Full Time Faculty Ratifies Medical Benefit Changes

Vote Passes 78% Yes; 22% No

By Barbara Hanfling-Executive Director, FA, AFT 6157

The decision to make changes in our medical benefits was clearly one of the most difficult ones the Union has had to make since the faculty affiliated with the AFT. Our goals for the last 9 years since affiliation have been in every way to improve and enhance all aspects of our contract.

A Little History Here:

•From 2000-2009 full time faculty salaries have increased by more than 35% including these rough economic times

•Form 2000-2009 adjunct salaries have increased by more than 53%. On top of that most adjunct received between a 2%-20% additional increase when the Union placed them onto the full time salary schedule

•During times when medical benefits were being cut, the Union was able to create and get funded a bridge plan for all post 1982 faculty (those with no medical benefits when retiring) which now covers faculty member with 15 years of service who are between the ages of 60 and 65.

•From 2000-2009 our medical benefit costs have increased by almost 100% and the Union has ensured that the District picks up the entire increase in costs.

•We increased our Dental coverage from $1500 per year to $2500

•We increased our Long Term Disability from a maximum payment of $3,000 per month to a maximum payment of $5,000 per month

•We bargained medical benefits for adjunct faculty to 50% to be paid by the District

•We bargained partial office hour pay (1/2 hour for each 20% load) for adjunct faculty.

This is just some financial history, which does not include the very important changes in the language in our contract including by not limited to: full time parity for adjunct; Seniority Rehire Preference; free classes; Retiree rights etc

Why the Need to Change our Medical Benefits:

Over the past month your President David Yancey has put out a number of emails regarding the reasons for the Benefit Committee and the proposals for changes in Kaiser and Blue Cross.

1.First and foremost, the reason for the changes was to ensure that the District did not implement the CAP on medical benefits which is already in the contract.

a.Around 40 years ago when the first contract was bargained, the District included in the contract a dollar amount that it would pay each year for maintaining medical benefits for faculty

b.This amount always matched the current cost of medical benefits

c.Each year at the bargaining table, this amount would be increased by the percentage increase of medical benefit costs for that year

d.For the past 8 years, the Union has tried to get the CAP out of the contract, without success.

2. This year medical benefits for Kaiser and Blue Cross went up about 8% and 18% respectively. With this increase in costs and the continuing cuts in our base funding, the District determined it would implement the CAP. What would this mean?

a.Those faculty on Blue Cross would have to pay approximately the following: Employee-$2,000.00 per year; Employee plus one $3,000 per year; and Family over $4,000 per year.

b.Those faculty on Kaiser would be paying less, but still a substantial amount.

3. Based on this proposal from the District and knowing that having the CAP in the contract allowed the District to implement these costs to our faculty members immediately, we agreed to bargain over some changes to the benefits..

Frequently Asked Questions:

•Can these Benefits Changes be Temporary? Because of the CAP, there was no bargaining power to make these changes temporary without the possibility of the District implementing the CAP

•Were Retirees Affected? The increase in the cost to their plan was only around 4%. Based on this factor (the retirees also have a CAP on medical benefits) there were no changes for the retirees in this go round.

•Why Not Make Everyone be on Kaiser-the Less Expensive Plan? There are two important reasons:

•Kaiser only covers people in certain geographic locations. We need to have coverage for all faculty and those living in Santa Cruz and Monterey County would have no coverage

•Choice-faculty up and down the state always have a choice between a PPO (Blue Cross) and an HMO (Kaiser). That choice is important.

•BUT-Blue Cross Took More Substantial Changes: because Kaiser is the less expensive plan, it was the goal of the Union to ensure that most of the changes occurred within the Blue Cross plan.

• Kaiser-no change in prescription, or emergency room. Only change was the $10.00 co-pay for office visits

• Blue Cross-Increase in prescription, co-pay for emergency room; deductible for lab/xray/pt/ot etc.

• How do we compare Around the State? Not Just Benefits:

• Our medical benefits were the best in the state and within the Bay 12. Even with the changes we are still within the top Community Colleges in the Bay 12 for co-pays, deductibles and payment contributions. Please access on our webpage Bay 10 Health Care Comparisons to get a sense of how our plan is still one of the best in the Bay Area and in the state.

• Finally how do our salaries compare? Again for the Bay 11 (not including Ohlone) we are number 1 for our first 8 steps and statewide for our first 8 steps we are in the top 8 of the 77 Community College Districts and then steps 8-19 we are between 9^th and 13^th in the state. This is something to be proud of and a lot of this was accomplished over the past 9 years.

With all this information, we hope that faculty have a better sense of the scope of responsibility we felt in the move toward making some benefits changes. We thank the faculty who have faith in the Union and understand that the decisions that were made were the best under the circumstances. Thanks to our team of Mark Newton, David Yancey and Barbara Hanfling for their work on this committee.