Recap of November 16th, 2009 Chapter Meeting

For those who weren't able to make it to yesterday's Chapter Meeting, here's the recap:

Layoffs
     The CSU Chancellor's Office sent out a letter warning of possible mid-year layoffs, and of layoffs next year.  (I sent you a copy as soon as it became public.) The letter fails to meet several of the requirements of our contract.  Our contract states that in the event of layoffs, the CSU must first offer voluntary reduction programs, such as employees choosing to work half-time or reduced work-week schedules.  If there aren't enough savings from those, the CSU must identify specific classifications within which they want to make reductions, and they have to have an updated Seniority List, because layoffs within a classification are done in reverse order of Seniority.  Members also have "retreat rights" to a prior classification in which they had achieved permanancy (i.e. were beyond the one-year probationary period).
     CSUMB's administration has stated that they expect no mid-year layoffs for FY09-10, that they believe that careful budget management, management of vacant positions, and our reserves will prevent mid-year layoffs from being needed.  That being said, there are forces at work beyond the control of anyone locally, and if the legislature should impose draconian cuts to the CSU to cope with the current $7 Billion shortfall, we'll have to cope with the implications of that, despite the best of planning and intentions at the local level.
     And for next June, the FY10-11 budget, all bets are off.  We'll know more in January when the Governor's budget becomes public.  The CSU's Chancellor has asked for $1B in budget cuts to be restored, but the chances of that happening is unlikely.
    The Chancellor's Office had previously said that the current Furlough Program ends in June, 2010, and that only layoffs will be considered for next year.  Recently, the Chancellor has softened that position, and has stated privately that "all options are on the table," meaning that extending the current furlough program or creating a new furlough program is a possibility.  The current furlough program does definitely end on June 30, 2010.  CSUEU President Pat Gantt is going to ask the Chancellor at this week's Board of Trustees meeting to go on the record and say that a furlough program for FY10-11 is a possibility.
     So the timeframes are:  January 2010, Governor's budget gets published, and we have an idea of the state of the CSU's budget for FY10-11.  If the Chancellor agrees to the possibility of furloughs from the CSU's side, the question will be put to CSUEU members in February or March of 2010, the same way it happened this last time.  CSUEU's Bargaining Team would then negotiate an agreement to cover FY10-11, and it would be put to a ratification vote of our membership.
     If the Chancellor's office does not permit furloughs, or our members don't want us to negotiate furloughs, or if the Furlough Agreement is voted down, then the CSU would issue layoff notices in April or May of 2010, to take effect July of 2010.
     If the CO agrees to consider furloughs, it wll be our members who decide whether we have another furlough program.

Impact
     I spoke last week to Assemblymember Bill Monning about the impact of furloughs, and the importance of letter the public at large (who are voters) know about the impact of furloughs, and I collected stories from our members about the impacts, which I'll share at the end of this email.
     If you tell the average person your pay was cut by 10% by furloughs, they'll probably think, "Ten percent isn't that much."  To really drive home the impact, tell them instead that you are going unpaid for FIVE WEEKS out of this year....that's right, a MONTH AND A QUARTER WITHOUT PAY.  That seems to resonate with people a lot more than just "10 percent."

CalPERS
     You should have received ballots last week for the CalPERS Board Run-off Election.  CSUEU has endorsed JJ Jelencic in the CalPERS Board election.
     The CSUEU Board of Directors also voted to provide JJ's campaign with the phone numbers of members to do a Robocall about his campaign.  The Board takes the privacy of our members very seriously.  The ONLY information provided is a phone number, and a zip code (so they know where it is geographically).  They are REQUIRED to destroy the phone number after it is used the one time, for this one campaign.  We are not selling or renting member's information; there is no potential for Identity Theft from sharing just a phone number.  (The federal Do Not Call registry does not apply to political campaigns, which is what this is.)
     If an organization votes to endorse a candidate, it means we support that candidate being elected to the position.  We've sent out emails, we've distributed flyers (that the campaign paid for the printing and mailing costs), and now we're providing access to our members for the robocall.  CSUEU is not providing any financial contribution to JJ's campaign.
     JJ Jelencic was two-time past director of the California State Employees Association, and his son Joey Jr. is a CSUEU Steward working at San Francisco State University, one of our sister campuses.
     Just to be clear, CSUEU is not "telling you how to vote," we're just saying that after a review of all the candidates running for the position (and I'm Vice-Chair of the Legislative Committee, so I know how thorough the evaluation of the candidates was),  the CSUEU Board endorsed JJ for CalPERS Board.

CHCRS
     There is a retired millionaire doctor in Orange County who hates State workers.  He's tried a couple times to gut our pensions, and he's trying again.  He wants to create a two-tiered system, where existing employees would be okay, but the maximum pension a new hire could get would put them below the Federal Poverty Level, even after 35 years of service.  At the moment, there's no money behind this, but if you get approached in a supermarket parking lot asking you to sign a petition that has something to do with retirement for state workers, please contact me AT ONCE!  There is a group called Californians for Health Care and Retirement Security that is dedicated to preventing our retirement system from being gutted.

Some Unit 2 Workers Exempt From Furlough
     Because of the H1N1 Flu pandemic, the CSU recently agreed to exempt Unit 2 workers (health care workers) who work in campus Health Centers from the furlough.  It doesn't affect CSUMB, because our Health Center is contracted out to Doctors On Duty, but if you hear from friends on other campuses about some workers getting exempted from furloughs, that's why.

Statewide Grievances on Furloughs
     The Furlough Agreement that CSUEU negotiated with the CSU stated that we could have up to three furlough days in a pay period (except for one month in which we could have five), and there were no restrictions on how many furlough days could be taken in a week.  After negotiating our furlough agreement, the CSU negotiated agreements with APC and CFA that had no more than two days a month, and no more than one day a week.  Whlie most employees at CSUMB are following the stantard furlough schedule, some employees whose furlough days float may have had a furlough schedule with more than one day a week rejected.  If so, you should request it again, in light of the settlement in which the CSU agrees to abide by the restrictions in CSUEU's Furlough Agreement, and not subject us to the restrictions of some other union's furlough agreements.

Compassionate Leave
     We have several members out on Compassionate Leave because of catastrophic medical conditions.  If you have a ton of sick-leave built up, or are friendly with faculty members who have years of sick-leave accrued, or have vacation that you're going to be losing because you aren't using, please donate to our people who need your help and support.

Rural Health Care Stipend
     I talked this weekend to a Senior Labor Relations Rep at CSUEU Headquarters, who assured me that the Rural Health Care Stipend should happen next year, as per usual.  It should be the full $1500 amount.  The contract says it must be distributed "prior to April 1," so look for it in February or March of 2010.  If I hear of any more definitive date, I'll pass it on to you as soon as possible.

CSEA/CSUEU Election Cycle Alignment
     The California State Employees Association, of which we are an affiliate, voted a couple years ago to switch from two year election cycles to three year election cycles, because every CSEA election, which occurs at their General Council meetings, costs $2M.  (CSUEU's share is only 8% of that, but it's still significant).
     If CSUEU kept to a two-year election cycle, and CSEA has their three-year election cycle, it means that 10 out of the next 15 years we'd be conducting some kind of election.  If we align the two cycles, then there are only 5 elections out of the next 15 years, for a savings of five elections.
     Doing some very rough back-of-an-envelop calculations, it looks like that change would save somewhere between $390K to $890K over 15 years, or between $26K to $59K per year.  Because of this, the CSUEU Board voted to align our election cycles to that of CSEA.
     That leaves a gap.  The current CSUEU terms end in 2011, and the next CSEA election cycle starts in 2012.  There are three options:

• Extend the term of current office-holders by one year
• Have an election in 2011 for a one-year term, after which three-year terms are standard
• Have an election in 2011 for a four-year term, after which three-year terms are standard

     This decision will be left up to the members, and will be decided sometime next year.

Bargaining Unit 5
     Gerry Rapacon went to the CSUEU Board of Directors meeting in Sacramento, and met with the Bargaining Unit 5 Council, to network and exchange information.

Bargaining Unit 7
     George Ball went to the CSUEU Board of Directors meeting in Sacramento, where he's on the Bargaining Unit 7 Council.  George talked about the importance of not working without getting paid.  Don't volunteer your time; take your breaks and take lunch; and don't work evenings or weekends.

Bargaining Unit 9
     Gus Leonard went to the CSUEU Board of Directors meeting in Sacramento, where he's on the Bargaining Unit 9 Council.  Gus is having a Unit 9 meeting on Monday, November 30th, at Noon in the TAFM Library Room 1188.  Gus had a lot of information in his Unit 9 report, which I'll ask him to distribute directly to his Unit 9 members.

Treasurer
     We have about $3500 in Chapter funds.  Janine De Leon is still on leave, hopefully to return next month.

Communications
     Just a reminder that CSUEU communications should either be coming from CSUEU Headquarters, or a member of the CSUEU Chapter 322 Executive Board, i.e. Chapter President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Bargaining Unit Chairs, Chief Steward, or Organizing Co-Chairs.  The Chapter Executive Board passed a policy in May that we would not host CSUEU-related websites or discussions on CSU-operated equipment, for obvious reasons, and that to prevent confusion, messages to our members would come from the Chapter Executive Board.  If you're getting communications from sources other than these, they are not official communications from CSUEU. 

The $'s taken from my budget is the money I had left over after bills are paid.  It wasn't a lot of money however, for me it is my gas & food allowance after bills.  That being said, I am Really Feeling the crunch as a single income household!!!!  For the "Dual Income" households, this may not be as big of an issue, but for those of us who have a single (low) income it has created a hardship that wasn't planned.

I don't go anywhere on my furlough day as I cannot afford to due to budget cuts. I am a single person and times are tough!  The money just isn't there anymore. The errands I do are done on the same day.

Here are some notes on what I'm encountering:

• CSUMB provides network to East Campus. When it goes down (eg SMTP server over the weekend) service is out until Monday morning or later. This also affects internal educational systems, such as Quickmail in iLearn and email services through WebHelp.
• Donations to kids' schools have been cut due to cut in my salary.
• Rent stayed at same rate even though I'm paid less. The Foundation owns my property.
• Department sunsetted language program (Italian). New students to CSUMB don't know the program is gone. Am in position of needing to work with agitated and disappointed students.
• Failed hardware in labs (scanners) cannot be replaced. IT has no budget and unclear process to request replacements if $ flow resumes.

I work at University Police as a non-sworn civilian employee. I am the Police Records Specialist and also the Evidence Custodian.  In a city police department, the Evidence Room may have two, three, four or more persons and the Records Section usually is staffed to work 24/7, year-round.  CSUMB is, of course a smaller community with a smaller police department, but taking away a day's work every two weeks is a big chunk of things not getting worked on.  The missing 10% is really noticeable in that we are required to keep some things moving without delay (e.g. reports to the District Attorney, reports to Residential Life, reports to Judicial Affairs) that need to be delivered in a timely manner.  The daily work flow is determined by what happens on the street and of necessity the daily happenings are worked on first.  Taking away a day (usually a Friday) every two weeks in an office of one and one-half persons (myself and one part-time student assistant) takes away time used for fine-tuning operations, cleaning up projects, designing and implementing procedures to deal with new law and changing requirements.  In our operation one and one-half persons is just about exactly what it takes to run the shop full time and losing ten percent of our work time leaves some things undone.

I have been truly struggling to pay rent...let alone buy food for the whole month - not including bills. When we didn't receive our anniversary increases on top of the general salary increase in July...it has been very hard.  I have had to get assistance from local agencies to pay my rent and have been strongly thinking of applying for Monterey County assistance to help with food for my daughters and I.  It has impacted my family a great deal and I am sure I am not alone.  I do not feel like I have a secure job that I can be proud of, that at one time I was so happy with.

I don't know if this helps but I'll mention some things from my end since I work here at Facilities and Operations Department. Our situation is different because the Unit #6 union did not vote for furloughs on their part. What happens to them is some of their support needs are not met. Me buying product for work orders or unit #5 not doing equipment moves for them will not happen because were not there on furlough days. Because not everybody is here in the department working on furlough days it impacts the mechanics schedule who are here for work and no calls are being answered from students or foundation employees because our support staff is all unit #7 employees.  It’s also impacting student employment in our department. Some of the buildings are closed so students in our department now cannot work on those days when there are furloughs. That lessens their employment hours per week especially when they are trying to make up time from changing class or study schedules. It’s also affecting employee retention and hiring also.  We actually had one employee that took a job at Defense Language Institute partly because of the furlough situation was part of his reason to leave the department even though he wanted to stay here. There is concern here on my part that his work might get spread out to other employees like me without compensation for it even though the money for the position is still there. There was also a case of hiring a HVAC related position and the person backed out because he had heard Unit #6 was voting for layoffs.  Just some thoughts on what is happening here and see if this helps.

I know there are a lot of parents on our campus that have been affected in the same way that I have.

I have to put my infant in Day Care, which is costing me $160 per week.  I am on contract with my care providers and I pay each week the same amount regardless of the Furlough Days. With our pay cuts, I am scraping by because all of my money is going to bills.  I am strictly working to pay my bills. I have no break.  I use my credit cards for baby food and groceries, which is putting me even more in debt, not to mention the recent increase in APRs on all bank credit cards. 

Work never stops. 

·       By taking away 2 days of time (16 hours) reduces the amount of time in the office and pushes work back. 

·       I am feeling rushed with hope that tomorrow will get easier, which it doesn't.  - So unwanted stress builds up

·       I don't have time needed on get the work done, yet it just needs to get finished. - So work gets put off

·       I don't have time to spend with student issues, as we just need to get an answer back to them. - So we ask others to help

We have a person out on leave for one month.  In addition to furlough backup, we are now expected to pick up another person's work and complete that as well, without additional compensation.

With workload backing up, stress increasing, Furlough rules in place and Loss of two days on my paycheck, Can you shed some light on the good?

Taking a pay cut to balance the State budget still doesn't make sense to me.  I know all of the reasons.  I just have a hard time understanding why State Employees are hit so hard, when government officials vote in pay increases, continue to spend on things that can be held off, have not taken equal pay cuts and have not balanced the budget to secure our State.

Thanks for your request of how furloughs have affected me. Although I know that I'm paid above average for a CSU employee and have received merit raises over the years, I have had to adjust how I budget my household. When all of the "have to" bills are paid the remainder is pretty drastically affected by the 10% of my salary that's deducted.

My main concern though is the affect on students. It's very disruptive to have the student's schedules interrupted by campus closures, or having business offices closed. The net result is that the quality of student education has been diminished. Ultimately, that's the biggest damage that furloughs have done to our CSU. I think every last staff and faculty are here (and stay here) because we want to make a difference in student's lives. I think everyone of us knows that the product of our work is teachers and doctors and IT professionals and filmmakers and so on.

I know that we are experiencing the best case. I also feel like these are the good 'ol days and when we start seeing our colleagues (or ourselves) pack their boxes after being laid off it will have a profound affect on moral and productivity. I saw a comment in a blog that we could stand to cut 25% of the “fat.” After working here for 7 years and seeing cuts year after year, I can tell you that future cuts will be catastrophic. Cuts to the CSU are cuts to the foundation of our state.

I have 3 people in my household of 4 that are attending school.  My son is going to graduate school at UCSC, my daughter is an undergraduate at UCSC, and my wife had to quit her job so that she could concentrate on getting her teaching credential.  This combined with a 10% pay cut has, to say the least, made finances quite tight.  My family and I believe in education, that is why we are doing what we are, but it should not be such a financial sacrifice and burden.