In This Issue:

Classification Study

Moving Towards Closure

written by Cathy Boudreau

All professional staff should have received and returned their verification sheets to their Human Resource Office by the end of December. That information is being processed by the Board of Higher Education (BHE) and the consultants, DMG.

Throughout the month of January, DMG will be finalizing the faculty information and preparing an interim faculty report for the Board of Higher Education and the MCCC for their review. The MCCC hopes to receive this report by the end of January. Within a few weeks after that, possibly by the middle of February, the professional staff information and verification process should be completed with an interim professional staff report ready for review by the BHE and the MCCC. The interim reports will be embargoed for review by the BHE and MCCC only.

Once DMG has received and processed all the information, one final report will be issued. The MCCC anticipates that the BHE could receive this report by the end of February. All of these dates, as usual, are subject to change depending on the speed with which the BHE and DMG can complete the verification process.

Once the MCCC and the BHE receive the final report, the parties will have 45 days to bargain over the impact of the recommendations. Once the bargaining has been completed and the amount of the classification study has been ascertained, the processing of securing the money for the study will begin.

All full-time faculty and professional staff will be included in the final classification study report. DMG will be making recommendations concerning salary for part-time faculty and professional staff members in a separate report. At the present time, the MCCC does not have any information on the cost of the study or how or what the recommendations will look like. Regardless of how the study is presented, the MCCC will remained focused on a study that treats all full-time faculty and professional staff equitably, and that all recommendations will be measured by the MCCC according to the fairness of how recommendations are applied and implemented.

There are three major language parts to this study: (1) The recommendation for placement on a salary schedule as of January 1997, (2) The recommendation of how new hires will be placed on a salary schedule, and (3) the recommendations on how full-time unit members will move up the salary schedule which will probably include promotion language. The second and third recommendations will probably be included in bargaining for the next contract.

The major monetary parts of this study will include: (1) The cost of salary increases for full-time faculty and professional staff as of January 1997, and (2) The cost of retroactivity from January 1997 to the present. The MCCC is committed to full funding of the recommendations for both these components.

To allay any concerns that unit members have about this study, though it has taken a lot longer than anyone could have anticipated, the MCCC is committed to a thorough study for all unit members without sacrificing the goal of this project -to have a study that is valid and reliable and can withstand legislative scrutiny.

Negotiations Survey

An opti-scan format survey of the membership regarding concerns for upcoming negotiations is at the printer's and will soon be mailed. The items are a subset drawn from a NEA prototype designed for higher education employees by MTA consultant Dan Donahue. A prompt and thorough response from a substantial cross section of our membership will empower the respective negotiating teams to best represent the interests of the Day and DCE units. Demographic sections are omitted here. The items to be ranked within categories are available below for preview to allow members to organize their thoughts.

Salary Items

• Provide a cost of living increase on the present salaries (Consumer Price Index).
• Pay interest to employees on raises held beyond the contractual time limits.
• Establish a salary schedule which provides annual salary increments for faculty with satisfactory service.
• Establish criteria and structure for salary recognition of meritorious service.
• Provide recognition for work experience of unit members who teach in nonacademic fields.
• Provide the same dollar amount salary increase for all unit members.
• Provide a salary increase with a different amount for each rank.
• Specify (establish) criteria for receipt of a merit increase.
• Improve salaries paid to part time unit members.
• Eliminate salary inequities.
• Prescribe salary differential for department heads and program coordinators.
• Tie merit pay to tenure review and prorate for all part-time members based on equivalent full-time position.
• Indicate your preference for salary amount increases over the three year period of the contract. (non ranked item)

Benefit and Leave Provisions

• Provide legal insurance for all unit members
• Provide liability insurance for all unit members
• Improve coverage offered in the medical insurance plan
• Provide tuition and fee waiver for members and dependents
• Reduce the number of years of service required for retirement with full benefits
• Allow contributions to the sick leave bank at termination of employment
• Provide three days of annual personal leave which may be taken without explanation and which may be cashed in annually
• Ensure full payment of accrued sick leave upon severance

Working Conditions

• Establish equivalencies for laboratory load
• Limit laboratory and service units to no more than 15 students
• Reduce the student faculty ratio
• Maintain the workload
• Provide secure, well lighted, parking near each employee's work location
• Provide parking at no cost
• Specify workload applicable to department chairs and program coordinators
• Maintain criteria for and number of faculty course preparations
• At the request of unit members provide flexi-time as a contractual item
• Eliminate the phrase "other duties as required" from job descriptions.

New Delta Difference

The Board of Trustees of the Health & Welfare Fund, which provides dental benefits to FT Faculty and Professional Staff at the Community and State Colleges, has announced a new carrier. The plan will be changed from Blue Cross/Blue Shield to Delta Dental of Massachusetts effective February 1, 1999.¹

The new Delta plan will be called "Delta Preferred" and is a Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) similar to "Dental Blue PPO" under Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The new plan includes approximately 950 dentists in Massachusetts. It is important to note that this is a "PPO" plan; different than the Delta plan that covered MCCC members several years ago. That plan included most dentists in the state and was not a PPO plan.

During the month of January, you should be receiving from Delta a letter outlining the change, a pamphlet listing participating dentists and new identification card(s). You should keep in mind several things as you receive this information.

The member services telephone number for Delta is 1-800-872-0500. Deductibles and calendar year maximums should be carried over from Dental Blue PPO to the new Delta Preferred plan. Identification cards should be checked to ensure data is correct. For families, two cards, both with the employee's SSN#, will be issued. To ensure all family members are covered, you may wish to contact member services.

If there is a shortage of dentists in your geographic area, please let your college's personnel office know since Delta has expressed a sincere interest in recruiting dentists in those areas. Dental coverage is still available to members who use "out of network" dentists, but the benefit will be reduced (unless there is no plan dentist within 20 miles of your home) and generally is through a reimbursement method. Utilization of out of state dentists is handled in a manner similar to the way out-of-network services are handled 'though the reimbursement rate may be different.'

Individuals requiring dental procedures that begin in January, but extend into February should contact Member Services to coordinate benefits.

Please contact Abe Sherf, MCCC representative to the Health and Welfare Trust Fund regarding problems with the dental plan and report any difficulty in locating a plan approved provider.

¹Based on a memo attributed to Middlesex CC administrators Gary McPhee, Julie Kelley and Carolyn Young: December 15, 1998

More information on-line.

Award and Bylaw Change Deadlines

Jon Butler Memorial Award: The purpose of this award is to recognize the chapter president(s) whose leadership, acts, or Support have made a significant impact on MCCC unit members. Nominees must be current chapter presidents. Any MCCC Board Of Director may nominate by completing a nomination form which can be obtained from the MCCC. The deadline is February 15.

Raymond C. Lemieux Memorial Award: The purpose of this award is to recognize an individual whose service, leadership, and dedication have contributed significantly to the Massachusetts Community College Council. To be eligible for this award, an individual must have provided significant service to higher education and the labor movement in the quest for improved working conditions and high standards of professional excellence, demonstrated leadership in the MCCC and higher education, and exemplified the concerned and caring approach of Raymond C. Lemieux, much of whose life was dedicated to the betterment of faculty and professional staff. Any MCCC Board Of Director or Chapter President may nominate an individual by completing a nomination form which can be obtained from the MCCC. The deadline is February 15.

Bylaw Changes: The deadline for the submission of proposed bylaw changes is February 1, 1999. Submit to the chair of the bylaws committee Carolyn Tetrault, Springfield Technical Community College, 1 Armory Square, Springfield, MA 01105.

MSCA Retort to BHE Manifesto

What follows is the complete text of a public response to BHE Chairperson James F. Carlin's post election whitepaper "Taking Massachusetts Public Higher Education to the Head of the Class"¹ by the leadership of the Massachusetts State College Association (MSCA).

Dear Chairperson Carlin: We have received your recent opinion paper, "Taking Massachusetts Public Higher Education to the Head of the Class." As higher education faculty and librarians, we find your piece to be poorly researched, poorly supported, and replete with misinformation. A more complete response to your paper will be forthcoming. Until then, we would appreciate answers to the following questions. 1) Please send us the names of the "hundreds of [our] union members" who have written and called and stood up publicly to support the changes in higher education you are proposing. 2) Please send us the names of the "vast majority" of our faculty members who do an outstanding job and the criteria upon which you have made that determination. 3) Please specify, exactly, the percentage of faculty members who "hide behind tenure." Is it 1%, 3%, or 9%? Whatever the percentage, please send the names of all such faculty members and the criteria by which you have made that determination. 4) Please explain why you and the BHE have failed to use the existing contractual procedures to remove the 1% (or 3% - or 9% or whatever it is) of faculty members who "hide behind tenure." 5) If you support merit pay, please explain why you and Stanley Koplik have FORBIDDEN the payment of salary increases to current faculty and librarians who received promotions for their "meritorious performance," as determined by their peers, the college presidents, and the local trustees. 6) Please explain the criteria by which you determine research to be relevant. Are the criteria similar to those used by insurance executives, like yourself, in determining the effectiveness of medical treatment? 7) Please identify the state college presidents and/or trustees who believe that they are not in charge of their campuses in either nonacademic or academic matters. Please explain, further, why pay raises have been given to ANY state college president who is not in charge of his or her campus. 8) Please explain how calling us "turkeys," "birds," "bums," and "scam artists" is .,not professor-bashing" or "disrespectful" of our members. 9) Please explain why you persist in misrepresenting tenure as a "life-time job guarantee" when contractual procedures exist and have been used to remove tenured faculty for cause. 10) Please explain why you and the BHE have spent "forty-eight million dollars... on technology upgrades and hundreds of millions... on campus improvements and new buildings," but at the bargaining table you refuse to offer even ONE SINGLE DOLLAR in pay raises or benefits to state college faculty, librarians or adjunct faculty. In attacking our endorsement of Scott Harshbarger in the recent gubernatorial election, are you suggesting that it is Governor-Elect Cellucci who is responsible for the union's "[not winning] at the bargaining table?" We encourage you and the BHE to stop the name-calling, stop politicking, stop whining, and stop misrepresenting the truth. For the membership, The Massachusetts State College Association Board of Directors Bill Murphy, MSCA President; Pat Markunas, MSCA Vice President; Bernie McMahon, MSCA Treasurer; Gail Price, MSCA Secretary; Glenn Pavlicek, MSCA/ Bridgewater; Jean Stonehouse, MSCA/ Fitchburg; John McKeon, MSCA/Fitchburg; Pushkar Kaul, MSCA/Framingham; Ned Price, MSCA/Framingham; Joseph Jurich, MSCA/Framingham; Deb Foss, MSCA/Mass College of Liberal Arts; Len Paolillo, MSCA/Mass College of Liberal Arts; Sam Schlosberg, MSCA/Mass Art; Ellen Shortell, MSCA/Mass Art; Christopher J. O'Donnell, MSCA/Mass Maritime; Jerry Concannon, MSCA/Mass Maritime; Bill Mahaney, MSCA/Salem; James Martin-Rehrmann, MSCA/Westfield; Brad Art, MSCA/Westfield; Frank Minasian, MSCA/Worcester; David Twiss, MSCA/Worcester

¹"Taking Massachusetts Public Higher Education to the Head of the Class." - is available in its entirety on the MCCC webpage. (Click here.)

Lane Bill for Teacher Improvement¹

On December 2, 1998 Representative Hal Lane (D-Holden) House Chair of the Legislature's Education Committee introduced a bill titled 'An Act Relative to the Evaluation and Professional Development of Teachers and the Improvement of Teacher Quality in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' directed at K-12 teachers, but with implications for higher education faculty. Of immediate relevance to K-12 are recertification changes, teacher signing bonuses and master/mentor teacher programs. The bill also proposes sweeping changes in collective bargaining, teachers' job security and management rights reflecting a broader agenda.

When K-12 gave up the term tenure, the phrase Professional Teacher Status replaced it in most passages with minimal loss of procedural protections. The proposed legislation requires five, instead of three years to attain PTS, and eviscerates (Legal Services word choice) the protections. For dismissal "just cause" is expanded to include two, not necessarily consecutive, unsatisfactory evaluations. Remarkably, the Bill requires two consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations for Principal dismissal. Additionally, the Bill eliminates teacher input into evaluation standards, asserting standards at administration's sole discretion, consistent with the Commonwealth's Board of Education evaluation principles.

For recertification, eighty percent of a teacher's plan must be approved by the evaluator and must address "deficiencies found in the evaluation process", inclusion and classroom management.

Collective bargaining is restricted to wages by the bill, and creates somewhat ill defined "Faculty Senates" which separate local associations from governance in the manner All College Councils have in our institutions of higher education. The net effect undermines bargaining power, according to the MTA Legal Services summary. Curriculum, textbooks, teaching aids, length and calendar of school days, performance standards and evaluation, and determination of teacher qualification for placement would become no longer negotiable. This last provision would affect bumping rights in retrenchments.

Changes apparently beneficial to teachers are included in the plan. Release of the technical manual for the teacher certification test and a study of the construction and validity of the test by a panel to include up to three Massachusetts educators is proposed. Criteria for the touted signing bonuses for new teachers are recommended. Modifications to the recently enacted Master/Mentor Teacher program are recommended, as well as a host of professional development mandates aimed at teachers and administrators both.

¹Information drawn from the MTA Division of Legal Services summary. Passages in parentheses from the article itself.

Nomination Form for NEA Representative Assembly Delegate (Orlando, Florida: July 1 - July 6, 1999) MTA Annual Meeting Delegate (Boston: May 14, 15, 1999) This form is provided in PDF format for downloading and printing. Click here to download the PDF version. Please explain PDF file format.

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