Author: ACE

ACE Members,

Personal Cell Phones
Are you using your personal cell phone for college/district business? STOP! 🛑

First, there is a district smartphone allowance if calling or texting is asked of you:

If your manager or supervisor is requiring you to use a smartphone as a tool to do your job, the college/district should pay to provide it (and they do for many employees.) Again, STOP if you are doing this for free and ask about receiving the cell phone stipend. The Cisco Jabber desktop application is the method provided for maintaining contact with your supervisor/manager and authenticating using Duo. The onus is on the district to provide what is necessary to complete your work. If Jabber is not functional, let your supervisor/manager know.

Second, you are inviting a workplace related investigation into your personal life if you are using a personal device (phone, computer, tablet, etc.) to store work related text messages, emails, and documents. That device can be seized, and all its contents can be examined. Keep your work data completely separate from your personal data.

The following sections of the agreement in our contract are intended to maintain boundaries if work creeps into your unpaid personal time:

13.2.3 … For the purpose of determining the number of hours worked, time during which the worker is excused from work because of holidays, sick leave, vacation, compensatory time off, or other paid leave of absence shall be considered as time worked by the worker.

13.2.4 Call Back Time

Occasionally a worker may be called back for work in the evening or on a weekend to accommodate a special need. In such cases, travel time to and from home will be counted as time worked. In order to make the disturbance of normal time off worthwhile, the pay for combined work and travel time shall be for a minimum of four hours.

13.2.6.1 Stand-By

No worker shall be required or requested to be available for handling potential emergency situations or available to answer questions by telephone after he or she has clocked out for the day.

13.2.6.2 Compensation for Work Performed after Workers have Clocked Out for the Day

Workers who are contacted by telephone, beeper, or computer after they have clocked out for the day, but prior to 11:00 p.m., to answer questions or handle emergencies from home, shall be paid a minimum of fifteen (15) minutes overtime and shall be paid in quarter hour (15 minute) increments after the first fifteen (15) minutes.

Workers who are contacted by telephone, beeper or computer after 11:00 p.m. to answer questions or handle emergency situations from home shall be paid a minimum of two hours overtime.

Workers who are contacted by telephone, beeper, or computer for emergencies which begin prior to 11:00 p.m., but continue past 11:00 p.m., will be paid the two-hour minimum.

Your supervisor/manager contacting you while you are on leave is not ok.

Contact an ACE steward if you are continuously being asked to use your personal cell phone.

CalPERS Service Credit Purchase
We’ve had a number of former temporary employees join us as full-time employees. You may be eligible to purchase service credit if you worked for a CalPERS-covered employer before you became a CalPERS member. CalPERS has a number of resources on the topic, but the process begins with them:

From “A Guide to Your CalPERS Service Credit Purchase Options” (LINK):
To request your service credit electronically, log in to your myCalPERS account at https://my.calpers.ca.gov/
On the home page under Service Credit, select Make a Service Credit Purchase

Depending on the type of service credit you are requesting, certification may be required
If certification is needed from an employer or reciprocal agency, you and the agency will be notified electronically The agency will have 30 days to provide the required certification to CalPERS

Per Payroll:

Once the request is received in CalPERS, HR validates the employment & position data in the request (if there are errors, it will be rejected) and Payroll completes the pay history by month and HR finishes off with certification within 30 days upon the member’s request.

More Information:
CalPERS Quick Tip | Service Credit Purchase (YouTube LINK)
CalPERS Service Credit (YouTube LINK)
CalPERS Service Credit Cost Estimator (LINK)

For those that have taken a leave of absence, you may also be eligible to purchase service credit. Use cost estimator link above to see if the leave type (maternity/parental, education, service, sabbatical, serious illness.) you’ve taken qualifies.

Fall Mask Policy
Survey results are available here (LINK.)

Quick takeaways:

• 136 of 337 members participated (40% response rate)
• The majority of ACE members do not want covid-19 policy updates on Friday nights.
• The majority of respondents were from public facing offices.

Why did ACE conduct a survey?
To determine what we want as a membership and respond accordingly as representatives. ACE is committed to ensuring the health and safety of our members.

Why would ACE demand to bargain the latest policy?
The district is compelled to negotiate the impact of unannounced unilateral changes when asked to do so by ACE. The survey results speak to our overall concern. We’ve never really known the impact of covid-19 on district employees due to lack of a “covid dashboard” displaying statistics. As such we have submitted an information request for case and exposure data throughout this year. Again, ACE is committed to ensuring the health and safety of our members.

To be honest, I expected this issue would have been resolved within an hour. ACE has a history of arriving at reasonable compromises. At this time district administration is refusing to sit down to have conversation to discuss this matter even after delivering our survey data. In the past we’ve submitted similar feedback to shape policy and been alerted prior to implementation:

Per Judy Aug 16 : “After a robust discussion at this afternoon’s Consultation Task Force meeting, we reached consensus to continue to require face coverings in all indoor classes and public-facing offices and to recommend masks in all other areas.”

Per Judy Sep 23: “As I stated in my original message, this change does not eliminate the ability of faculty and managers to require masking in their respective instructional and public-facing areas or the ability of individual employees to continue to wear masks as they choose.”

We attended a week’s worth of “opening day” events in person where this could have been announced, addressed, and discussed.

It’s been said, “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” Currently we’ve been reduced to the bare minimum entitled to us by virtue of our position. Our agreement has been violated, our demand to bargain remains unresolved, and to date our voice has been disregarded.

I am committed to keeping you informed. I do my best to keep these communications as factual as possible, but there are circumstances when it is challenging not to be agitated. ACE continues to fight for dignity and respect on the job for the members we represent.

In Solidarity,

Scott Olsen (he/him) | ACE President
https://acefhda.org | olsenscott@fhda.edu
650-949-7789 | M-F 8:00am-5:00pm

ACE Members,

Covid-19 Safety & Mask Survey
We want to know your opinion. We’re asking the same set of questions as we have in the past along with a couple new ones, to determine the policy change outcome we should negotiate for.

Complete the survey if you have not done so already❗

Policy & Bargaining Process
ACE has submitted a demand to bargain the change in working conditions and grievance due to our exclusion from policy development. Our procedure is to always bring our collective voice to the negotiating table. (See survey above☝️) The action we’ve taken should cause Chancellor’s Cabinet to hit pause on their unilateral decision while feedback is collected. We’ll be prepared to navigate this discussion per our agreement as we should have done originally. I hope to hear a response from the Chancellor or Vice Chancellor of HR soon and have this resolved in advance of the Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, October 3^rd.

This confusion would have all been avoided with a conversation, per Article 1, section 2 (LINK):

…the adoption or modification of rules, regulations, policies, and practices is discretionary with the District; provided, however, the District shall notify ACE prior to any implementation, and shall afford sufficient time to negotiate over the effects of such a change, or to meet and confer.

No notice was shared with ACE prior to this decision being made on Friday night, which is a contract violation.

Parking Tags
If you have a pre-pandemic FHDA sticker on your car, you may have noticed the expiration date is fast approaching. Initial word from the district is that physical parking tags are no longer being made by our previous vendor. In the future the district may have to adopt a high-tech license plate reader system for parking enforcement. More information to come.

403(b) and 457(b) Vendors
On district opening day a few members approached me with 403(b) and 457(b) questions. ACE has brought in 403bwise.org in the past to provide objective training on these voluntary employee benefits and we will do so again. In the meantime, their website has a wealth of self-paced education (LINK) and a rating system for vendors (LINK). Fidelity and Vanguard are their top rated “Green +” 403(b) vendors. CalSTRS Pension2 is rated “Green”  and would be our top 457(b) provider per their independent rankings. Participant data for those plans shows that the majority of people elect for one of those and contribute the greatest dollar amount per participant.

Would you like Fidelity as a 457(b) option? Send me an email expressing your interest. Business Services asks for an arbitrary number of interested employees before making a change to the plan, lets see if we can get there.

Reminder: None of the vendors are vetted or endorsed by the district. If you choose to engage with anyone, ask if they are a Certified Financial Planner(CFP) and insist they abide by the fiduciary standard – putting your financial interests above their own. For more details check out this page on working with a financial professional (LINK). Any salesperson can call themselves a financial advisor, but the standards for a CFP or fiduciary are higher.

In Solidarity,
Scott Olsen (he/him) | ACE President
https://acefhda.org | olsenscott@fhda.edu
650-949-7789| M-F 8:00am-5:00pm

ACE Members,

President’s Soapbox
During the summer I had the chance to interact with union leaders from around the globe at Labor Notes 2022, from Higher Education Labor United(HELU), and from the Public Higher Education Workers(PHEW) network. Initially I came to each looking for advice, but then quickly came to understand that ACE is already built to win. We are a model member-driven labor organization that others are looking to emulate. Recently we’ve been able to bargain for the classification study, the process to substitute professional growth award hours, the remote work stipend, and the 5.07% plus 5.56% salary schedule increases (that’s 10.91% over two years) with retroactive pay. Consistently we are able obtain the workplace improvements we collectively want. In addition to negotiated items we keep all parties accountable to our agreement, labor law, and ed code. We defend our members against unfounded unilateral salary adjustments, overpayment claims, and disciplinary actions. I’m thankful to every member who contributes to making ACE a strong organization that we can all take pride in.

COLA Update
At last Monday night’s board of trustees meeting, on behalf of ACE, I thanked ETS, HR, and Payroll for their work in processing retro pay for the negotiated FY21-22 COLA increase, which is planned to appear in September 30^th paychecks. Susan Cheu from business services claimed there are plans to increase staffing to support this work in the future, but here is where we are now in the process:   

✅ FY21-22 5.07% Ongoing (Completed – June 30^th)
✅ FY21-22 Retro (Completed – September 30^th)
❓ FY22-23 5.56% Ongoing (Pending)
❓ FY22-23 Retro (Pending)

As soon as I receive updates with specific timelines, I will pass that information on to all members. The impact of inflation in an already high cost of living area has put many member’s households in a difficult financial position. Paying out salary increases demonstrates a sense of respect for our work and shows that we are a priority for the district. ACE will continue to advocate for full staffing in district departments to build capacity to support the basic needs of employees.

ACE Elections Upcoming
Do you want to become more involved with our union? Start preparing your candidate statement for one of the following positions:

• Chief Steward – De Anza Campus
• Board Member – De Anza Seat 2
• Vice President – Foothill Campus
• Chief Steward – Central Services
• Board Member – Central Services
• Recorder
• Treasurer

See details on each here (LINK) and in our constitution (LINK). Officers serve an important role in maintaining the organization and fulfilling its purpose. Specific election announcements will be in upcoming messages.

Dues & Membership Rate Committee
As part of our approved 22-23 budget the board agreed to establish a committee to investigate our dues structure. Although currently 91%(336/370) of eligible employees are members, there’s been an enrollment decline amongst new hires. Of those hired since 2020, 15 are listed as “undecided” as they have not responded when asked to become a member. I believe some of this can be attributed to a lack of getting one-on-one time to explain the benefits of ACE. To ensure outreach we are pushing to receive accurate employee information from human resources, make sure we are a part of the onboarding process, and continuing to advertise the benefits of membership.

If you forward this message to someone who didn’t receive it directly they may not be contributing toward our cause. If enough people choose not to become members we lose our ability to make advancements in the workplace.

Returning to the topic of the committee, we need representatives from the membership to take a closer look at how this trend may affect us in the future. Are we charging an appropriate amount to fund our organization today? If trends continue, how well will we be able to fund our organization in the future? Currently we have two members from Central Services and one member from Foothill on the committee: Logan Murray, Thomas Marks, and Anthony Caceres. We’d like to get member representation from De Anza and about 6 or 7 members in total.

Please email olsenscott@fhda.edu if you would like to join. The committee will receive support from Kathy Nguyen, our treasurer, our attorneys, and myself. I served on a similar committee in 2016 and it was a great way to learn how ACE makes financial choices.

COVID-19 Safety & Procedures
The district’s covid-19 safety guidelines remain posted here (LINK) and the form for self-reporting an employee exposure or positive test is available through the De Anza website (LINK). Per Judy Miner’s message on 8/16, “we reached consensus to continue to require face coverings in all indoor classes and public-facing offices and to recommend masks in all other areas,” as a means of reducing the spread of the virus. Work with your supervisor to request any personal protective equipment, such as masks, hand sanitizer, wipes, HEPA filters, gloves, etc..

ACE has also negotiated a separate MOU regarding covid exposure and teleworking (LINK) to support members which has been described in previous messages and at site meetings.

In Solidarity,

Scott Olsen (he/him) | ACE President
https://acefhda.org | olsenscott@fhda.edu
650-949-7789| M-F 8:00am-5:00pm