Comparison of the contracts of CTU, and Locals 1708 and 1600

The following analysis was submitted by Craig and coworkers. We reproduce it below in its entirety in a spirit of solidarity and with the hope that it will help clarify the state of affairs at the CCC and within the organizations that represent most of its employees. May this spark another round of discussion that will help us chart a way forward to rescue the CCC from the mouth of sharks.

PEARL

IS THE NEW LOCAL 1600 CONTRACT A GOOD DEAL?

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

As a concerned group of loyal union members, over the past few months we have learned a great deal about the recently signed CCC contracts. After the vote, we realized that we had cast our ballots (some in favor; some against the contract) based upon very limited and contradictory information. For that reason we decided to find out what the truth was. 

We learned from Dr. Bruno’s contract meeting at Morton College that good contract negotiation results are a reflection of fact-finding and tough collective bargaining. Our research unearthed many concerning issues that sadly we were unaware of. Our research concluded that Local 1600 union president Perry Buckley was either unaware of the issues below, or unconcerned by them, or both. 

President Buckley signed agreements for both the Faculty and Professional City Colleges contracts nearly one year in advance of their expiration.  (Both contracts expire in July of 2013).

Just weeks before signing the contracts, Mr. Buckley retired and secured his own benefits from CCC: an impressive annual retirement salary (Pension + Union Salary combined of more than $300,000.00 annually) and a generous sick day payout (sick days amounting to more than $200,000.00).

Below we will compare three contractual results, and where applicable, include administrators.  These contractual agreements were all completed around the same time as follows:

Local 1708                                    June 7, 2012

Local 1600                                    August 23, 2012        

Local 1 CTU                                October 2, 2012

Much appreciation to all those who assisted in helping us gather and interpret the information we present below.   

LOCAL 1708 VS.  LOCAL 1600:

Local 1600’s sister union at City Colleges of Chicago is Local 1708, a union of Clerical workers.  Local 1708’s last contract ended in June of 2010.  Their union leaders then held out in firm negotiations against the City Colleges’ district lawyers for 24 months.  In comparison, Mr. Buckley held out for… almost one day.  In the end, Local 1708’s contract had Higher Raises, No Merit Pay, No loss of Earned Sick Days, and No Wellness program.  

CITY COLLEGES                           CITY COLLEGES

Clerical Union 1708                           Faculty & Professional Union 1600

RAISES COMPARED:

RAISES FOR 1708 MEMBERS   VS.         RAISES FOR 1600 MEMBERS
2011     3.5%                                                                      2014    2.5 %
2012     3.0                                                                         2015    2.5
2013     3.5                                                                         2016    2.5
2014     3.5                                                                         2017    2.5
2015     3.5                                                                         2018    2.5

LOCAL 1600 RAISES: 2.5%— These raises are just above the rate of inflation.  The US inflation rate for 2012 stands at an average of 2.12%.   The 2.5% “raise” is, for all intents and purposes, a wage freeze.  When you add in the loss of sick day payouts and step increases, all members have now experienced a tremendous and career-long wage cut. 

US Inflation Calculator:
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

MERIT/SUCCESS PAY:

Merit pay is an effort by educational reformers to pay teachers based on student performance.  Teachers would be paid according to factors such as student grades, test scores, graduation rates and related outcomes. Cheating and social promotion are rife in K-12 systems where this is the standard of compensation.

CTU Local 1:                    REJECTED MERIT / SUCCESS PAY

Local 1708:                    REJECTED MERIT / SUCCESS PAY

CCC Administrators:           DO NOT HAVE MERIT / SUCCESS PAY

Local 1600:                    ACCEPTED MERIT / SUCCESS PAY

The Chicago Tribune celebrated Mr. Buckley’s acceptance of Merit Pay in:

“Revealed:  The Chicago Teachers’ Pact”, September 5, 2012

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-05/news/ct-edit-colleges-20120905_1_ctu-president-karen-lewis-ctu-members-chicago-teachers-union

Chicago Tribune:  “Perhaps best of all: Under the new contract, merit pay will reward educators for improvements in student performance. No, no, it's not the teachers in Chicago Public Schools (CTU  Local 1) who have this new contract. We're describing the pact covering 1,483 union faculty, training staff and other professionals at the City Colleges of Chicago. The announcement came Saturday from system Chancellor Cheryl Hyman and Perry Buckley, president of Cook County Teachers Union Local 1600.”

The Merit Pay he accepted was semantically transformed into “Student Success Pay”.  This means we might be paid a few extra dollars if we inflate our grades substantially enough so that some of the District’s “student success” standards are met.  Such student success standards are highly unattainable. Among them are:

* Students who transfer within 3 years (must reach 25% from current 14%)

* Students employed in the occupational area of their training (must reach 90%)

*Median earnings of CCC grads in the area of their training must reach a minimum of $43,398  (Note: Full- time working U.S. COLLEGE graduates ages 21-24 with a B.A. degree earned an average of $34,965 in 2011)

See figure J:  Economic Policy Institute: “The Class of 2012”

http://www.epi.org/publication/bp340-labor-market-young-graduates/

Mr. Buckley also agreed to “Draft an MOU for a Joint CCC-union committee to address all issues related to Student Success Pay, including ‘Discuss additional ways to measure individual merit, such as assessments that go across the departments.’” 

LOSS OF STEPS AND COMPRESSION OF LANES:

We at Local 1600 have always had a contract with lanes and steps that reward greater education and experience with higher pay.  We advance in lanes by achieving more education.  We advance in steps by gaining additional years of service. Our salaries rise with each step or lane increase.  Local 1708’s contract has grades and steps that operate in a similar fashion.  CTU Local 1 has a contract with lanes and steps that resemble our own soon to expire contract.  

CTU Local 1:           RETAINED LANE AND STEP INCREASES FOR ALL EMPLOYEES

Local 1708:           RETAINED GRADE AND STEP INCREASES FOR CURRENT  EMPLOYEES 

(New hires will no longer move through the steps).

Local 1600:           LANES REDUCED. LOSS OF STEP INCREASES

FOR ALL EMPLOYEES

The eradication of our steps and reduction of lanes was included in the contract for no reason other than to reduce our salaries substantially over our careers. The end result was to cut CCC’s payroll expenses dramatically. 

WELLNESS PROGRAM:

The danger of employer-required wellness programs is that employees can be penalized for not meeting the employer’s ideal of “wellness”.  This could mean being required to “quit smoking” or “lose weight” as examples.  CTU, in agreeing to a wellness program, demanded that there be no penalty for smoking, or for failing to meet any “health outcomes” the city might come up with.  CTU agreed only that their members would submit to an annual physical, and that this information would be kept confidential.  Local 1708 rejected a wellness program entirely.  In contrast, Mr. Buckley accepted a wellness program, but without limitations.  We are now essentially subject to the whims of the District Office in this matter. 

CTU Local 1:           ACCEPTED WELLNESS PROGRAM BUT WITH SPECIFIC MEMBER-FRIENDLY GUIDELINES AND LIMITATIONS     

SEE CTU Contract Article 32  (page 8) http://www.ctunet.com/blog/text/Contract_Highlights_2012_09_18.pdf

Local 1708:           REJECTED WELLNESS PROGRAM

SEE Local 1708 Contract Article IX (M) http://apps.ccc.edu/brpublic/2012/june/31456.pdf

“In the event a Wellness Program is created for another bargaining unit, said Wellness program will become available to Local 1708.”

(This now means any Local 1708 member can use the Wellness program Local 1600 has agreed to if a member freely chooses to participate in it)

Local 1600:           ACCEPTED WELLNESS PROGRAM WITH NO GUIDELINES OR LIMITATIONS WHATSOEVER

SICK DAY PAYOUTS:

City Colleges Administrators can keep the sick days that they have already earned and cash them out when they retire. Local 1708 can keep the sick days that they have earned and cash them out when they retire.  CTU Local 1 can keep the sick days that they have earned and cash them out when they retire.  Only Local 1600 members must give up all earned sick day cash payouts.   

CTU Local 1:              KEPT SICK DAY PAYOUTS

Local 1708:             KEPT SICK DAY PAYOUTS

CCC Administrators:           KEPT SICK DAY PAYOUTS

Local 1600:           GAVE AWAY SICK DAY PAYOUTS

Mr. Buckley gave away ALL Local 1600 Sick Day Payouts for ALL Professionals and Faculty who cannot retire by July 2014.    (We earned this money from decades of hard work. Upon retirement, each of us cashes out an average of $100,000.00). CCC has about 1,500 Local 1600 members.  The sick day payouts that we lost are conservatively valued at over $100,000,000.00--One Hundred Million--dollars. 

CTU LOCAL 1 MEMBERS KEEP THEIR SICK DAY PAYOUTS:

CTU LOCAL 1 MEMBERS CAN CASH OUT ALL Sick Days earned as of October 2012 into perpetuity.

CTU Local 1 Tentative Agreement (see page 10 Article 37)

http://www.ctunet.com/blog/text/Contract_Highlights_2012_09_18.pdf

Article 37—New CTU Contract Agreement October 2, 2012:

“Old sick day banks are protected and can be used as they have always been used.  They can be cashed out upon retirement.”

LOCAL 1708 MEMBERS KEEP THEIR SICK DAY PAYOUTS:

LOCAL 1708 MEMBERS CAN CASH OUT ALL Sick Days earned as of July 2014 into perpetuity.

Local 1708 Agreement:  http://apps.ccc.edu/brpublic/2012/june/31456.pdf

Article 9 (I) New Local 1708 Contract Agreement June 7, 2012:
“Local 1708 Employees hired before June 7, 2012 may accrue unlimited sick leave, but the payout is capped at the amount accrued as of July 1, 2014”

CCC ADMINISTRATORS KEEP THEIR SICK DAY PAYOUTS:  

CCC ADMINISTRATORS CAN CASH OUT UP TO 200 Sick Days earned as of July 2012 into perpetuity.

CCC New Board of Trustees Ruling May 3, 2012:

“The number of sick days that can be paid to employees upon retirement will be capped at the number of days accumulated by July 1, 2012, or upon the date of retirement, whichever number is less, not to exceed 200 days.”

CCC Board Report page 3 http://apps.ccc.edu/brpublic/2012/may/31415.pdf

LOCAL 1600 MEMBERS LOSE ALL SICK DAY PAYOUTS AS OF JULY 2014:

WE LOCAL 1600 MEMBERS NOW HAVE A ZERO $(0) SICK DAY PAYOUT FOR ALL OF US WHO DO NOT RETIRE BY JULY 2014.

Note:  We Local 1600 members went on Strike in 1971 for nearly 30 days to gain the sick day payouts that we have maintained in our contracts for 31 years.

MR. BUCKLEY GAVE AWAY ALL OF OUR SICK DAY PAYOUTS IN ONE DAY FOR NOTHING IN RETURN.  

PROCESS:

About a week before this offer was put to us for a vote, Mr. Buckley came to our colleges for the opening union meetings of Fall semester. At our meetings, he stated emphatically that he would absolutely support a strike rather than accept the contractual changes listed above. 

Days later, Mr. Buckley mailed a letter to us dictating that a vote on a proposed contract must take place immediately.  In this letter he forced upon us an unreasonable and arbitrary timeline of a few days—at the start of the semester—to vote on this critical contract that would impact the rest of our careers.  We were neither afforded adequate time to assess the impacts of the proposal, nor to confirm the statements made by Mr. Buckley in support of the proposal.

Mr. Buckley then came to our colleges campaigning “THIS IS THE BEST POSSIBLE DEAL THAT YOU WILL EVER GET.”  He told us that if we did not agree to it—the ONLY other alternative would be to lose absolutely everything in our contracts.

He told us “faculty will lose tenure* if we reject these contracts” and that “CCC Administrators and Local 1708 had already given up all of their sick day payouts” and that “all CCC employees now have to participate in the Wellness program.”  

* Our Tenure is Guaranteed by Illinois State Law in the Community college Tenure Act of 1980:

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=011008050HArt.+IIIB&ActID=1150&ChapterID=18&SeqStart=18100000&SeqEnd=18800000

As a result of these and other misrepresentations, we were led to believe we didn’t have any other choice but to agree to the contracts.  We now know that this was not the case.  

  

We now also know that the forced timeline was designed exclusively to compel our submission. We were not told the truth about these contracts. We were deceived and we voted under threat and out of fear.

EXCLUSION OF OUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES:

Mr. Buckley completely and deliberately excluded all of our elected representatives from these contract “negotiations”.  He shut out City Colleges Vice President Rochelle Dukes, and all seven elected Chapter Chairs.

What was the motivation behind removing all of our elected union leaders from the process? Why was Mr. Buckley the only Local 1600 representative present when this “deal” was cut?

CO-OPTATION:

Who did Mr. Buckley strike this deal with? He admitted to us freely that he struck this deal with the Mayor. This deal was supposedly an attempt to compel CTU President Karen Lewis to concede just as Mr. Buckley did. 

Mr. Buckley told us “this great deal was being offered to stop CTU from striking.” He said we must decide within 3 days of receiving the proposal so that the vote would occur before the CTU strike date. CTU leaders have since stated that the Local 1600 contract was a travesty and played no role at all in their decision to strike.

In retrospect, we now know the 3-day window was simply designed to deny us the opportunity to make an informed decision. We could not make an informed decision on this critical and complicated matter in 3 days.  It was even more impossible when we could not rely on the information presented to us. 

The Local 1600 contract offer was handled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s brother-in-law Laurent Pernot “Vice Chancellor of Institutional Advancement”at 226 W. Jackson. 

http://www.ccc.edu/departments/Pages/Institutional-Advancement.aspx   (One Chapter Chair who did support the contract was Daley College’s Todd Lakin whose wife Tania Brewster is on Laurent Pernot’s staff).

The Mayor’s brother-in-law, Laurent Pernot, presented the offer to Cheryl Hyman who then gave it to Mr. Buckley who signed it immediately. He did not negotiate for a single change. He did not seek the consent or agreement of a single elected leader of CCC’s membership.  

Why did Mr. Buckley agree to all of this? Why did he work so hard to sell it to us?  We do not know all of the reasons. What we do know is that he had already secured his financial future, and would not need to adapt to any of the aftermath including: the open-ended wellness program, merit/ success pay, eradication of raises, loss of sick day payouts, and the removal of steps and lanes.