next—the rough cut of a negotiations schedule for the Spring.

Jan. 15-Feb. 1: Contract fixes, easy TAs
a) the “clean and final,” Contract
b) adding already-negotiated language on PT STRS, and Intellectual Property Rights
c) language fixes on overload, assignment?

Feb. 1-Feb. 15: Non-teaching Faculty Issues
a) Evaluation Forms for all positions
b) Issues with NY evaluation process
c) Job descriptions
d) “Accountable hours”

Feb. 15-Mar. 7: Salary and Benefits
a) “regularizing,” the salary schedule
b) PT/Overload/Summer salaries
c) Health insurance cap
d) Health insurance plans
e) Benefits Fund
f) PT issues

Mar. 7-Mar. 17: Hiring Policies

As you can see, this is a lot of work in a short time for the negotiations folks—if you’ve never done this stuff, you should thanks them a lot—but it should get us done, with a couple weeks leeway, before April Fools’ day—which seems appropriate.

Please let me, or your team, or your exec Board, know your thoughts—they’ve been universally helpful. Of course, we will be thrashing through this stuff in meetings, and in workshops. Ray Barney has agreed to parachute in again, fairly soon—February, he’s saying—for another teaching moment he calls, “Unionism 101: How To Be A Member.” It’ll be on a Tuesday, during or immediately following a CCA meeting.

By the way, I will be at the Prez’ convention, Feb. 2-Feb. 4. Please let me know if there are constituent issues you’d like raised, and I’ll see what I can do.

Hard copies of this memo will follow on Monday, when I’m here again.

So—as always--thanks to all of you who’ve been working hard to support your faculty association, and let’s git r’done.

Thanks,
R.M. Robertson, President,
Palo Verde Community College Association, CTA/CCA