Today’s action of rocking the boat a little was designed to send a message to the captains in charge of the boat that the people manning the oars are unhappy. The captains may not have known this before. Unless you are actually sitting at the negotiations table, you don’t really know what is going on and that is true for management as well as the workers. Joe could be telling the Board that everything is going well. I am sure he wants to look like he knows what he is doing and that he has things under control. I hope that this gentle rocking is enough to attract attention and to get a reasonable offer for the people manning the oars. Unfortunately, in NJ we can not legally strike, but we can rock harder if necessary.

Very few full-time faculty attended today’s in-service workshops. The Culinary Faculty felt they had to attend because it was a contractual day, but all of them wore large red buttons that said “Settle Now!” One culinary faculty felt slighted that there was no mention of the Academy of Culinary Arts’ silver anniversary. The Academy is celebrating Twenty-five years of successfully graduating skilled workers for the hospitality industry of Atlantic and Cape May Counties.

The Department of Labor has a web site of consumer price indexes. http://www.dol.gov It would take weeks to read all the information on the site and it is only an approximation of the increase in living costs. If, however, you know what has been happening to the price of energy, houses, text books, and medicine, you know it is getting more expensive to live. The adjusted CPI for urban and clerical workers in the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City area for 2005 was 4.1 percent and for the first half of this year was 4.3 percent and going up. The articles I have read state that the trend of increasing CPI will continue and the next year will be 5 something. A four or five percent raise may allow you to continue treading water, but definitely will not allow you to change your lifestyle. In any event, the offers that were on the table yesterday for support staff were 2.0 and 2.5. I don’t remember the details, but they do not matter because you would never vote to accept that percentage anyway. In addition, I faint when I see my own blood.

Will Parsons, Coordinator of the Unity Negotiations Team

Today, August 30, the ACCCEA Unity Negotiations Team met with Board representative Joe Rossi upstairs in J building. The Support Staff contract was discussed. Joe was alone; Karen Beckman and Cindy DeFalco were absent again. Representing the College employees were Michelle Bevan, Phil Cragg, Renee DeAngleo, Nick Ganaway, Dan Matt, Mitch Mischlich, Dom Nigro, Will Parsons, Marsha Patrick, Ed Perkins, Rhonda Petruzzi, Jim Sacchinelli, John Stratton, and Penny Wells. The meeting began at noon and lasted until 8 pm. People who join the team for the first time are usually amazed at how much time it takes.

I am happy to report some progress, but sad to report that we are not close to closure. Negotiations is like chess where there is a beginning game, middle game, and an end game. We are not into the end game yet. We will not get there until the money offer on the table is in the range of the recent settlements of other community colleges in New Jersey. We need to get the message to the Board to be more realistic. The next scheduled negotiations meeting is September 19.

I am sorry I gave you an incorrect email address yesterday. Sometimes I work late at night, like tonight, and I get careless. My email address is wkparsons@comcast,net. If you sent in suggestions about how to use $72,000 to help the students and it bounced back, try again. I have received some interesting suggestions. Will Parsons, Unity Negotiations Team Coordinator

One of the things we hear a lot at the table is that management’s proposal is “because we are here for the students”. Some of you might have heard me say that the estimated cost for the President’s Coronation is $75,000. I was corrected today − It is $72,000. I have not seen the list of what is included in that estimate, but I am sure there are other hidden costs. I doubt it includes the hours and hours spent by the managers, clerical people, and technical people making the arrangement. That time could be spent “for the students”.

Yesterday I suggested a contest where you would try to match the top management with their salary increase for this year. The average is way above the CPI. Another thought I have is a contest where people could send in suggestions about how $72,000 could be better spent “for the students”. For instance, the Academy of Culinary Arts has a Bakery and Pastry program. Would you believe that the Academy does not have a Baking oven that works? They purchased two on bid and paid for them. When they came in, they did not work. They are substandard. For $40,000 we could purchase an oven comparable to what other culinary programs have. That is just an example. Send me your suggestions. wkparsons@comcast.net

The Unity Negotiations Team met with Joe Rossi, Board representative, today in J202. Karen Beckman and Cindy DeFalco, Joe’s other team members, were absent. Representing the ACCC Education Association were Michelle Bevan, Phil Cragg, Claire Farnum, Nick Ganaway, Dennis Huey Dan Matt, Dom Nigro, Will Parsons, Heather Peterson, Jim Sacchinelli, John Stratton, Jim Taggart, Jim Usilton, and Penny Wells. There was some “movement at the table” today, but we are still not close to a settlement. The money is less than what other community colleges have gotten and significantly less than the CPI for South Jersey. Also they want to increase our medical co pay. The Board’s real plan may be to stall negotiations until January and collect interest on our wages. We do not want to spend hundreds of hours more talking about nothing. The Unity Negotiations Team has decided to initiate the plan of the Emergency Action Council to try to speed up the process. Stay tuned for further developments.

Three weeks ago, the faculty unit received an “off the table” proposal from Joe. One of the problems with the type of negotiations we do is that neither side has much room to explore options. One way to loosen up the process a little is to have informal meetings with just a couple people and with nothing in writing. The negotiations I have been involved in have ended with the chief negotiators going into the hall to get the final settlement. The offer we received from Joe was in writing and could just as well have been “on the table”. We responded and Joe countered and we determined that we had no room to counter so then the ACCCOSAP contract was on the table. There was one go-around with that contract but after waiting a long time for Joe to counter, at 4:00 we decided to call it a day. That was five hours of “negotiating”. Probably less than 5% of the time spent “at the table” occurs with both sides present. Most of the time is spent waiting for the other side to come back with a proposal.

This was the last time Clair will be able to attend sessions. She has resigned her counseling position at the College to enter Rutgers’ BSN program. We will miss her wisdom and energy at negotiations. Claire is the advisor for the nursing students whom I know will miss her also. Best wishes Claire from all of us. Will Parsons, Coordinator for the Unity Negotiations Team

Representatives of the Unity Negotiations Team and the Emergency Action Council met today in “A” building. The representatives reviewed events during the three-week negotiations hiatus. Not much has happened. One problem we have in reaching a settlement is that management has proposals for changes in working conditions for the Culinary Faculty that seem to address no problem. The Academy of Culinary Arts enrollment is up significantly − all the kitchens are full. The Culinary Faculty have always been flexible in meeting the needs of the students. Often over the years the ACA has been praised by professional organizations for the quality of the program.

In an effort to understand where these proposals were coming from, Klaus Muller, Dean of the Academy, asked Dr. Wexler to talk to the Culinary Faculty about the future of the ACA. I was not at the meeting, but it was agreed by the Faculty and others present, that the presentation was very vague. It was nothing like a business plan, no specifics, more like the beginning of a vision. In the question and answer period, Dr. Wexler often responded, “I don’t know”. Unfortunately we know no more now than we did before.

Tomorrow morning at 11 a.m., we will be negotiating the Academic Faculty contract and possibly the ACCCOSAP contract. At that time, I hope we will get signals that the Board wants to settle. I will post a paragraph tomorrow night to let you know how it went.

Someone has suggested that I set up a matching game where I list in one column the top administrators’ salaries and in another file their percent salary increase for this year arranged randomly. The goal will be to match the administrator with the administrator’s increase. Sound like fun? Will Parsons, Unity Negotiations Coordinator