From Joe LeBlanc, MCCC PresidentPresident at his desk


Subject: State budget update: April 13

For statewide distribution...

The recession is hitting the Commonwealth and the nation hard. This is creating horrific budget challenges for the next fiscal year, and legislators will be forced to slash the FY10 budget by $4.2 billion or more. The Rainy Day Fund began the year with $2.1 billion will likely end the fiscal year with $1.3 billion or less. State tax collections plummeted by 16 percent in March compared to a year ago. Nine months into this fiscal year, tax receipts are down by $978 billion or 6.8 percent.

As the legislature begins to draft its budget, we have been following two critically-important issues: college budgets and the Governor's proposal to increase our health insurance contribution rates. When House Ways and Means releases its budget later this week, we expect the following news:

Higher Education budgets: The Governor's House 1 budget proposes a 16.5 percent cut to community colleges. We also expect the House Ways and Means Committee's budget to cut higher education drastically; however, by the end of this budget season, we expect sufficient legislative funding to trigger the release of federal stimulus funds. This would bring college budgets to FY '09 levels before 9C cuts. This would indeed be good news in context of the worst economic crisis in a generation.

Health insurance: We expect the House Ways and Means Committee's budget to include a proposal to increase our health insurance contribution rates to 75/25 or even 70/30 percent. At least 87 state reps have signed on to work with Rep. Marty Walsh, D-Dorchester, to fight this issue. A budget amendment will be filed and the House will debate this issue before it passes its budget. Watch for bulletins to lobby your representative. We will do everything in our power to fight back this attack on our members.

Thanks for your contributions to date. Your grassroots efforts in support of your union are much-appreciated and will be critical to our success. Stay tuned for further updates.

In solidarity,
Joe LeBlanc and Donnie McGee
MCCC


March 24, 2009

The negative news for public higher education may end today when the Governor announces his plans to distribute federal stimulus funds to our public colleges and the university. It appears that $162 million will be distributed to public higher ed. in each of the next two years. This will largely negate the horrific state budget cuts enacted this year and anticipated for next year. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - the stimulus bill enacted by Congress earlier this year and signed into law by President Obama - must be used to minimize layoffs and student fee increases. That being said, the law contains enough potential wiggle room that these points must be stressed again and again in your conversations with college administrators and legislators.

Many people have been working together over the last several weeks to make this happen. I met with Commissioner Freeland, who has worked effectively with Education Secretary Reville to advocate that public higher education gets its fair share. MCCC VP Donnie McGee, Strategic Action Committee activist Brooks Smith and I met with several members of the Joint Higher Education Committee last week. MTA Anne Wass wrote to lobby the Governor for a fair share for education (see the letter). MCCC lobbyist Charles Flaherty, the presidents' lobbyist Michael Muse, MTA Governmental Services and Arthur Pippo, the head of the MTA's Higher Ed. Division, have all worked to lobby the Governor. While these much-needed funds will not solve our long-term funding problems, they will allow us to survive the next two years with a minimum of layoffs. We may even see new full-time positions, especially in workforce development.

Otherwise, state budget news remains bleak. State revenues continue to drop precipitously and more than $1 billion in additional cuts may have to be found to close out this fiscal year. February's tax revenues dropped by 16.4 percent with declines reported in the income, sales and every other tax the Commonwealth collects. The unemployment rate jumped to more than 7 percent in January with losses reported in every sector but education and healthcare.

These challenging times will demand our best efforts, and the items below outline just a few of our current priorities and activities. In coming weeks, stay tuned and be ready to act immediately in support of your union. Together we can meet the challenges that confront us and make a difference.

Best,
Joe LeBlanc
MCCC

January 29, 2009

Here's the latest MCCC news for January:

MCCC Election Deadline: The deadline to nominate delegates to MTA and NEA annual meetings is Thursday, Feb 5 at 4 p.m. Ditto for nominations for the Adjunct/Part-time Directors positions on the MCCC Board of Directors. To complete the simple nomination process, follow this link: http://mccc-union.org/Nominations_2009.

DCE Bargaining: In an effort to shake things up and encourage the employer to work harder to negotiate an agreement that both sides can live with, Chair Diana Yohe, MTA UNISERV Consultant Miles Stern and I met with the Presidents' Labor Relations Subcommittee on Jan. 20. We provided management with an overview of the process to date. After receiving input from more than 900 members in an online survey, our team has worked hard to put forward a package that reflects the priorities of our varied DCE membership. Our team developed its package around the theme of equity/parity. This theme should be seen in a framework that does not have to focus solely on economic issues.

We realize these are challenging economic times and that our salary goals of proration are attainable only in the long-term. Other proposals - some are economic and others are not - must be bargained intensely in coming weeks if we are to succeed in negotiating an agreement by the end of the spring semester.

Management listened with interest and said they would be open to counter offers. The teams next meet on Feb. 3. Our team will update our Board of Directors about the status of negotiations on Feb. 20.

HRCMS Changes: Earlier this year, the state began to include all employees on the HRCMS state payroll system. We met with management recently to discuss the impact of this change on our members. We agreed on the following items to begin no later than the start of the fall semester:
  1. All MCCC bargaining unit members will be able to submit one W-4 form for the HRCMS system so that the appropriate tax rate will be applied to the money earned for Day and DCE work. We understand that unit members will only be able to submit one form and that that form will apply to all work, both Day and DCE.
  2. At the earliest possible date, DCE unit members will be placed on a pay schedule under which they will be paid for the first time each semester (or term) during the 2nd payroll period of the semester or term and bi-weekly thereafter until they have received their full pay for the semester (or term).

Note: It is likely that unit members will be required to be paid under direct deposit, as is now the case with Day Unit members.

In the attached letter, MTA Legal advises us that retirees who work in the DCE Unit have been and will continue to be "employed in service of the Commonwealth". As such, they have been and will continue to be will be subject to the cap on state retiree earnings - per state statue.

Attorney Jones writes, "In short, conversion to HRCMS has no legal effect on the earnings cap. However, the practical effect of the HRCMS conversion may be to reduce the probability of exceeding the legal earnings limit without detection".

CAS Petitions: The MCCC and management met recently to continue to slog away at how to best implement the findings of a mediator's report that will settle unit determination cases that in some cases date back to the early 1990's. Later in the spring semester, we expect to be welcoming a first wave of about 75 new member to the MCCC. More will follow along with the creation of a joint management-labor committee that, we hope, will prevent such a backlog of cases from ever happening again. Watch for details in future updates.

FY 2009 and 2010 Budget News: In the latest round of 9C cuts, the Governor cut all higher education campuses by 0.5 to 2 percent. To see how the 9C cuts have affected your college in this fiscal year, follow this link: http://www.mass.gov/bb/gaa/fy2009/app_09/sect_09/hed2.htm

The Governor's just-released 2010 budget (House 1) is filled with all the bad news we expected. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center provides the following overview:

"The Governor cut all state higher education campuses (UMass, state colleges and community colleges) by $158 million (16.5 percent) from their FY 2009 GAA level. State higher education had already received a 5.5 percent cut in their FY 2009 funding through cuts. The Governor’s FY 2010 recommendation cuts higher education campuses by $105 million from their post 9C funding."

The Governor is also resurrecting his plan to create a 3-tiered system with increased contribution rates to the GIC health insurance plans. If enacted into law in the next budget, the impact will be significant. Details will follow in a future update, but please be ready to read MCCC Vice President Donnie McGee 's Strategic Action Committee updates in coming weeks and act on all recommendations for grassroots member action.

Best,
Joe LeBlanc
MCCC

December 5, 2008
State Employee Negotiations: The already lousy bargaining environment (see the bleak tax revenues story story below) took a turn for the worse this week, as the Governor announced that there is no money for salary increases.

Bob Oakes from WBUR's Morning Edition asked Gov. Patrick a couple of pointed questions earlier this week about the status of contracts with state workers. See the audio link below.
http://www.wbur.org/news/2008/81780_20081203.asp

Relevant text from the interview follows:
Question: The Boston Herald reports today that because of the economy, your administration has suspended active contact negotiations with state workers.  What is that about?
Governor: It’s just about not having the money…I respect the work the state workers do, they are…, the ones I’ve met run to work, and they deserve to be appropriately compensated, but I also don’t want to be in the position of making false promises.  So I want to be able to be in the position to talk about what we can do in the future.  The state just does not have the cash to pony up.
Question:  So what’s the message to the workers themselves?
Governor: It’s just that.  We are going to work with you, respectfully, to try and keep conversations open and realistic about what the resources are and ask you to be patient with us and work with us to get in a better place so we can do right by the employees.
Question:  So keep working even though your contracts have run out (in particular references State Police)…Keep on the job even though we are not going to re-negotiate your contract?
Governor:  We are going to continue to pay people so those jobs will compensated, but the question is are we able to afford increases now?…and the answer is NO. [end of interview text]

Meanwhile, our Day Negotiations Committee has drafted a new bargaining survey. Day unit members, please watch for an announcement and online link to the survey on Dec 8. Surveys must be completed by Dec. 22. The Committee will review survey results over Winter Break and forward their demand package recommendations to our Day Bargaining Team by early February.
The MCCC/Department of Higher Education Day and DCE Agreements expire on June 30 and May 31, 2009 respectively.

"Breadth of Adjunct Use and Abuse" So reads the headline to an Inside Higher Ed story covering the release of an American Federation of Teachers-sponsored report titled "Reversing Course: The Troubled State of Academic Staffing and a Path Forward".

The report, prepared by researcher John B. Lee, asserts that the overuse and abuse of adjunct faculty is worse than many realize, but that it is not too late to change course.

To read the Inside higher Ed story, follow this link:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/03/adjunct

To read AFT's report and material related to its Faculty and College Excellence Campaign (FACE), follow this link:
http://www.aftface.org

I encourage you to read the report and discuss this issue at the chapter level. Watch for updates about MCCC discussion and responses in this space in coming months.  

DHE meeting: MCCC Vice President Donnie McGee, MTA UNISERV consultant Katie D'Urso and I met with the DHE's Peter Tsafarras recently over a number of issues, including individual member concerns and the following more general items:
Commonwealth Transfer Advisory Group: Earlier this week, I sent this letter to the DHE's Francesca Purcell to urge action on the task force's many recommendations. Our students deserve a transfer system that is fair, rational and transparent. If CTAG's good work is not implemented, the MCCC reserves the right to file corrective legislation to force this issue.  

In solidarity,
Joe LeBlanc
MCCC