Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 7:35 a.m.
Roll Call
Present:
Heywood, Holden, Jeffries, Patterson
Absent:
Canady, Pelleran,
Rasmusson
Trustee Pelleran arrived at 7:36 a.m.
Trustee Rasmusson arrived at 7:38 a.m.
Limited Public Comment Regarding Agenda
Items
Ted Szymanski - Good morning, my name is
Ted Szymanski.
I am
president of the AFSCME group here on campus.
Here are some copies of the comments I am going to make (Mr.
Szymanski distributed a memo to the Board.
It is on file with the official Board materials.)
There are three other union reps here who will have some
comments regarding the ongoing health care negotiations and mine are
as follows: The original charges to the Health Care Task Force, made
up of management and labor representatives, were (1) provide the best
available health care coverage for our employees at (2) the best
possible price, saving the College and employees money, and (3) get
the health care contract year in synch with the College's fiscal
year.
After lengthy
investigations and comparisons, the Health Care Coalition, made up of
representatives of the various LCC unions, has determined that all
three goals are best met by the MESSA proposal, yet the Coalition has
been met with opposition against MESSA by the College's negotiating
team from the beginning. Thank you.
Sally Pierce (Ms. Pierce distributed a
letter to the Board and read her comments from the letter.
It is on file with the official Board materials.) - Good
morning.
As most of you
know I'm Sally Pierce, the president of LCC-MAHE.
I'm here this morning to remind you of some facts, and urge
you to do the fiscally responsible thing, the humanly responsible
thing, and the civically responsible thing.
Send your team to the negotiations table later today with
instructions to finalize LCC's health care negotiations.
Today is the day to do it.
We must reach a settlement in the next few days or LCC's
employees will lose more of the benefits of the cooperative Health
Care Task Force?s work.
In
June we lost the PHP and Community Blue bids which would have been
good for a year and half and lower than the PHP and Community Blue
bids, which we now face for 11/02 - 11/03.
Those plans are status quo.
You passed a millage last November promising this community to
make benefits more competitive for LCC's employees.
Today we're waiting and hoping to see that actualized. It's a fact that the MESSA POS bid is a fiscally
responsible way to deliver what you promised.
It offers comparable benefits to our former plans with
improvements in the drug card, psychiatric services, chiropractic
services, and a hearing aide rider.
It's a fact that neither of our current plans offers this
final piece.
The risk of
the unknown confronts us.
What
will happen in the future?
None
of us knows.
Here are the
rates we know and that we have now.
MESSA?s monthly rates are $313.52 for a single person,
$705.98 for two persons, and $780.33 for a full family.
These rates are guaranteed for eight months.
PHP?s monthly rates are $371.14, $774.57, and $871.39.
Community Blue?s monthly rates are $352.79, $740.98 and
$864.31.
Those bids are
good for 12 months.
Let
us realize the savings that MESSA?s rates offer.
We will deal with rate increases when they come.
It is probable they will come with which ever plan we choose.
Last year?s MESSA?s increases were less than 17% and
Community Blue and PHP had rate increases of 18 and 28% respectfully.
Those are the facts.
Let
us recognize that LCC employees deserve good healthcare benefits, and
deliver what we told the community we would.
If we don't settle soon, employees will lose these potential
savings and benefit increases.
And
our civic community may lose faith in our institution.
Thank your for your attention and consideration.
Lynn Savage (Ms. Savage distributed a
document to the Board, which she read from.
It is on file with the official Board materials.) - Good
morning.
My name is Lynn
Savage, and I am president of the LCC Administrative Association,
which is Local #4751 of the Michigan Federation of Teachers and School
Related Personnel.
I am
speaking to you this morning regarding settlement of the health care
issues that face LCC at the present time.
I am speaking to you reluctantly, because my hope was and is
that we settle this appropriately at the table.
However, I do have one issue that I would like to bring to your
attention as you discuss this issue in closed session this morning.
The issue I ask that you consider is this.
Will you or will you not keep your promises to use a portion
of the millage to improve salaries and benefits for LCC employees?
Let me explain.
When the College came to the Union presidents asking for
employee support of the millage, the Union presidents pledged - and
delivered - employee support in the form of many hours of work at
the phone banks, information tables, informal talks at outside groups,
etc.
The millage passed
- barely.
It is fair to
say that without our support, this millage would most likely have
failed.
With the passage
of the millage, some full-time faculty, administrators, and support
staff benefited by ?making up? their long-deficient salaries.
Make ups came from two sources:
for full-time administrators and support staff, from the Wage
and Classification Study a study drawn out for several years past its
expected implementation. Other full-time staff did not benefit
directly from the millage, Police and Public Safety employees,
Maintenance employees, and Hotel and Restaurant employees.
Neither did part-time staff.
And on the whole, most employees here at LCC probably received
in the neighborhood of 3%.
Speaking
of the ?early? restorations for full-time administrators and
full-time support staff, I would also remind you that the millage was
implemented a full year before we expected it.
Full-time administrators and full-time support staff did not
receive any of the proceeds from the first-year of the millage
assessment.
I signed a
letter of agreement, as did the President of the ESP, in full faith
that the College would implement increases in line with the
implementation of the millage.
That
was my fault.
I should have checked things out more thoroughly before I
agreed to essentially a one-year delay.
But the bottom line is that employees who were not faculty saw
none of the first-year of the millage in their salary adjustments.
But let?s get to the present.
With the increases in costs to employees for their health care
that sits on the table with the latest proposal from the management
team, most employees? salary increases will be either partially or
totally wiped out by those health care costs increases.
My question to you is this.
What happens to the promise you made to make LCC more
competitive by improving employee salaries and benefits?
What happens to that promise if those improvements are ?taken
back? to finance health care?
The latest management proposal is an example of the following
adage:
the right hand
giveth, while the left hand taketh away.
We would greatly appreciate your consideration of these facts,
and I thank you for your attention and consideration.
Barry Stearns (Mr. Stearns distributed a
document, which he read his comments from.
It is on file with the official Board materials.) ?
Good morning.
I'm
Barry Stearns, acting president for the faculty association here at
Lansing Community College while my colleague, Sally Pierce is on
sabbatical this semester.
Last
week the Lansing Community College Labor Coalition again met with the
Lansing Community College Board team and a state appointed mediator in
another attempt to resolve health care coverage for Lansing Community
College employees.
Having
failed again to reach agreement, the coalition team felt we needed to
interact with a larger core of leaders.
We invited the administrative leadership team to meet with the
coalition to seek common ground in the health care issue.
That invitation was rejected because the administration felt
the meeting would interfere with the negotiations process.
Thus we felt the lack of progress in negotiations and the lack
of discussions with administrative leaders warranted the request for
fact finding that was filed this past Friday.
We continue to seek settlement of this issue and desire to
continue the negotiations process.
Filing for fact finding does not prohibit the continuation of
negotiations.
Thank you.
Trustee Pelleran - I have a question.
Mr. Szymanksi. You mention in your comments here that the Coalition has been
met with opposition against MESSA by the College's negotiating team
from the beginning.Can
you highlight anything for me on that?
Has there been ever any presentation at the negotiating table
by the College's negotiating team for MESSA Tri Med?
Mr. Szymanski - It was clear that MESSA
was not what they desired right from the beginning.
But what I think with the?as time went on it's clear that
MESSA is now the lower cost plan and then it has been considered from
that point on.
Trustee Pelleran - Was it presented by the
College team?
Mr. Szymanski - No, no.
Trustee Pelleran - It was not?
Mr. Szymanski - The mediator placed it.
Closed Session
IT WAS MOVED by Trustee Heywood and
supported by Trustee Holden for the Board to go into closed session
for the purpose of discussing negotiations.
Roll call vote:
Ayes:
Heywood, Holden,
Jeffries, Patterson, Pelleran, Rasmusson
Nays:
None
Absent:
Canady
Motion carried.
The Board entered into closed session at 7:48 a.m.
The Board returned to open session at 9:08 a.m.
IT WAS MOVED by Trustee Holden and supported by Trustee Rasmusson for
the Board to return to open session.
Roll call vote:
Ayes:
Heywood, Holden,
Jeffries, Patterson, Pelleran, Rasmusson
Nays:
None
Absent:
Canady
Motion carried.
Public Comment
There were no comments from the public.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 9:08 a.m.
