Olivia Vest
Managing Editor
Following the previous year’s lengthy contract negotiation, the Butler Community College Educational Association (BCCEA) brought in a regional federal mediator to aid in the process for the 2016-2017 professional employee contracts.
The negotiations applied to the contracts of Butler’s 2016-2017 union and non-union members who are deemed “professional employees” (full-time faculty, advisors and counselors). The process came to an end on Friday, Aug. 5.
With the new contracts and the help of the facilitator, BCCEA changed the process used in negotiation from mutual gains bargaining (MGB) to interest-based bargaining.
According to Terry Sader, BCCEA president, this change and the assistance of the facilitator was beneficial in creating the new contracts in a timely manner.
“Because of the nature of the negotiations, perhaps you might even call it the breakdowns of the negotiations last spring, we felt that we needed a third party to come in, help us rebuild some trust, and help us reboot the process,” Sader said. “In fact, we moved away from what we’d been using for years, mutual gains bargaining, to what we refer to as interest-based bargaining…. What was nice about having the facilitator is that he kept us focused on the process and the goal and kept us from running off on a tangent, rehashing our disagreements from last spring. All of that, so we could get through it fairly efficiently.”
According to Sader, the negotiations focused on the salary and benefits of the college’s professional staff. One of the goals of some BCCEA negotiation team members was to provide the professional employees with a “lump sum” raise rather than the typical salary-based increase. This would potentially help raise the salaries of the newer staff members.
“For professional employees, it was a 1.5 percent [increase] on the average salary, which means that all professional employees received a lump-sum raise as opposed to a percentage based on their individual salaries,” Sader said. “Our intention for the lump sum was to help out the younger faculty, the newer faculty. It steers more money down to the lower salaries. Some of us have concerns that our new faculty members are starting at such a low salary that it’s a real struggle for them, so we’re concerned about getting their salaries up to a reasonable level, and this was one way to do so.”
One additional issue that arose during the negotiation process was the unavoidable and drastic increase in insurance costs. Because a potential price escalation of 40 percent to 60 percent will apply to many insurance plans nationally, the goal of the BCCEA negotiation team was to help the professional employees cover the increased costs.
“Insurance premiums were probably the dominant point of discussion throughout the negotiations,” Sader said. “Insurance premiums went up across the board, and they went up dramatically. The Board of Trustees and the professional employees basically split the increase in cost. We couldn’t get the [Board] to take on the entire increase, but they took on a lot of it. It was a fairly even split. It’s dependent upon the plan and what kind of insurance people are buying. Some people got a bit of a [salary] bump. Some people still fell a bit behind, because their plans increased so much. We tried to save as many people as possible and get them a little bit, but we knew we weren’t getting it for everyone,” Sader said.
These negotiations led to the new contract proposal, which was sent to the vote of both union and non-union professional employees. The vote was officially passed on Thursday, Sept. 1, though the specific numbers of the ballots will not be released.
The BCCEA negotiation team will begin working on the 2017-2018 contracts in October. This will allow a greater period of discussion, as the upcoming contract will be up for full negotiation in what is referred to as a “language year.”
