I had hoped to report on the May 9 and May 12 negotiations, but those meeting were cancelled by Joe Rossi. There was also a meeting scheduled for May 23, but that was cancelled by Dom Nigro. Dom and Joe are going back and forth by email trying to set up meeting dates. Right now no dates are scheduled. Scheduling meetings is a major factor in slowing the process. At the rate things are going, our chances of settling before July 1 are slim. Once we get to July, it is going to be more difficult to schedule meetings. Another factor that slows down negotiations is the length of time it takes to firm up the College’s budget.

The way negotiations works is that the non-money issues are negotiated first. If money were settled first, one side would have a difficult time getting the other side to negotiate seriously. Another reason non-money issues are first is that the Board does not want to settle until it knows how much money it has. Back in the late Seventies, the legislature passed a bill stating that school labor negotiations had to begin before October first of the last year of the contract. One year we did start that early, and we tried to get to money faster by putting only money issues in our proposal. It did not work. The problem is that “negotiate” means that you sit at the table and talk. It does not mean that you agree to anything.

The Board will not seriously talk money until it has made a tentative budget in January. It does not know how much money is coming in from the State until the end of June. The only year we settled before the contract ran out was when Orth was President. We settled before July first because he decided we would settle before July first.

So first the Board decides how much money it will give us, and then we negotiate to make sure we get what they have decided to give us. I know on a couple of contracts, we got more than what they budgeted. One problem is that the Board sometimes is unrealistic. The County people compare us to what the County employees are getting. ACCC gets some of its money from the County, but we are not County employees. We compare ourselves to what the other community colleges are getting. The Presidents of the Colleges talk to each other and the unions talk to each other. Even though the community colleges negotiate independently, usually the settlements are not far apart. One college came in high recently, but they are coming off a 3%, 3%, and 3% contract. One year when Bush was president, we were high with 8, 8 1/4, and 8 1/2. The reason we were high is that Bush decided we would be high. He said that he really got blasted by the other presidents. He also got fired because of financial problems.

Negotiations often takes a whole year to complete. After it is over, neither side is happy. Then you look at the contract. You see how little has changed and wonder why it took so long.

Will Parsons, Unity Bargaining Team Coordinator