Negotiations Update 6 February 2025
- palomarfacfed
- Feb 20
- 3 min read
Hello Team Palomar,
We’re excited to share some updates with negotiations. At our last meeting, we had a full agenda. The District presented their counter to Article 12 (Chairs & Directors) as well as an MOU for work done in Water Tech. We presented an updated MOU for the CRPP work as well as the new TERB forms presented to both PFF and Faculty Senate in the Fall. We discussed the academic calendar options, part-time faculty office hour deadlines, updated Covid-19 reporting systems, ancillary duties and part-time load, proctoring conversations, and some individual situations pertaining to grants and salary placement.
Academic Calendars:
In discussing the calendars for 2025-2026 and 2026-2027, we shared that we were happy to be presented with the drafts on Wednesday, January 22nd, but we needed to gather feedback from faculty before moving forward. When we asked for the calendars in the fall, the District shared that they wanted to do it right instead of rushed, so we reminded them of this same value.
There have been many emails sent to faculty to gather feedback on some of the specifics for the calendars. We are scheduled to present at Senate and PFF, and we already met with CCE. Nicole will host a separate Zoom session on Thursday, Feb. 13th as well.
Article 12
The District presented their counter proposal, so we are already working on our first counter. We hope to present our counter at our next negotiations meeting.
Article 20
We had presented Article 20 on December 12th. The District is still reviewing some of the implications of our proposal in terms of consistency across disciplines. We expect to hear their counter soon!
MOUs for Water Tech and CRPP
The District shared their proposal for a 20% reassigned position for Water Tech for the Spring 2025 semester. We agreed and signed the MOU.
We shared our proposal for an adjustment to the hours allotted for the CRPP initiatives. The District agreed and signed the MOU.
TERB Forms
There were many changes made to the TERB forms by the TERB committee last semester. We shared the forms with the District and asked that they look them over before we discuss again. We plan to discuss these forms at our next negotiations meeting.
Discussion Items
In order to streamline the process for part-time office hour submissions, the District asked that we move to a single deadline for submissions. After conferring with part-time faculty at the part-time faculty orientation, we requested that we use just the earlier deadline so that faculty had more time to connect with HR if there were any questions. We requested that this be met with an understanding that faculty could submit office hours they intend to hold at the end of the semester as well, that there be continued flexibility if there are errors, and that the form include a receipt upon submission so that faculty could verify themselves if they had already submitted their hours.
With the new guidance from OSHA, the District had sent out updated reporting guidelines for Covid-19. We reviewed the MOU on sunsetting vaccine and mask mandates to confirm our understanding that our access to air filters and other PPE would remain unless the MOU was renegotiated.
There was some discussion on ancillary duties and the effect it has on part-time load, specifically positions in Appendix F and their impact on the 67% cap for part-time faculty. We reviewed some of the implications and agreed to continue the conversation.
We planted a flag about potential workload concerns regarding the changes to proctoring practices.
Lastly, we agreed to present the initial proposal for Article 15 (Compensation) while the District will present the initial proposal for Article 16 and look forward to negotiating both as soon as possible.