General Membership meeting
General Meeting for the purpose of contract ratification: presentation, discussion, and vote
Wednesday November 4, 4:30 pm
Allow at least three hours
Creekside Banquet Facility, 2669 Union Rd., Cheektowaga, NY
It is important that as many current FFECC members as possible attend, participate, vote, and stay until the end of the meeting
Refreshments will be provided
According to the FFECC Constitution
voting must take place at the meeting
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Last Friday, October 23 2015, your FFECC team, the College and Erie County reached a tentative agreement on a successor Faculty Federation contract. All changes to the current contract and all new sections have been sent to you, as well as previously agreed to changes and information about salary schedules and healthcare plans.
We fought hard to get a pay raise for everyone and preserve many current benefits. We preserved retiree health care at close to current levels even though the initial push was to eliminate it. We protected a different form of retiree health care for future members. We finally got a retirement incentive at the last moment which applies to all qualifying full time and RPT members, something we had proposed at the very start of negotiations. We got an agreement for a five year contract instead of the two years proposed by the college.
We fought for equity among all our members. This proposal includes an across the board pay increase of 2% each year for the five years for all full time and RPT members as well as raises for all part-time non-teaching members. Adjunct and overload rates increase by 30% over the term of the contract. In this proposal, all full time and RPT members will contribute 15% of their health care costs by September 2018, as do many of our members now.
We recognize that the window for qualifying for the retirement incentive is very short, and we sympathize. The county and the college felt the short timeframe was necessary to provide immediate relief from ECC’s high levels of health care utilization. Without this relief the long term survival of the college could be in question. FFECC and NYSUT will provide financial advisors to help our members contemplating retirement with their decisions and arrangements.
We have a verbal commitment from the college and the county to fill as many of the full time vacancies resulting from the retirement incentive as possible, possibly not in the same departments. We believe it is in their self-interest to do so. FFECC leadership strongly urges our departments to fill these vacancies with your valued adjuncts.
This settlement agreement occurred because of a perfect storm of high and increasing rates of healthcare utilization at ECC and the college’s current financial challenges. Financial and political pressures both contributed to the final agreement. We need to give credit to Erie County government for making this contract happen, and also to our union’s longstanding political action. Our support of political candidates and our continual lobbying for more funding have brought all of the college’s problems to the forefront of the political arena. We have stood together to help save ECC. Without our collective strength as a union, none of this would have happened.
Please address all questions to your Campus Vice Presidents:
City: Patty Kaiser, kaiser@ecc.edu, 270-5639
North: Adrian Ranic, ranic@ecc.edu, 270-5828
South: Mike Higgins, higginsmj@ecc.edu, 851-1790
In Solidarity,
Andrew Sako, President, Chief Negotiator, FFECC
Patricia Kaiser, VP City, Negotiations Team
Adrian R. Ranic, VP North
Michael Higgins, VP South
Diane Zych, Negotiations Team, North
Jason Januszkiewicz, Negotiations Team, South
Denise Crowden, Secretary
Kristin Kozlowski, Treasurer
Michael Delaney, Grievance Chair, Negotiations Team
