Ratification Vote Results
On Thursday, August 20, your Chapter 262 held a ratification vote for several side letters andmemorandums of understanding. Some of these side letters or MOUs were retroactive because CSEA determined they required ratification by the chapter membership. Other MOUs and side letters needed to be ratified to implement them right away. The results of the vote are as follows:
$400,000 One-time money: 98.67% YES, 1.33% NO
Y-rate Side Letter, J. Anol: 86.85% YES, 13.15% NO
Family Illness Leave: 98.62% YES, 1.38% NO
Baby Bonding Leave: 95.85% YES, 4.15% NO
Floating Holiday Rollover: 100% YES, 0% NO
Financial Aid Reporting Structure: 98.11%, 1.89% NO
All MOUs and side letters have passed and will be enacted as soon as the Mt. SAC Board of Trustees approves them at the next meeting.
Maintain Mental Health While Working from Home
Six months … September marks the sixth month Mt. SAC has been closed to the public and we have been telecommuting or working from home. Six months. Half a year. Can you even remember the last time you worked at your desk?
While some classified have worked on campus at some time during the last six months (there have been a little over 200 classified professionals called back to campus at least once to perform critical duties), most have remained safe at home, working on assignments managers have assigned to them. When we started working from home, the District was concerned about maintaining a professional demeanor, ensuring we all complied with policies and procedures, and wanting to make sure our work areas were functional as well as ergonomically comfortable.
One aspect of working from home some did not anticipate is the increase in stress and mental rigor required from working from home, especially for many who had children at home as well. The demands of our time from spouses, roommates, and especially children while trying to get work done can be an exhausting exercise in self-control. Working on a spreadsheet while your cat is walking across your keyboard or your third-grader needs help with her math homework or dealing with internet sluggishness because you and everyone else in the house is trying to work or learn — it can be frustrating.
Remember when you thought, “Work from home? GREAT! I can have a hot meal for breakfast, eat lunch at the poolside, work in my pajamas, and maybe even take a nap. Awesome!” Yes, be honest . . . you did think that or some of it anyway. Then reality smacked you like a half-frozen salmon on the back of the head. Working from home can be quite a mental challenge.
To help us cope with the mental challenges of working from home, experts have come up with a few techniques and suggestions. Some seem pretty basic or obvious, while others may seem a bit . . . strange. Try them all. Find out which ones work for you and stick to the routine.
Set up a dedicated workspace, which should be as free from distractions as possible.
Develop a schedule, which includes phases of focused work as well as breaks, but don’t waste time or ignore your work, especially if you have a deadline to meet.
If possible, divide and share times dedicated to child and pet care.
Organize your e-mail and set aside time to respond to them.
Establish a few simple routines, like taking a break at the same time every day or starting the day with an easy task, such as e-mail.
Set up dedicated times for work and leisure – and stick to these times.
Finish the day on time (remember, don’t work overtime!), even if you have not finished the work you wanted to finish that day (in other words, don’t obsess with finishing).
Refrain from setting impromptu goals (such as, “I will stop working once I finish this task”) as deadlines for finishing work. At the same time, don’t keep working to “get it perfect” (which causes stress). Let it go, and come back to it tomorrow when you are refreshed.
Refrain from all forms of work-related communication during non-work time, and vice versa. Your personal time should not be used for work, and work time should not be used for personal use (with the exception of anything allowable, such as calling for doctor appointments or checking on the children).
After work, rest. Relax. Exercise. Shoot hoops. Call your Mom (very important!). Meditate or do Yoga. Cook. Now take your nap. Whatever can distract you from obsessing about the last piece of work you didn’t quite finish and left for tomorrow.
Telecommuting or working from home can be a challenge in a busy house. The main idea is to try to separate work life from home life when the physical location for both is the same. Do what you can to reduce the stressors of working at home, meeting your work obligation, and dealing with the little technical gremlins that always come up.
Practice self-control. Pace yourself. Telecommuting is apparently not going to be a sprint. It is going to be a long-distance run. Prepare yourself mentally and physically for this race.
Welcome to Mt. SAC: New Classified Professionals
At the August 12 Board of Trustees meeting, the college welcomed the following new or promoted classified employees:
Permanent New Hires
Luis Jacobo Manriquez, Project Coordinator (Upward Bound)
Cathy Stute, Senior Research Analyst (Research & Institutional Effectiveness)
Promotions/Reclassifications
Julie Haslock, Grants Specialist (Grants Office)
Louis Pesuti, Media Production Specialist (Technical Services)
Permanent Changes of Assignment
Marlene Espina, Coordinator, Professional and Organizational Development (POD)
During our current telecommuting period, send an e-mail and welcome them to Mt. SAC. Extend a warm welcome, invite them to a Zoom lunch or to lunch when we all return, and, if they work in your area or near you, make them feel welcome. Invite them to and encourage them to attend the next “virtual” Chapter meeting so they can introduce themselves.
Selection Committee Representatives
The Mt. SAC Human Resources Department is recruiting for open positions, and your Chapter needs you as representatives to serve on these committees:
Tutorial Services Specialist, Writing Center
Instructional Designer, POD
To serve as a CSEA 262 representative, you must be a Chapter member and cannot work in the department hiring the employee. The college is also committed to ensuring diversity and equity, so your participation helps the college meet these goals.
You must also have already received the Selection Committee/EEO training within the last two years. If you have not completed the training, please register for Selection Committee/EEO training available via POD (you will need to log in to POD Connect).
If you are interested in serving on any of the above committees, please contact Marlene Espina (vp2@csea262.org or mespina@mtsac.edu) for more information.
Code Blue: Catastrophic Leave Bank! Stat!
Classified Colleagues, every year several of your classified colleagues across campus unfortunately must apply for catastrophic leave because they have exhausted all their leave balances and need to take extended leave due to medical illness or injury. Fortunately, your Chapter 262 has a Catastrophic Leave program, which is detailed in Article 13.10 of the collective bargaining agreement.
Your Chapter leaders are asking you to donate to the leave bank as soon as possible because the leave bank is nearly exhausted, which means your classified colleagues may be faced with difficult choices. Donating is absolutely voluntary, and you should only donate if you have leave credits left for your use. Please consider donating to the leave bank.
To donate to the bank, you must have accrued sick or vacation leave available to you and you must donate a minimum of eight (8) hours (in any combination of sick or vacation leave). Donations cannot be returned, so once you donate, those hours go right into the bank for use by your colleagues. A copy of the donation form is available on the Human Resources web page (follow this link).
Negotiations Up?Date
The year 2020 has, so far, had many up and downs … mostly downs. Our Chapter’s negotiations for the 2020-2023 successor agreement has been pretty much the same.
For members who may be wondering, “Are we still negotiating with the District?” The answer is yes — still. To give you some idea of how long we have been negotiating, CSEA Chapter 262 submitted its initial proposal (see attachment — the notice to the District of what we want to negotiate) to the Board of Trustees in October 2019. The first negotiations meeting took place on January 21, 2020. So far so good.
The plan was to meet every week, but then availability issues with the District’s lead negotiator began to slow progress. The second negotiations session was held on February 4, 2020. Then the third negotiations meeting was held on March 3, 2020.
Then the Coronavirus hit the fan. The District and CSEA 262 scrambled to gather information and direction, what the college was going to do, what the Center of Disease Control and the LA County Department of Health and the Chancellor’s Office was recommending, and whether campus was closing or not. News and information came in daily — some days hourly — and there was a great deal of frustration and confusion. Successor agreement negotiations ground to a halt as we dealt with the coronavirus and telecommuting agreement.
Finally, by June 2020, negotiations finally began to get on track, albeit slowly like a steam engine train coming out of a station, huffing and puffing and spinning its wheels to gain traction. As of July 7, 2020, CSEA 262 and the District met for only its sixth negotiations meeting. Nearly six months after negotiations began, we had met only six times and had not yet reached any tentative agreements.
Why is negotiations going so slowly? Several factors have conspired and converged to stall and delay the process, including outside forces like the Coronavirus.
Finally, on August 4, 2020, at the ninth negotiations meeting, our first successor agreement tentative agreement (TA) was reached on Article 9 Health and Welfare. We also reached a second TA, but this was for an issue that came up during negotiations and not on the CSEA 262 initial proposal. On August 25, 2020 CSEA 262 and the District met for the eleventh time. No new TAs have been reached. Our initial proposal of twelve articles has only reached one TA.
Your Chapter 262 Leadership Team and Negotiations Committee understand the importance of updating members on the progress of negotiations. Unfortunately, there has not been much to report with only one TA having been reached. Granted that the circumstances this year have been unusual (understatement), and negotiations using interest-based bargaining is typically slow by its very nature, but your CSEA 262 Negotiations Committee has been frustrated and concerned by circumstances created by the District’s lead negotiator’s bargaining tactics.
At the Wednesday, August 12 Mt. SAC Board of Trustees meeting, Chapter 262 President Robert Stubbe reported to the Board that “negotiations on small matters have gone smoothly,” but negotiations for some of the more complex matters “started to break down and it became necessary to bring the issue at hand to the attention of the District’s CEO” (you can watch the recording of the Board meeting by following this link).
Stubbe also reported to the Board members about District negotiation practices that have frustrated and slowed the progress of negotiations, like deciding to unilaterally switch from interest-based to traditional bargaining for an issue, misrepresenting to District leadership CSEA 262 positions and statements, and not scheduling sufficient dates to make substantive progress, which is evidenced by only 11 negotiations sessions in six months only producing two tentative agreements and four side-letters or MOUs (which were not part of the initial proposal). This glacial progress cannot all be blamed on the Coronavirus.
The CSEA 262 Negotiations Committee is, however, working to resolve these issues and committed to move forward with negotiations. As Stubbe said in his Board report, “We would like nothing more than to return to the productive days of negotiations we enjoyed prior to last year, and we felt strongly that the Board of Trustees should hear this information directly from us.” Your Chapter Leaders and Negotiators will continue to bargain in good faith and will continue to update all members as negotiations progress — whatever that progress may be.
A Message from Your CSEA President
Ben Valdepena, President California School Employees Association
Hello fellow brothers and sisters,
As if 2020 hasn’t been difficult enough, hundreds of wildfires are now burning across California forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate. In just the past week, fires have burned 1,200 square miles across the state, according to Cal Fire. We have members whose homes are threatened and, tragically, we have members who have already lost their homes. For those who haven’t been directly affected by the fires, we have all felt the impact left by the smoky air that is polluting our environment and impacting our health.
During times like these, it’s more important than ever to support our fellow members in their greatest hour of need. This week, staff from every department of CSEA participated in a texting campaign to reach those of you who live in a fire zone, to check on your well-being and offer assistance. We sent over 15,000 texts and heard from almost 6,000 of you.
We've lived through fires in Sonoma and Napa, in Southern California, and of course Paradise, for which we gave emergency assistance to 300 members for that incident alone. With these fires, we have already identified through the texting campaign 857 members who have been evacuated, may lose their home and could apply for assistance. The members identified in counties with evacuation orders is now estimated to be about 25,000, so one out of every 10 members. And the fires are still raging.
I hope you will support your union brothers and sisters currently impacted from the wildfires across the state of California by donating to CSEA's Assistance Fund at www.csea.com/assistance. 10 cents a day, $3 a month, just the cost of a cup of coffee. No donation is too small when it has the ability to provide a member with support and, rest assured, every penny given goes directly to those in need. I want to thank my brothers and sisters who have already answered the call to help by donating. We received nearly $8,000 on Wednesday alone from members giving to help their fellow members.
We do NOT have cell phone or email information for all the members impacted, so if you are in the affected fire zones and have not heard from us, please reach out to Member Benefits to request assistance by calling (866) 487-2732. You can also apply for emergency help by visiting www.csea.com/assistance.
This is what being in a union is all about. We are here for each other, to help pick us up when we fall. To help us overcome obstacles and succeed. My brothers and sisters, please stay in touch and please stay safe. We will get through this together and come out stronger than ever.
Ben Valdepeña
Association President
CALIFORNIA SCHOOL EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION
Ways to Contribute
STRONGER TOGETHER:
Some chapter members vote to take a certain amount out of their general fund. Others hold online or virtual fundraisers. Even passing a virtual hat at a virtual chapter meeting can help the fund; simply share the online donation link or automatic payroll deduction form link at your virtual meetings.
Or you can always make an individual donation.
DONATE ONLINE: Use this link to make a one-time or recurring donation in the amount of your choosing.
DONATE BY CREDIT CARD: Call CSEA Member Benefits at 866-ITS-CSEA (866-487-2732)
DONATE BY PAYROLL DEDUCTION: Download the Assistance Fund Payroll Deduction Form (PDF)
DONATE BY MAIL: Send a check donation to CSEA Headquarters. Make checks payable to CSEA Assistance Fund and mail the donation to:
CSEA Headquarters
Attn: Member Benefits
2045 Lundy Ave.
San Jose, CA 95131
Your CSEA Chapter 262 Executive Board:
Robert Stubbe, President • Rosa Asencio, 1st Vice President • Marlene Espina, 2nd Vice President
Barbara Carrillo, Secretary • Zak Gallegos, Treasurer
Elizabeth Jauregui, Chief Union Steward • Mark Fernandez, Communications Officer
Brandon Gillett, Site Rep Coordinator • Sandra Bollier, Past President
“To improve the lives of our members, students, and community.”
CSEA Chapter 262 • 1100 N. Grand Avenue Walnut, California 91789 • 909.274.6262